Power Dynamics in Writing Tutoring

Power and authority seem to have nothing to do with writing tutoring or writing centers, the place well known for its three Cs: “coffee, cookies, and couches” (Carino 2003, 102). These three cozy and friendly Cs, it’s giving everything but (1) power, one’s ability to make other people act according to that person’s wishes, and (2) authority, in this context of writing tutoring, the knowledge, either in composition, rhetoric, or the specialized knowledge in a field. In fact, writing centers dislike these terms, which can be indicated through their historically strict adherence to the non-directive questioning methods, ensuring a nonhierarchical and non-threatening environment. But why is that?

Personally, I believe that because writing is an extension of our identity, trusting a tutor to review our writing is a form of vulnerability. We don’t want power or any sort of thing to mess with it. There are two main reasons that Carino gave to explain writing centers’ avoidance of the terms ‘power’ and ‘authority:’ (1) writing centers do not assign credits nor grade assignments, the main form of executing power in any traditional educational institutes. The lack of this conventional power in universities makes them uncomfortable taking an authoritative position in their work and favors a “peer tutoring model that promotes a nonhierarchical relationship between tutor and student” (Carino 2003, 97). (2) Moreover, writing centers’ concerns with possible allegations of plagiarism lead to their adherence to the non-directive feedback method (Carino 2003, 98).

Writing centers avoiding those terms of power and authority does not mean that they do not exist in writing tutoring. Actually, in “Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms?” John Trimbur brought up the lingering question from his tutors: “How… can I be a peer and a tutor simultaneously? If I am qualified to tutor, then I am no longer a peer to those I tutor. On the other hand, if I am a peer to my tutees, how can I be qualified to tutor?” (Trimbur 1987, 23) “Peer,” indicating the equality of power in interpersonal relations, standing next to “tutor,” implying an imbalanced power dynamic, makes “peer tutor” a confusing and somewhat awkward term in my opinion. Similarly, Alice Gillam also reported this dissonance among tutor in her writing center, who were “often torn between needing to follow the party line and needing to exercise authority” and “struggle[d] with role conflict, and how students are often confused by the tutors’ behavior” (Gillam 1994).

Illustrating these two observations by Trimbur and Gillam, Carino cited a story told by Jason Palmeri, now a Professor of English and the Director of the Writing Program at Georgetown University. Palmeri recalled a situation when he was a writing tutor in 2000: a tutee lost confidence in him (the tutor) after his instruction could not meet her expectations and “once this student lost confidence in [Palmeri’s] authority (knowledge), she had far less interest in their sessions” (Carino 2003, 97). Personally, I believe that the imbalanced power expectation does exist in my first quarter working as a writing tutor at DePaul. I once had an appointment during which I could not help a writer better understand a professor’s prompts and requirements. I felt helpless, even though my kind writer did not mind my limitations. My experience is far more comfortable than some fellow tutors’ stories about when the expectation for the tutor’s power and authority is not met. Unfortunately, in some stories I have known here at DePaul Writing Center, the tutor’s confidence could be damaged due to writers’ disappointment and disinterest, similar to Jason Palmeri’s experience.

Overall, the imbalanced power dynamic in writing tutoring is pervasive, or in Carino’s words, it is “a grassroots problem that tutors face daily” (Carino 2003, 97). Obviously, nobody wants to feel inferior to others; however, pretending that there is not a hierarchical relationship between tutor and student is a fallacy. To conceal this hierarchy of power in writing tutoring, Trimbur aimed to preserve the peer relationship as much as possible by recommending training tutors in non-directive questioning methods and encouraging collaborative learning rather than hierarchical teaching. This non-directive method, as mentioned above, has been adhered to by writing centers for an incredibly long time. However, blind obedience to non-directive questioning, that is, to engineer peer tutoring techniques that divest the tutor of power and authority, is at times foolish and can even be unethical (Carino 2003, 98). So, what are alternative practices that writing tutors can employ to handle the power dynamics in writing tutoring (and why nondirective feedback method can be “unethical” sometimes)? Here are some takeaways on the power balance in writing tutoring sessions:

• “Flexibility” instead of “non-directive peership”

In writing centers’ daily work, nondirective and directive methods should be considered as a spectrum instead of a binary. The watchword in tutor training should not be “nondirective peership” but “flexibility” (Carino 2003, 109). Tutors should learn to slide on the spectrum flexibly. Just as in DePaul’s Writing Center’s handbook, the Asynchronous Appointment Strategies section includes both directive and nondirective feedback. When and how to use each type of feedback is explained in the handbook, and Carino also explained these employments in the form of formulas:

• More student knowledge, less tutor knowledge = more non-directive methods

Usually, the non-directive methods contain a set of open-ended questions to evoke more ideas from the writers. However, non-directive methods are not necessarily always Socratics questioning, the mode of dialogue that uses open-ended questions to explore ideas, uncover assumptions, and promote critical thinking, primarily employed in writing tutoring sessions. Open-ended questions should also be maintained for situations in which the tutor does not have authority (knowledge) and needs to draw it from the student. When such is the case, the questions become genuine questions and not ploys to push the student to move to where the tutor thinks it belongs (Carino 2003, 109).

I understand that sometimes writers (forget to read our website in detail and) assume that writing tutors are the experts who can give them the ultimate answers to the questions they bring to the writing center. In such cases in which unmet expectation leads to disappointment, please remind them of your expertise, limitations, and responsibility. At the end of the day, make sure to be transparent, adjust their expectations reasonably, and do not feel bad about yourself! It is okay if you cannot provide the writers with everything they need; you are still growing as a tutor and as a writer!

• Less student knowledge, more tutor knowledge = more directive methods.

According to the DePaul Writing Center’s handbook, tutors are encouraged to give directive feedback if we “deduce when a writer is unaware of a certain convention when you identify a recurring pattern. Some commentary will require a more direct explanation of the conventions of writing for a particular discipline or a grammatical principle” (DePaul Writing Center n.d.). In other words, do not gatekeep.

Nancy Grimm would agree with this strategy: she believed that the stubborn adherence to non-directive questioning “protect[s] the status quo and withhold[s] insider knowledge, inadvertently keeping students from nonmainstream culture on the sidelines, making them guess about what the mainstream culture expects” (Grimm 1999, 31). This is what Carino means when he declared that “nondirective feedback method can be ‘unethical.’” This is potentially applicable to cases of English as Additional/Second Language students who are enrolled in English-speaking institutes, trying to catch up with the standard English writing requirements from their professors, and struggling to guess the answer to open-ended questions from the writing tutor while knowing little about the English writing norms.

• Try another title for ourselves! How about “writing consultants”?

Another approach to the power dynamic in writing tutoring was suggested by Angelica Rodriguez and Ayla Hull in 2019.  They cited Stephen North’s philosophy, which posits that writing centers should focus on improving writers, not just writing. However, they pointed out that North’s idea inadvertently creates a power dynamic where the consultant’s role is to “improve” the writer, emphasizing tutor expertise. Therefore, they proposed a terminology shift: to counteract power dynamics, we can replace “tutor” and “tutee” with “consultant” and “consultee.” The term “consultant,” though sounding a bit too professional and white-collar to an educational environment like writing centers, implies collaboration and advisory support, contrasting with the hierarchical tone of “tutor” (Rodriguez and Hull 2019).

References

Carino, Peter. “Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring.” In The Center Will Hold, 96–113. University Press of Colorado, 2003.

Gillam, Alice. “The Role of Authority and the Authority of Roles in Peer Writing Tutorials.” Journal of Teaching Writing 12, no. 2 (1994), 161-198.

Grimm, Nancy M. Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for Postmodern Times, 31. Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Rodriguez, Angelica, and Ayla Hull. “Shifting Our Perspective: Disrupting Power Roles in the Writing Center.” Penn State University. Last modified March 1, 2019. https://sites.psu.edu/thedanglingmodifier/shifting-our-perspective-disrupting-power-roles-in-the-writing-center/.

Trimbur, John. “Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms?” Writing Center Journal 7, no. 2 (1987), 21-28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43441837.