A review of more than 100 student journals that are kept as part of the requirements of an education course that gives juniors and seniors academic credit for tutoring freshmen and sophomores in writing reveals that the tutors contribute to the development of writing abilities by providing the opportunity to use oral language in discursive intellectual discourse. Among the advantages of the program are that tutors, through personal contact and sharing of their own experiences, help younger students gain a perspective on the use of academic language and its influence in an "impersonal" academic environment; that tutors, through establishing a secure relationship with tutees, can insist that the students produce their own papers; that tutors, by sharing an undergraduate experience, can provide student writers with a receptive environment in which to verbalize--to think out loud--in dialogue that is relatively unrestricted; and that tutors have time to allow the students to work through the process of substantive revisions, rather than to hurry toward completion of a final product. (AEA)