Tutors Theorizing the Writing Center :: Education Learning Papers

Central to the theorizing that is current in writing center scholarship is the concept of collaboration between tutors and students. Because of the overarching framework of social constructivism that currently drives theorizing in a multitude of disciplines—e.g., composition, literature, history, sociology, anthropology—it is not surprising that writing center scholars also use this framework to question the kind of knowledge that tutors create in tutorial sessions (see Grimm 1999, Murphy 1995, Carino 1995, Hobson 1994). Are tutors simply replicating the hierarchical paradigms of knowledge construction in which academia seems to be fully invested? Or are they capable of "thinking outside the box" because they are peers rather than teachers? My interest in how tutors theorize their practice in the writing center and how the writing center literature theorizes itself has been central to my work as a writing center director for the past 10 years. The small liberal arts college where I teach and direct the writing center has a staff of all-female undergraduate tutors, and I am constantly surprised by their fresh take on writing center theory and practice. They are bright and they question everything. Since this is exactly what a women’s college should be teaching young women to do, I encourage that stance in our writing center, and especially in the course tutors are required to take with me before they begin tutoring. In this paper, I will examine tutors’ journal responses written during a tutor training class held in the Fall of 2003. In these responses, tutors respond directly to articles which are often considered central to understanding the concepts of collaboration, control, socially constructed knowled ge, and the writing center as a site of resistance--concepts upon which writing center theory is often built. An important aspect of these journals is that they are dialogic. That is, they are entered on a Blackboard discussion forum that allows each tutor to read the other tutors’ journals and respond to them. The tutors’ responses seem to reveal a gap between what tutors understand about their own tutorial practices and what theorists believe to be true. In examining the tutors’ responses, I find that theorists sometimes recast practice to fit their theoretical constructs; as a result, tutors do not always see the same connections between theory and practice that theorists do. By listening to tutors’ voices as they critique writing center theory, I believe we can better understand how to use theory as a jumping off place for tutor training, rather than as an ending point.