McAndrews & Reigstad "Tutoring Writing": Chapter 1: “Theories Underpinning Tutoring Writing”

Main Points:

There are several theories that support how tutoring writing can be an effective way to learn. The first theory is Social Constructionism, which states that writing is a social act and that no writer writes in a vacuum, but is constantly informed by culture and using writing to assimilate or identify with different cultures. This means that tutoring, as a social act, can help someone learn how to write. The second theory is Reader Response, which argues that the meaning of texts are informed or shaped by the way that a reader interprets it. According to this theory, writer, tutor and draft are all active participants. The third theory is called Talk and Writing, which states that talking is an essential to the writing process, and that writers talk in order to write. This supports tutoring because the tutor then becomes a sounding board, and helps the writer generate ideas by asking guiding questions and allowing the writer to talk through their issues. After that, the chapter discusses Collaborative Learning Theory, which states that learning often occurs as a consequence of two people, one more experienced and one less experienced, collaborating on something. In this theory, the learning is an incidental consequence of the collaboration. According to this, tutor and writer both learn by working together. Feminist theory takes a more relationship-oriented view that incorporates collaborative learning theory. Tutoring is a form of Feminist teaching because it emphasizes the relationship between writer and tutor.

What I Got from this Chapter:

Tutoring is not like teaching, where an expert delivers information to a less knowledgeable party. The writing coach and writer must be able to work together in order for the session to be effective. Talk is an important part of the session, rather than a distraction, as talking is part of the writing process. Written language is social.

Questions I had about this Chapter:

How is feminist theory different from collaborative learning?

What does Reader Response theory have to do with coaching writers? It’s mostly a literary criticism theory, so I don’t see how this works into tutoring.

How do I put these theories into practice in my sessions? What theories work best in practice?

What a Beginning Coach Might Get Out of this Chapter:

This chapter provides a bit of background knowledge about the logic behind tutoring, and why and how it works. This chapter also explains why tutoring is not like traditional teaching, which may be important at a school like Kean, where there are a lot of education majors who might be looking to become writing coaches. They would need to understand why this is not like what they study in their education courses.

Best For:

While there are points in this chapter that are helpful for beginning tutors, this book doesn’t explain some of these theories in terms of how they differ from each other (Collaborative Learning and Feminist Theory) or how they fit into the subject at hand, tutoring (Reader Response Theory). This could be confusing for tutors just starting training. This chapter would probably be very helpful for slightly more experienced tutors who are looking into theory as a way to develop strategies for use in their own sessions, though this chapter gives no strategies itself and the tutor would have to find their own way to put these theories to practical use.