Writing Center Internship paper :: Teaching Authors Essays

Writing Center Internship paper Connective Thinking, Mimetic Thinking, and Minimalist Tutoring Pedagogy For the past two years, I have worked as a tutor at the Rutgers Writing Center as a â€Å"minimalist tutor.† Anthony Lioi, author of â€Å"Small Victories: The Practice and Process of Tutoring,† defines minimalist tutoring as â€Å"a method that requires students to solve their own problems under the supervision of a tutor who acts as a coach, a more experienced peer, rather than an editor† (Lioi, 1). At Rutgers, minimalist tutoring works in conjunction with The New Humanities Reader, which was put together by Kurt Spellmeyer and Richard E. Miller and has as its goal the promotion of â€Å"connective† as opposed to â€Å"mimetic† thinking. Lioi offers the clearest distinction between connective and mimetic thinking when he says, â€Å"’mimetic thinking,’ [is] designed to demonstrate mastery of a pre-established realm of knowledge, and ‘connective thinking,’†¦ links disparate realms of learning in new and unexpecte d patterns to solve problems unanticipated by traditional forms of knowledge† (Lioi 1). To this end, minimalist tutors are trained in a â€Å"hands off† method that emphasizes the importance of giving students exploratory writing exercises to do on their own during the tutoring session and discourages the practice of â€Å"correcting† students’ papers to â€Å"create a ‘perfect’ paper† (2). In my time at the Writing Center, I worked with many students and had much success with the minimalist tutoring methods. However, sometimes with some students, I did not seem to be very effective. I was never sure why the tutoring did not seem to be helping these students, and I couldn’t tell what, if anything, they had in common with each other that would make minimalist tutoring less effective. I was often tempted to break the â€Å"rules† of minimalist tutoring and to apply a more hands-on approach, but I was afraid I would be e ven less useful to them if I did. Finally, I was faced with a student who simply was not getting anywhere with the tutoring, even though I could tell he was working hard. I decided to break the rules and give him the help I thought he needed. In the process, I figured out that minimalist tutoring fails many students for the exact reason that it is effective with so many others. The emphasis of connective thinking over mimetic thinking in the Rutgers Writing Program, and the way that emphasis is translated into minimalist tutoring practices, ignores the specific needs of students who come to Rutgers without a strong background in expository writing.