The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

Rubric’s Cube
Cubing is another brainstorming strategy that might appeal to you and your tutee. Cubing is when you
look at the same topic from six different angles—like the six sides of a cube. Like free writing, cubing is
a timed exercise. Have your tutee spend three to five minutes responding to each of these six prompts
about the same topic:
1. Describe it.
2. Compare it.
3. Associate it.
4. Analyze it.
5. Apply it.
6. Argue for or against it.
Keeping the prompt in mind is important when using the cubing exercise. For instance, if the prompt
asks the paper to compare and contrast some idea or theme, use what you’ve found in the “the cube” to
isolate the ideas that are the most relevant to the assignment. Or, if the paper is pretty open-ended, you
and the tutee might choose the “side” of the cube that interests the tutee the most, or on which the tutee
has the most written and begin crafting an outline that reflects that “side.” Cubing works well when the
tutee has to grapple with an abstract concept or when the tutee knows what topic she wants to address, but
doesn’t know which “angle” of the topic would most suit her needs.
Hip to be Square
Many papers in lower division writing classes ask the students to reflect on some aspect—or all aspects—
of the rhetorical square. The rhetorical square looks a little like this, only more “square” :
Purpose Audience
Message Persona
You and the student might begin looking at the paper’s topic with these ideas in mind. You might ask
your tutee to consider what is the purpose—or goal—of the assignment or the chosen topic. Maybe look
again at those specific “instructional” words in the prompt. Look also at the paper’s audience.
Obviously, the first audience is usually the professor. Now might be a good time for you and your tutee
to consider how the professor views his or her role. Is the professor asking the student to treat him/her as
the paper’s sole audience? Does the professor expect the tutee to write as a member of a certain discourse
community? Or does the professor want the tutee to write a more personal, reflective essay? Perhaps the
professor has intimated that he or she would like to see certain things in the paper (such as no first-person
pronouns). But depending on the assignment, the paper might be designed for other students (much like
this paper) or for a specified group of people in a certain discipline. Many papers in 109 classes ask
students to focus on the concept of the rhetorical square; this exercise might be perfectly suited to a
student who is writing in such a context. Persona is also a good thing to review with your tutee. Persona
is, in simplest terms, your tutee’s voice. Some papers lend themselves to a less formal sort of writing
style; other papers require a more sophisticated vocabulary. But in all writing, your tutee will project a
persona or voice. With your tutee, examine whether or not it is an appropriate voice given the context of
the assignment.
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