DONALD L.

ROTHMAN

Tutoring in Writing:
Our Literacy Problem

PART
I
FACULTYAND ADMINISTRATION at the University of California, Santa Cruz have
begun to recognize that writing courses and tutorial assistance must become part
of our regular programs. It has been difficult for this relatively young campus
to alter its self concept, and to see that our student body has gradually become
more heterogeneous with vastly different assumptions about education as well as
widely divergent skills and interests. One occasionally hears some of the older
faculty reminisce about students who had mastered the rudiments of academic
prose. But almost everyone has acknowledged, with various degrees of regret
and joy, that our students have changed; they cannot write very well.
By reviewing the development and operation of a campus writing tutorial pro-
gram I hope to demonstrate how our changing student population can initiate
changes at UCSC which must be welcomed as healthy and invigorating. By
looking at a tutorial program which I have coordinated for a brief time, I hope to
suggest how working with students by starting at their level has opened up
aspects of pedagogy which have often been ignored. I am hoping that faculty and
students in similar collegiate situations will find our experience useful and will
share theirs with us.
After two years of being one of only two full-time composition teachers on
campus it became obvious to me that turning away forty students every quarter
from my classes was becoming a university problem. While Oakes College had
been able to attract support from the Carnegie and Ford Foundations to hire me,
other units on campus weren't meeting their students' demands for writing courses.
(The Literature Board teaches only literature.) I was able to accept a few non-
Oakes students each quarter but for the most part these undergraduates found no
help. The one other full-time composition teacher on campus was able to work
with only a fraction of those trying to enroll in her classes. It became clear that
either UCSC was going to have to admit only those students who were competent
writers (thus shrinking the size of the incoming class by maybe 60%) or hire

Donald Rothman is a Lecturer in Writing and Literature at Oakes College, University of

California,Santa Cruz. He is Chair of the Oakes College Task Force on Pedagogy, Coordinator
of the UCSC Writing Tutorial Program and Co-Director of The Central California Writing
Project.
COLLEGEENGLISH Vol. 39, No. 4 * December 1977

484
 Tutoring in TWriting:Our Literacy Problem 485

more people to teach writing courses. The other possibilities, turning our backs
on writing altogether or shipping students over to the local community college,
seemed worthy of consideration only in my more cynical moments. I drew up a
formal proposal for a writing center, demonstrating students' needs and suggesting
that each college on campus (there are eight) be given a writing instructor, in
addition to developing a strong undergraduate tutorial program. At the same
time, I requested funds from The Task Force on Instructional Improvement to
begin a training program for tutors. I got the money for tutors, and the university
decided to place a half-time lecturer in writing in each of the eight colleges.
Since I knew that each college wvasgoing to have a half-time writing instructor,
I decided that each should also have an undergraduate tutor who was both
familiar with the faculty and programs at that college as well as knowing its stu-
dents rather well. That meant that someone at each college had to interview for
the tutor, often knowing only that an ideal tutor is a capable non-fiction prose
writer who is patient and has a passion for clarity and for teaching. Some of the
colleges were quick to recommend someone to me, while others anguished over
the difficulty of distinguishing patience from lethargy, a passion for clarity from
a preciosity which could only alienate already vulnerable students. In fact, the
colleges did rather well in their selections and our first meeting of tutors convened
in about the third week of the spring quarter.
In the process of working with these eight undergraduates issues emerged
about teaching and learning which need to be looked at by all of us in higher
education. We began to make a realistic analysis of writing problems among stu-
dents in this country.
By our first meeting most of the tutors had already put in a few hours tutoring.
They wanted advice; they needed references to grammar books; they wondered
how much of what they were being asked to do was really in their power.
Several expressed surprise at how difficult it was for students to ask each other
for help. Some of the students who had come for tutoring were apologetic for
taking the tutor's time. Some, on the other hand, gave the tutor the impression
that they would be delighted if he/she wrote the entire paper for them. This last
situation prompted me to suggest that we do some role-playing as part of the
training. The inexperienced tutors were having trouble setting limits and many
students expected, perhaps as a result of high school, perhaps from their fantasies,
that the tutor would make the necessary decisions about a topic and proceed to
write the paper. The tutors were afraid that a refusal to meet these demands
would result in angry and alienated students who would never seek out help again.
I distributed a paper which a student of mine had written the quarter before. It
was about Marx and several other economic historians. No central theme was
visible, although the author's tone indicated that one was assumed. Long quota-
tions filled the six page paper, followed by abrupt changes in subject. I had
worked with the author through ten frustrating weeks and believed that his
paper would reveal to the tutors what had already become a familiar attitude to
me. Our would-be Marxist historian had learned that one must sound professional,
scholarly, "difficult" in the world he was hoping to enter. His paper, lacking a
486 COLLEGEENGLISH

coherent argument, was rich in what he perceived to be the style appropriate to

academic prose.
I asked one of the tutors to role-play a tutorial session with this student, whom
I played. He began by asking me to tell him something about the paper. I replied
that it was in response to an assignment, about which I wasn't too clear, and that
the professor had told me to get help with my writing. I thought that it was a
pretty good paper, I told him. He replied that he had had some trouble following
it and would appreciate a summary of the main theme. At this point I remembered
how the real author had dealt with requests like this. I told the tutor that the
theme was pretty simple, a comparison betnveen Marx and Huntington, and
that I wanted some help on my writing and didn't need to explain every detail
to someone who wasn't in the field. The tutor sensed my belligerence im-
mediately and said that he had been unable to understand the paper because there
was no clear statement of theme or direction, although, he admitted, he wasn't a
history major. The tension between us was obvious to our audience.
The tutor suggested at this point that we look at the first sentence of the paper
together. He wanted to show me where I wasn't being clear. He read the sentence,
and I interrupted him to explain what I meant. I went on for a few minutes until
he stopped me and suggested that wvhatI had written didn't convey a fraction of
what I had just said. Angrily, I replied that the paper had to be under five pages
and that I'd already gone over the limit. He looked distressed; I could see his
helplessness as he tried to help me, only to become a target for frustrations and
hostilities which I had carried in with me. We continued in this fashion for a few
minutes, at which point one of the tutors in our audience burst in angrily: "You're
baiting him! ! You're really trying to trap him!" I acknowledged that in playing
my role I was doing exactly what I had seen the author of the paper do; not only
that, I had seen dozens of students act similarly when, ostensibly, they were
coming to me for writing assistance.
Several tutors admitted that during the past week they had encountered a few
students who seemed angry or withholding when asked to discuss the papers
they had come to work on. Often the conversation would reach a dead end
when the student would refer to the nature of the assignment, the length re-
quired, the particular prejudices or positions of the professor. There seemed to be
a large number of obstacles standing between student and tutor. WVhileonly a
few of these students had been directly requested by professors to seek tutoring,
many of them felt abused in some way by having to attend to their writing.
They came to be tutored with profound ambivalence, even when it was at their
own initiative.
We discussed the background for this ambivalence at our following meetings.
We reminded each other that most writing assignments are made by professors,
rarely in consultation with their students. Even more rarely does a professor
discuss in depth what an essay ought to look like to satisfy his/her expectations.
None of us could recall one of our teachers discussing the particular stylistic
idiosyncracies of prose in his/her discipline. Nor could we recall hearing justi-
fications for these conventions. Most of us had been able to imitate models
 Tutoring in Writing: Our Literacy Problem 487

which came close enough to what our teachers wanted so that we prospered; we
were fairly comfortable as writers and could "try on" other's styles. We also
noticed how the university was continually reminding students that it was offering
writing assistance only reluctantly. Students who needed help had to overcome
the stigma attached to not being able to write very well. In addition, most stu-
dents are thoroughly confused about whom to write their papers for. They
suspect that their only reader will be the professor or the teaching assistant, yet
both are often inaccessible or distant figures in a student's life. Add to this the
lack of encouragement provided to students who want to learn from each other
as well as from their professors, and the ambivalence which characterizes stu-
dents' commitment to receiving writing help is predictable.
At training meetings we acknowledged that working with undergraduates on
their writing was exposing some of the hidden mechanisms which determined a
student's experience at the university. We began to appreciate what many writing
teachers are made constantly aware of: an examination of the problems students
encounter in learning how to write effectively at a university will often reveal,
among other things, the basic assumptions about education and pedagogy at that
institution. These tutors were developing a clearer perception of the values
which prevailed at the university. Our goal as a group which continued to meet
during the next seven weeks was to develop effective ways of working with
students on their writing as well as with the faculty and administration to im-
prove the environment for learning.
In the remainder of this paper I'd like to discuss some of our discoveries. We
shared many ideas, tried many methods of tutoring and met with modest success.
The program is just beginning, as I see it, and the following insights will have
to be refined and tested continually. My overriding concern is still to demonstrate
that by looking carefully at the tutoring program in writing, we can learn a great
deal about how to improve our teaching at the university and how to build an
environment which encourages students to explore ideas openly and purposefully.

PARTII

It is often difficult for students working under the pressures of deadlines and
grades or evaluations to remember that writing is essentially a social act, an act
of communication with others. It is particularly difficult to remember this when
the mode of instruction in many classes discourages dialogue. Most of the students
we worked with in the tutorial program had never considered showing a first
draft of an essay to a friend or roommate although they spent hours talking with
them every day. We discovered that the schools have done a rather thorough job
of convincing students that papers should pass between students and teachers, but
not circulate widely among classmates and friends. It appears that even topics
for essays are rarely discussed outside of faculty offices and it seems reasonable
to assume that our students' avoidance of this kind of interaction with their
friends and classmates is a response to messages that high schools and colleges are
488 COLLEGE ENGLISH

giving. One clue to this unfortunate situation emerged during one of our group
meetings.
I had had the experience of working with a man on his senior thesis. He came
into my office to find out if I would help him with his writing, which, he felt,
needed a lot of improvement. I asked him what his thesis was about and he ad-
mitted, after some reluctance, that he wouldn't tell me until he had completed
what he considered to be innovative and unique research. It was, in a manner of
speaking, a secret. We talked for awhile about some general aspects of academic
prose and agreed to meet again after his research was done.
One of the tutors in our group told us of several students he had seen who
were afraid that if they did any outside reading on a subject it would be impos-
sible for them to generate their own ideas. Hence, they wanted to learn how to
make their opinions sound authoritative. After working with the tutor they came
to realize that integrating others' work with their ideas could result in a powerful
and convincing essay.
We realized that both my experience and the tutor's described a world in
which knowledge had become private property. The senior I referred to had
learned a stance that many of us found prevalent in graduate school: keep what
you're doing under wraps lest someone beat you to it. The younger students
who had come to the tutor were expressing their sense of intellectual isolation
and fears that their views could never be considered worthy of attention in a
paper which reviewed the positions of published authors. Both examples suggest
that the environment we have helped create, which encourages individual projects
as opposed to group learning experiences, makes it particularly difficult for stu-
dents to learn how to write effectively. To the extent that this kind of in-
dividualism is intellectually isolating, writing, a socially rooted activity, becomes
the source of frustration and resentment. Students are being asked to engage in an
intellectual activity which demands sensitivity to one's reader, an awareness of
others' ideas on the topic under consideration combined with a respect for one's
own. But the environment, the classroom and the lecture hall, often support dif-
ferent values.
I saw the tutors trying to establish relationships with their tutees which would
be more consistent with the writing endeavor. They shared their process as
readers, instead of labeling only errors. They asked students to describe the
reader for whom the essay was designed and helped them anticipate responses
within the paper. The tutors helped these young writers explore the anxiety and
lack of confidence which forced them to adopt a whispering style when inside
they were crying out. They tried to make writing an act of knowing and an act
of communicating. I also saw their frustration when they realized how pervasive
the other set of values were in most schools. One incident will illustrate what I
consider to be a creative response to this problem.
One of the tutors found a woman waiting for him when he arrived at his office.
She was very upset and almost in tears. Having just been returned her intellectual
autobiography by her professor she was ready to drop out of school. He had
asked members of the class to do a short autobiography paying particular attention
 Tutoring in Writing: Our Literacy Problem 489

to the development of their political consciousness. Students had thought it was

an inspired, creative assignment; a wonderful way to begin the quarter. Un-
fortunately, this invitation to discuss one's personal growth was inconsistent with
the responses which the professor habitually made on papers submitted to him.
He tore everything apart; he challenged every assertion and demanded supportive
evidence for every claim. In this particular case, he expressed dismay that a uni-
versity student could write so poorly, with so little appreciation for academic
conventions.
We discussed this assault in our group meeting and realized that despite the
professor's admirable intentions in having his students begin the quarter with
their own histories, he appeared to be both unaware of the expectations such an
assignment created as well as of the effects his comments would have on the
writer. Thinking that she could, indeed, share her intellectual history, this student
had neglected the conventions for academic prose. She hadn't footnoted the books
she referred to; she hadn't anticipated objections to her viewnsand countered them
with cogent arguments; she hadn't assumed the impersonal voice either. But her
writing was clear, grammatical and personal. The marginal comments she received
might have been appropriate on a term paper, but even there they would have
done little to encourage the writer to work on her prose.
We concluded that most professors could develop a greater sensitivity to the
effects that marginal comments have. A comment like, "'AWKWARD TRANSITION," is
less effective in teaching the writer something than is the comment, "I need more
information here in order to go from one paragraph to another." A comment like,
"UNCLEAR" does little more than label a passage unacceptable. Of more value
would be a comment like, "I expected you to say this: etc." If I'm not mistaken,
marginal comments about prose are more helpful (although less judgmental)
wvhenthey reflect back to the writer what the reader is going through. Not only
does this approach suggest a direction for rewriting, but it also lets the writer
know that there is a living, thinking person out there trying to follow his/her
thoughts. There's a reader who wants to understand and not just a judge.
Several years ago I led a faculty workshop on student writing with the intention
of revealing what students didn't know about writing to faculty who often
assumed too much. I talked about the misunderstandings which ensued when
faculty expectations about papers weren't made explicit. I mentioned the belief
that many students have that scholars send off articles to be published without
rewriting them. I commented that students were rarely taught the differences
and the origins of those differences among prose styles in various disciplines. We
discussed how little students know about the actual process of composing and
how difficult it is for most of us to talk about such things.
In what I consider to be a courageous gesture, the tutor to whom this woman
came decided to pay a visit to the professor who had assigned the intellectual
autobiography. He was armed with the insights we had generated during our
discussions and he had decided that some of them had to make it back to the
faculty. His visit was productive. While this professor was at first defensive
about the way he had critiqued the paper, saying that he had always had papers
490 COLLEGE ENGLISH

"destroyed" in college, he soon came to understand that his commitment to help-

ing his students learn to write was at odds with his responses to their essays. He
was grateful for the chance to talk with the tutor about an aspect of his role as
professor which no one ever talked about.
My point in detailing this incident is to suggest that the tutoring program and,
specifically, the discussion sessions we held every other week on pedagogy, not
only provided direct support for students with writing problems, but also became
a forum for the analysis of teaching at the university. We were able to see more
clearly how writing problems are not always inconsistent with the atmosphere
and mode of instruction which characterize considerable segments of the academic
world. In order to help students learn to write effectively we have to do more
than provide "remedial" courses. We have to look at how the university en-
vironment mystifies writing and how the faculty very often discourages students
from working on their prose by adopting the role of judges when what is needed
are teachers. For many reasons, a group of undergraduate tutors working with
their peers, can expose some of the underlying assumptions about education
which are difficult for faculty to see on their own.
If this paper succeeds in doing anything, I hope that it suggests the central role
that student-to-student tutorials can have in the university. I also hope to remind
those of us who are interested in pedagogical research that our students are
often the most valuable sources of information as well as our most perceptive
critics. We should, for these reasons, create tutorial programs which enable
students to meet with one another regularly to share and to analyze their experi-
ences. In addition to helping poor writers, tutoring is a good way of improving
one's own writing as well as a way of learning something about the complexities
of teaching at the university. Recently our attention has been directed by news-
papers and magazines to how "subjective" and unreliable are the grounds upon
which students judge us. In all probability, students who have the chance to tutor
and to discuss their experiences with other tutors will be keener in their evalua-
tions of us. I am hoping that by stimulating discussions about teaching and learn-
ing among writing tutors, we will better understand how what we have called
"the student writing problem" is, indeed, a problem to which all of us should
attend.

Philosophy in Literature
The Departmentsof English, Foreign Languages,and Philosophy of Memphis State
University invite submissionsof papers for a Symposium on the theme of Literatures
in Contemporary Perspectives to be held on April 6 and 7, 1978. The deadline for
submissionsis January 20, 1978. Direct inquiries and submissionsto Symposium Com-
mittee, c/o James W. Newcomb, Department of English, Memphis State University,
Memphis,TN 38152.