Examining writing center training texts: Towards a tutor training pedagogy

This comparison design study evaluates a variety of writing tutor training texts that are currently available as well as a collection of tutor training texts that were published before 1990. The purpose of this study is to create a greater understanding as to how the training texts have approached tutor training concerns for specific generations. The analysis of the texts' introductions/prefaces and chapter contents shows that all of the texts included in the study were published with the primary purpose of offering guidance to new tutors. Focusing on the how and the why of tutoring, both generations of manuals establish specific steps tutors need to take in order to be effective writing tutors. Likewise, the study indicates areas of inadequacies in the texts, such as discussions surrounding multiculturalism and composition studies.; The inclusion of a survey offered to twenty writing center directors shows that, although the manuals are often helpful texts for discussion purposes, they frequently lack the breadth of topics necessary to train tutors or the theoretical foundations to engage them in long-term learning objectives. The survey results also discuss the types of additional texts and articles the participants use to supplement the texts discussed in the study.; Ultimately, the study posits that the current manuals can be used in training programs based upon the individual writing center director's educational objectives and the needs of the established writing center. On a larger scale, the development of the training texts establishes a greater credibility to an institutional practice that has been traditionally brought into question because of the inexperience of its participants. The manuals increase the professional nature of tutoring, and as such, they have influenced the ways in which tutors are trained for their positions. However, the upcoming generation of manuals will need to consider increasing their scope to include more discussions as they relate to tutoring experiences. They will also need to include more theory and research representative of the professional writing center literature.