McAndrews & Reigstad “Tutoring Writing” Chapter 2: “Research Supporting Tutoring Writing”

Main Points:

This chapter emphasizes the empirical evidence that supports tutoring. This research comes from research done about Peer Response Groups, where groups of students or peers discuss writings done by others within the group, peer tutoring in general, one-on-one conferences with teachers, and writing tutoring itself. Most of the evidence comes from the other things rather than from writing tutoring, but it translates to tutoring writing.

What I Got:

From this chapter, I developed a basic understanding of the hard facts supporting writing tutors. The chapter also pointed me in the direction of studies in case I wanted too look more closely at the data gathered. I also got an understanding that there isn’t as much research out there that pertains specifically to writing coaching.

Questions:

Both peer response groups and conferences with teachers are very different from one-on-one peer tutoring in writing. How does the data supporting these methods support what we do as coaches?

What a Beginning Coach Would Need:

I’m not really sure if there is anything that a beginning coach would need in this section. Does a beginning coach really need to know about the research supporting tutoring in order to help a student writer learn good writing habits, practices, or methods?

Best For:

This chapter seems to be good for someone curious about what research is out there, perhaps someone taking a class or thinking about beginning research in the center. This is probably more experienced coaches and people enrolled in the Peer Tutoring course rather than someone getting trained in the center.