Part III

Playful tutors cannot get enough of the challenging and creative games of the last part. This section includes a revision of ten practical games and enjoyable activities for tutors, writing center professionals, and writers to familiarize themselves or their students with writing center tutoring and develop writing skills.

First, the editors introduce four familiar staff-education games. For example, if you are the one who enjoys playing the popular children’s game “Chutes and Ladders” as I do, you would probably find Nathalie Singh-Corcoran and Holly Ryan’s game Writing Center Snakes and Ladders helpful in discussing difficult tutoring scenarios with tutors. The other popular games like “Listening Uno and Heads Up!” are the card games that Stacey Hoffer suggests tutors play to build vocabularies and internalize terms and concepts related to tutoring. And lastly in this group is Rachael Zeleny’s game “And Now Presenting. Marketing Writing Center Identities,” with which tutors create a marketing pitch for their writing center. Other games in this section such as the puzzle-based game by Christina Mastroeni, Malcolm Evans, and Richonda Fegins are new to many readers. For example, this game helps tutors build group cohesion and familiarize themselves with tutoring resources. If you are a fan of discussion and open-up conversations about issues related to tutoring, the final three games in the collection are for you. Katie Levin’s game “One Word Proverbs,” for example, does not encourage completing a predetermined task but is, I believe, an entertaining activity for tutors to practice active listening and finding ways to write collaboratively.