Non directive and Directive Tutoring

While Brooks and Shamoon/Burns differ in their peer tutoring activities – non-directive and directive – and while both activities are beneficial to writers, effective peer tutor training, as Bruffee suggests, is essential if peers participate in both non-directive and directive activities. One of the ways I use to instruct my students in writing is to rewrite a paragraph from an essay that exhibits language, unity, and coherence problems. Afterward, I put them in groups to rewrite other paragraphs in the essay; the rewrites are analyzed and discussed. I have found that many of my students really don’t know how to write coherently using academic language and need to see how to do it and what it looks like. Having examples help, but doing solidifies the learning. I am one of those learners who needs examples of what is wanted instead of just receiving instructions outlining it. Should peer tutors help a student rewrite a sentence to make it more concise? I think that practice is sometimes needed; however, the tutee should be asked to locate and rewrite other wordy sentences because doing is learning. Then both the writer and the writing would be made better.