I think Andrea Lunsford should meet Michael Wesch.

There are similarities between the theses of Lunsford's "Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center" and Wesch's "A Portal to Media Literacy" (youtube.com).

See: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s

In -Class Question

After a mock tutoring session, we asked, "To what degree did you apply Brooks and North in your work as a writing consultant? To what degree do you agree with their theses?"

Inclass Tues. Jan. 5, 2010

Inclass we viewed our FYC video on the inaugural peer tutoring at Hofstra University, and then we wrote responses (some blogged!) to this question:  What did you witness by viewing these tutorials and by hearing some tutors' perspectives on peer tutorials?

The "Conversation of Mankind"

If I had to define Kenneth Bruffee's "human conversation," I'd have to extract a twofold answer.  Brufee's first sort of  human conversation is singular and self involved, "as it takes place within us" and "is what we call reflective thought" (639).  The second human conversation is exteriorized and "the external arena of direct social exchange with other people" (639).  It actually does not matter which sort of conversation comes first; one is clearly related to the other.  Human beings role play silently what they have experienced as social exchanges.  Bruffee recognizes that writing is a replication of that interior conversation made public.  Because human interior conversation is informed and influenced by social exchanges, writing similarly replicates exterior conversations of all sorts.  Bruffee announces that "Writing is a technologically displaced form of conversation" (641).  But is writing -- or written knowledge -- more reflective thought or more social talk?  Bruffee comments that "writing of all kinds is internalized social talk made public and social again" (641).  This seems to be a very important distinction with respect to how collaborative learning supports Bruffee's claims that writers (especially student or debutante writers) need a particular kind of social context for conversation or a community composed of identifiable, recognizable readers and writers.

Leave No Trace: Minimalist Tutoring

If we are trying to encourage sustainable writers -- that is, writers who do not rely solely on the support of a center -- then Brooks' advice for minimalist tutoring is really a decent start.   By positioning ourselves, the tutors, away from the text, we enable the tutees to take charge of the tutorial conversation.  By keeping our hands off of the pages, the pen, or the keyboard, we keep authority in the hands of the author.  This is not to say that we are inactive, disengaged, nonchalant, or noncommittal in the exchange.  We are readers.  And we enter the text in appropriate ways by questioning --- out loud or on a separate page or a voice recorder -- and responding to what we read and what that reading means to us.  Furthermore, what we can offer writers is an opportunity to read (with critical distance) their own papers.  Brooks confides: "The most common difficulty for student writers is paying attention to their writing.   Because of this, student papers seldom reflect their writers' full capabilities (2)."  One of my former students concurs with Brooks' conclusion.  Reflecting on her peer tutoring experience, she lamented how awful her writing was and how disappointed she was to have the tutor think poorly of her and of her thinking.  She cried: "I wanted to tell him (the peer tutor) that I am really not that stupid!"  This kind of reaction is commonplace.  The experience of having another reader read one's writing back is both eye opening and humbling.  If the least a peer tutorial offers is an objective reader, I'd say the session offered a great deal.

About Minimalist Punctuation

Is it just me or is Brooks tripping on quotation marks?   I hate to be prescriptive after we've had such a positive start to our conversation about talking about writing, but isn't true that certain styles prevent readers from full appreciation of a writer's point?  Punctuation is a fairly recent addition to writing, and trust me, I enjoy a finely punctuated sentence along with the best of readers.  But I become annoyed by emphasis placed by means of quotations.  And yes, air quotes are even worse.

How Writing Centers Make Better Writers: Tutor Interference

In "The Idea of a Writing Center," Stephen North advocates that one way that writing center tutors can alter the writing process of a tutee, and thereby improve that writer's successes beyond the text under tutorial, is to observe and interfere and then "to get in the way, to participate in ways that will leave the 'ritual' itself forever changed (439)."  This strikes me as a particularly useful way to begin our conversation about what being a Hofstra Writing Center tutor might be or what any writing tutor might initiate.  Tutors can impede the rapidity in which tutees write and finalize their writing.  Afterall,  it is the writing process that needs to change for most writers.  For example, Jeff Brooks in "Minimalist Tutoring" mentions that students often don't re-read or read closely their writing before declaring it finished.  A tutor can might put the brakes on a too-fast draft by challenging a writer to rethink a position or rework data in an argument.  Or, a tutor might just ask questions --   albeit the right questions -- e.g. is there a step missing here?  are you finished with this idea?  can you relate this point back to your main argument? -- about the writing that can help the tutee re-envision the whole paper.