Liam's English Blog

Summary           The readings for this week centered on the two styles of tutoring in the writing center, directive and nondirective, as well as feelings of guilt in tutors over how a session played out. The first reading that pertained more heavily to this feeling of guilt covered Jennifer Nicklay's short essay in which she gathered data via surveys to other writing center consultants in an attempt to better understand why her colleagues were expressing feelings of guilt after sessions. After writing a literature review to better explain the meaning behind her concepts of directive tutoring and collaboration, Nicklay explains the results of her survey and how it helps determine the reasons for these guilty feelings. She comes to the conclusion that most tutors believe that collaboration in these tutoring sessions is a peer to peer effort, but feel guilty as they, the consultants, can be seen as experts in the field by their peers, effectively dismantling th...