Worst Case? Really?

The scenario that Brooks disparages at the beginning of “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work” is, it appears, the kind of directive tutoring that Shamoon and Burns advocate in “A Critique of Pure Tutoring.” Brooks appears to believe that no knowledge has been produced—and that while the student’s paper has been improved the student is unchanged. Bruffee, Shamoon, and Burns, however, suggest that what this student may have received—in addition to an improved essay—is insight into the normal discourse of the discipline for which she is writing. That makes sense, but I wonder whether there is something wrong with Brooks’ scenario. Does it matter whether or not the student recognizes that her essay has been “normalized” to meet the requirements of a specific rhetorical situation? There are other ways for a student to interpret what her tutor has done, after all. Does it matter whether or not the student recognizes that knowledge is socially constructed and that her willingness to cede power to her tutor has epistemological implications? This scenario could, after all, reinforce her belief that knowledge has an independent existence and is transferred rather than socially constructed—and that the normalized discourse of a discipline need not be interrogated. Brooks’ depiction of this scenario as a writing center worst case scenario makes me think that he is a bit of a gloomy Gus, but I am not sure that what he describes here is ideal.