What I'm Thinking

For me, reading Shamoon and Burns was almost relieving. Brooks' article, in addition to the others we've read so far, all strongly advocate what Brooks calls "minimalist" tutoring, and though I had already seen some writing consultants deviating somewhat from the proposed methods we had been reading, it seemed like what they were doing might be incorrect somehow, even if it seemed appropriate for the session and the client. Though none of the sessions I observed, directly or indirectly, went nearly as far as the "authoritative" methods described in Shamoon and Burns, there was more direct involvement in the writing by the tutor than I had expected from merely doing the readings. I was glad to read and realize that completely hands-off methods are not always the only or best way to do things. As I understand it, taking a backseat is still the common way to handle things (and perhaps the better way for many students), but direct involvement with the material at hand can sometimes be the most beneficial. As we discussed in class, it seems that more often than not this would be the case with ESL students, who may not be helped at all by open-ended questions. As with Shamoon and Burns' example of the woman writing her Master's thesis, some people may also just need to be shown how best to achieve a certain style or tone in their writing in order to really learn something about their writing, in which case a more authoritative approach is appropriate. Although I was connecting this kind of tutoring with more advanced writers who are perhaps working with an unfamiliar genre, I witnessed this with a beginning writer during one of my shadowing sessions. The client had little idea of how to format an expositional piece and showed no recognition when the consultant mentioned "thesis" and "topic sentences." The consultant wrote a few examples (vague of course, since she was not familiar with the story the client was writing about). By the time the session was over, the client left with a short list of notes and examples from the consultant and seemed to now understand what his teacher was expecting of him and how to write it. The tutoring style in this case would not have fit into the "minimalist" category but seemed better suited to the confused freshman writer.





Bruffee's and Lunsford's articles also provided a lot of food for thought. True collaborative learning doesn't seem to be much utilized in classrooms of today, though when we first began discussing it in class I immediately thought of Monday, when we worked in groups to establish some sort of continuum for types of tutoring. The discussion that my three group members and myself had was a pooling of opinions that broadened each of our ideas about types of tutoring and how and when each may or may not be effective. To me, this seems like an instance of collaborative learning that actually occurs fairly often, at least in 395. I think that group work often devolves into one large, segmented final product (especially in high school), meant by the teacher to get people to work together. However, after a division of labor, there is often little collaboration, let alone collaborative learning, between the groups members. This kind of group work occurs in college as well, but I think there are more genuine oppotunities for students to learn from each other. I am not particularly sure how to apply this idea of collaborative learning to writing center practice though. To a degree, I think collaborative learning in the writing center exists, but I am not sure if there is a more active way to pursue it as a goal in this setting.