Reflections.

Editor's note: When we asked Jeff Brooks to reflect on the reflections of others on his widely-read essay, which appeared in 1991, in Vol. 15-6, of WIN on "Minimalist Tutoring," he responded with the following. For those who are interested in what Jeff Brooks has been doing since his tutoring days, he sends along a short biographical note, included at the end of his "Reflection.

A few years ago, when my son David was an undergraduate, he e-mailed to say that for his writing course he'd been assigned a reading by an author with my name. "The weird thing is," he wrote, "it kinda sounds like you." His assignment was an essay I wrote when David was a baby: "Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work." There was no visible reason he--a freshman and not an English major--should read it; the class wasn't about tutoring or any form of writing pedagogy. It was a standard English 101 writing course. David didn't know why he had to read it either: "The TA assigned it. He didn't say why." That's notoriety: When something you did a long time ago is still out there--and being misused.

I've wondered why such a wispy piece of advice for tutors has had such a shelf-life. It didn't offer anything new: in the writing center where I worked at the time, we talked about that stuff constantly. I offered no research--just experiential advice. From someone with less than three years of experience. The best reason I can think of for the essay's staying power is that it gives a name to something all tutors contend with. The phrase "minimalist tutoring" gives you a place to hang your thoughts and discourse about tutoring and the struggle to do it right. It took me most of my short writing center career to see what the real issue was with those "fix the commas" students: What they wanted was not what they needed, nor what I was supposed to offer. If "Minimalist Tutoring" has helped others move more quickly to that understanding so they can contend with it more effectively, then I'm happy. That's not having the work misused.

MARKETING THE WRITING CENTER

How many students feel ill-served because writing centers won't just shut up and proofread their papers? How many more never show up because they've heard you won't do that for them? The problem is that what they want (someone to "fix" their paper) is not what they need (help becoming a better writer). You need to persuade them that what you offer really does give them what they want. In fact, it's far more valuable than their felt need for proofreading. But you'll never get that message through by telling then what you don't do. Telling the community that the writing center will not proof their papers is like posting signs that say:

THE WRITING CENTER: GET LOST!

To get students into the writing center, tell them what the writing center does offer:

* Better grades, not only for this paper, but on all your papers. In fact, better grades in all your classes that use writing in any form, from lab notes to written exams.

* A skill that you will carry with you for the rest of your life-something that will set you apart in any workplace, any career you choose. You'll land better jobs, make more money, have more fun. Really.

In fact, why not physically separate proofreading from the writing center? Set up a Proofreading Center next door. You can staff it with the same people. And those people can constantly give the message that what they're doing is of limited value. The good stuff is next door in the writing center. And charge standard rates for proofreading. If that's all they want, you might as well turn it into a revenue stream!

READERS REFLECT:

I discovered Jeff Brooks' "Minimalist Tutoring" this Fall semester as an undergraduate in a tutor writing course. In preparation for my own tutoring, I observed another tutor's sessions at our Writing Center. Throughout the entire session, the minimalist techniques of Brooks were unfolding in practice as they had been presented in theory.

The tutee became frustrated as she struggled to solidify her various arguments into a cohesive thesis. She continued to turn to the tutor and ask for her to craft the argument for her. The tutor put to practice the minimalist tutoring that Brooks presented in his article, and the results were fruitful. The tutor physically disengaged herself from the session, asked open-ended questions, and then allowed the tutee to talk about her ideas aloud. At one point the tutor told the tutee that she didn't know which argument she should choose--this wasn't her paper. By the end of the session, the tutee not only improved her writing, but also gained a new confidence in herself as a writer. As I move forward in my own tutoring, I am constantly cognizant of the value of a minimalist tutoring approach.

Timothy Conklin

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Amherst, MA

As an undergraduate tutor at Oberlin College's Writing Center, I think about Jeff Brooks' seminal article quite a bit. His minimalist approach does, of course, have its merits--namely, in making better writers and not necessarily better papers. But Brooks ignores a key reality--over half the students I tutor speak English as a second language. In the last ten years, writing centers have increasingly become a tool for international students seeking sentence-level polishing.

Moreover, many non-ESL students lack enough fluency in academese to simply intuit the answers to their questions under careful prodding. These students have neither the time nor the fundamental skills to play the roundabout game of minimalism. For example, a student might ask me, "Where should I put this sentence?" The reluctant minimalist, I respond, "What do you think?" The student grows angry: "I don't know. You're the expert." To what extent, then, am I doing a disservice to students by "making them do all the work"? I'm playing a role, withholding answers, passive-aggressively pitting myself against them. Ultimately, then, I use Brooks' piece as a heuristic. Not to be taken as gospel on the job, yet not to be dismissed entirely. Students must, after all, own their writing. But they cannot do so before acquiring the fundamental building blocks of readable prose.

Owain Hey den

Oberlin College

Oberlin, OH

Having worked as an Academic Writing Tutor at three United Kingdom-based institutions--Warwick, Coventry and Northampton-and, currently, as a Co-ordinator of writing tutors at Coventry University, I have used and recommended Brooks' article for staff training and development purposes. In Britain, where academic writing instruction is conducted by experienced professional staff, and where universities' preoccupation with quantifiable student-satisfaction data now dominates the pedagogic agenda of all academics, the minimalist tutoring approach advocated by Brooks has encountered a degree of scepticism and opposition. Brooks' central premise of educating the student rather than editing the text holds true and fast, yet the strategies applied are at times radically different.

U.K.-based tutors have been sensitised to students' expectations for skills support and have to balance these against dispensing sound but unpalatable advice. Equally, students' "resistance" in tutorials is seen in the context of inexperience and vulnerability which merit assistance. Thus instead of engaging in 'defensive' tutoring, which may antagonise and alienate, tutors aim to raise academic performance through scaffolding students' writing skills. This process includes direct interventions into assignment drafts, which helps learners progress faster through their Zone of Proximal Development toward being independent academic writers.

Dimitar Angelov

Coventry University

Coventry, UK

Works Cited

Attwood, Rebecca. 'Satisfaction and Its Discontents.' Times Higher Education. 8 March 2012. Web. 6 Dec. 2014.

Devet, Bonnie, Susan Orr, Margo Blythman, and Celia Bishop. 'Peering Across the Pond: The Role of Students in Developing Other Students' Writing in the US and UK.' Teaching Academic Writing in UK Higher Education: Theories, Practices and Models. Ed. Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 196-211. Print.

Vygotsky, Lev Semyonovich. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Ed. Michael Cole, Vera John-Steiner, Sylvia Scribner, and Ellen Souberman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978. Print.

I can hardly believe it's been nearly ten years since I first read Jeff Brooks' article in my undergraduate tutor training course. Over the years, I've remembered the tide more than the content, perhaps leading me to misremember the article as something less than it is.

Re-reading Brooks now, I am impressed by how much attention he gives to non-verbal communication techniques (where we sit, how we sit). Although not explicitly stated, he recognizes tutoring as an embodied activity, and furthermore, he draws attention to the ideological impact and function of such activity. This recognition helps set the stage for the research and scholarship going on around various ideologically valenced and embodied identities, including my own work about sexuality and race. I appreciate Brooks ending his article with hope, looking ahead to "other ideas and tutoring techniques," and am happy to see so many varied conversations--including those around the politics of identification-flourishing.

Andrew Rihn

Stark State College

Canton, OH

At an international university where English is a student's second, third, or fourth language, I frequently encounter student writing in which a demonstrated quality of ideas and critical thinking are obscured by sentence-level concerns. There exists a general impression that many of our students are not graduating with the level of English writing proficiency expected by potential employers and graduate schools. With this context in mind, I encourage tutors to read Brooks' article with a critical eye. Although the suggested practices are tried and true, the main claim is misleading. In a shared, collaborative effort, tutors should work just as much as students, if not more: always thinking ahead, preparing mental lists of leading questions or sample sentences to clarify grammar rules, gauging student comprehension. Helping students get a better grasp of sentence-level mechanics, while prioritizing higher-order issues and staying true to the minimalist spirit, requires considerable focus and involvement. In our Writing Center, and perhaps at other English-medium universities abroad, there is a greater need to help students become better writers, and in parallel, help them improve their grammar. Tutors must work to balance the two.

Emily Cousins

Asian University for Women

Chittagong, Bangladesh

I remember the moment I discovered that some people think minimalist tutoring is not really relevant anymore. It was during the 2007 IWCA conference in Houston, TX. Muriel Harris, Jeanne Simpson, Pamela Childers, and Joan Mullin led an energetic discussion on minimalist tutoring as a writing center "core assumption." I don't remember all the details of why most people felt so anti-minimalist or why they felt so sure the directive/nondirective continuum had run its pedagogically useful course. But I know one thing for sure: I totally disagreed. I thought "really, guys?" To me, dismissing one of the most- referenced author's ideas in peer tutoring theory and practice was like dismissing Sigmund Freud from discussions of psychology because some of his ideas may seem a little outdated.

Since then, I've written quite a bit about the directive/nondirective continuum. It's influenced how I think about everything involving the teaching and learning of writing, including assignment design and peer response groups and other feedback strategies. In fact, my forthcoming book Beyond Dichotomy: Synergizing Writing Center and Classroom Pedagogies (Parlor Press/The WAC Clearinghouse) uses the directive/nondirective continuum as a theoretical and methodological frame. And--oh yes--I definitely cite Jeff Brooks.

Steven Corbett

George Mason University

Springfield, VA

My overall view of Jeff Brooks' article and its place in the canon of writing center theory is one of skeptical acceptance. The concept of a minimalist approach and most of the strategy suggestions push undergraduate consultants to shift from "helping friends with their papers" to "tutoring peers and helping them become better writers." Beyond my minor qualms about Defensive Strategies and recommendations against letting the student read the paper aloud, though, I find that rhetorically, "minimalist tutoring" misrepresents the truly collaborative aims of writing center work. Consultants do not sit back and make the student to all the work, at the risk of sounding like authoritative teachers. Rather, they strive to work with the student and create an equal exchange of knowledge that fosters trust and conversation. I do acknowledge that consultants-in-training may adopt a minimalist approach at first in order to adjust to the role, but as they become more comfortable leading sessions, they view their approach as collaborative, working with student writers and looking to share the responsibilities.

Maria Soriano

John Carroll University

University Heights, OH

When I was applying for colleges, I had no writing center to run my essays by. I turned instead to my older brother, who was already in his sophomore year of college. He wasn't readily available, so I e-mailed him my essays and in turn he sent back documents marked up with red comments and suggestions. He did most of the work in editing the papers. And yet, I learned more from his insightful comments on ways I could improve my writing by just reading through them than I felt any high school course had really taught me about writing. I still use his advice when writing papers now, two years later.

The point is, simply editing a paper can be beneficial. Brooks' condemnation of taking on an editorial role is a bit harsh. I disagree that editing is "of little service" to a student, because I believe, in my own experience as a student and more recently a coach, that thoughtful editorship can benefit a student, depending on the way a student learns. For me, that learning process happened organically when I read the comments provided by my brother on my own, in quiet, and without a coach at my side. 1 think this may be indicative of an Internet generation, whose learning often happens alone and in front of a computer. For another student, it may be the complete opposite. While I have found that taking a step back and allowing students to make their own changes is one of the more powerful ways to coach, I don't think the pure editor position should be totally and wholeheartedly denounced, especially in the age of the Internet.

Erica Corder

Virginia Tech

Blacksburg, VA

Jeff Brooks' article was the primary source of the guidelines and modus operandi that I set out for the one-to-one tutoring sessions in the young writing center I founded two years ago. Because of its simplicity, conciseness and practicality, I have been using this article in tutor training for a long time. Furthermore, this excellent article helped me propagate the philosophy of my writing center--and that of many writing centers around the globe-which revolves around showing students what to enhance or change in their writing, and not acting as their private editors. As a novice writing teacher, I found the inspirational ideas presented in this article helped me develop some sort of a 'writing autonomy' in my EFL students. Brooks' article is, in my view, an exceptional road-map toward writing center success.

Djalal Tebib

University Constantine 1

Constantine, Algeria

Jeff Brooks is the creative director at TrueSense Marketing, a fundraising agency for non-profit organizations. He has served the nonprofit community for more than 25 years, working as a writer and creative director on behalf of top North American nonprofits, including CARE, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, World Vision, Feeding America, Project HOPE, and dozens of urban rescue missions and Salvation Army divisions. He has planned and executed hundreds of campaigns in direct mail, print, radio, the Internet, and other media. He blogs at <futurefundraisingnow.com>, podcasts at <fundraisingisbeautiful.com>, and is the author of two books: The Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications (2012) and The Money-Raising Nonprofit Brand (2014). He lives in Seattle.