Minimalist+vs+Directive+Tutoring

=**Minimalist vs. Directive Tutoring**= The debate between minimalist vs. directive (or directive vs. non-directive) tutoring is often closely linked with the discussion of process vs. product and HOCs vs. LOCs.

**Ask yourself…**
In a session, who should talk more, the consultant or the student? Who should hold the pen? What kind of issues should the session address first? Should consultants provide answers for students?

There are, of course, advantages and disadvantages to both of these methods. Critics of both of them often make assumptions about this three-pronged debate:  Writing is composing, thinking, understanding content || **LOCs = product** Writing is learning skills ||
 * **HOCs = process**
 * **//Minimalist/Non-Directive Tutoring//** || **//Directive Tutoring//** ||
 * Writer does the talking || Consultant does the talking ||
 * “Active” writer || “Passive” writer ||
 * Indirect leading || Directive leading ||
 * Asking questions (Socratic method) || Making statements (giving instructions) ||
 * Descriptive || Prescriptive ||
 * Consultant never holds the pen || Consultant always holds the pen ||
 * Valuing individualism || Valuing relationships ||
 * Goal is weaning the writer off of the Writing Center || Sessions create dependence between writer and consultant ||

In his article called “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work,” Jeff Brooks argues, //The student, not the tutor, should ‘own’ the paper and take full responsibility for it’. The tutor should take on a secondary role, serving mainly to keep the student focused on his own writing. A student who comes to the writing center and passively receives knowledge from a tutor will not be any closer to his or her own paper than he was when he walked in. He may leave with an improved paper, but he will not have learned much//. A writing teacher or tutor cannot and should not expect to make student papers ‘better’; that is neither our obligation, nor is it a realistic goal. The moment we consider it our duty to improve the paper, we automatically relegate ourselves to the role of editor. (220)

Brooks advises tutors to be careful to avoid //appropriation//, or taking over a writer’s paper. To avoid this, he writes, consultants should take steps to make sure the writer is in charge: (Brooks 221-223)  If a writer is resistant to these methods, Brooks suggests the following: (Brooks 223)
 * Sit beside the student, not across the desk.
 * Try to get the student to be physically closer to the paper than you are.
 * Never write on the paper. If you are right handed, sit on the student’s right. This will reduce the temptation by making it more difficult.
 * Have the student read the paper aloud to you, and suggest that he hold a pencil while doing so.
 * Get the student to talk.
 * When a student acts disinterested, leaning back from the paper or even turning away, borrow student body language and do the same. This language will speak clearly to the student: “You cannot make me edit your paper.”
 * Be completely honest with a student who is giving you a hard time. If she says, “What should I do here?” you can say in a friendly, non-threatening way, “I can’t tell you that—it’s your grade, not mine,” or, “I don’t know—it’s //your// paper.”

It’s easy to see the benefits of nondirective/minimalist tutoring. Using these methods, there is little chance of appropriation, and the writer is responsible for his/her own writing. But what issues could arise?

**Another View**
Linda Shamoon and Deborah Burns take issue with nondirective methods in their article, “A Critique of Peer Tutoring.” They question the efficiency of nondirective methods and recount experiences they and other successful writers have had with very directive methods of tutoring and instruction: [Deborah Burns’] director was directive, he substituted his own words for hers, and he stated with disciplinary appropriateness the ideas with which she had been working. Furthermore, Burns observed that other graduate students had the same experience as this director: he took their papers and rewrote them while they watched. (229)

If you find yourself startled by these methods, Burns was, too! However, Burns goes on to write, [Students] left feeling better able to complete their papers, and they tackled other papers with greater ease and success….For Burns and for others, when the director intervened, a number of thematic, stylistic, and rhetorical issues came together in a way that revealed and made accessible aspects of the discipline which had remained unexplained or out of reach. Instead of appropriation, this event may knowledge and achievement accessible.

Shamoon and Burns explore “alternative tutorial practices,” describing master classes in music, in which the instructor is frequently directive, making suggestions and corrections as to students’ technique while other students watch. They describe a sense of accomplishment and community watching one student at a time be instructed (//directed//) by a mentor. The mentor used all of the techniques described in the “Directive Tutoring” chart above.

 Muriel Harris describes another alternative technique she uses with novice writers in her article “Modeling: A Process Method of Teaching.” She modeled her own writing process with a writer named Mike and then asked him to copy her techniques and behaviors. She writes, “What better way is there to convince students that writing is a process that requires effort, thought, time and persistence than to go through all that writing, scratching out, rewriting and revising with and for our students?” (Harris, qtd. in Shamoon and Burns 235).

The focus of these alternative practices is imitation as learning. Shamoon and Burns argue that writers often learn as much (if not more) by watching and imitating the behavior of an experienced practitioner than by merely being prompted and encouraged. “Not only does directive tutoring support imitation as a legitimate practice,” they write, “it allows both student //and// tutor to be the subjects of the tutoring session (while nondirective tutoring allows only the student’s work to be the center of the tutoring session)” (236). They imply that this method is closer to the true spirit of collaboration and conversation that we strive for in Writing Centers.

Consider these very different methods. What are the benefits and drawbacks of each? Do these methods keep in mind both the consultant’s and the writer’s agenda during the session? Imagine if you were a writer and you were the subject of these methods. How would you react?

Brooks , Jeff . “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work.” //The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice.// Eds. Robert W. Barnett and Jacob S. Blumner. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print.  Shamoon, Linda and Deborah Burns. “A Critique of Peer Tutoring.” //The Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice.// Eds. Robert W. Barnett and Jacob S. Blumner. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. Print.
 * Works Cited **