Minimalist Tutoring, harder than it sounds

On the surface Minimalist tutoring sounds like the easiest thing in the world, however when a frantic student comes in frazzled with a disorganized paper full of grammatical mistakes it becomes all too easy to supply them with answers. And why not? Then you both feel good, the tutor intelligently supplied answers to the student’s questions and the student was given visible proof of their visit to the Writing Center. The problem is no one learned anything. The tutor already knew the answer and the student didn’t learn how to answer their own questions. Aside from obvious problems with plagiarism, the student has not gained anything from their visit. As Steven North states “we are focused on making better writers not better writing”. Making better writing would be incredibly difficult because “better” is subjective, rather than focus on the quantification of a grade tutors focus on building the skills of a writer, “the less we do to the paper the better”. So by doing less and putting the responsibility in the hands of the students we teach them to be more confident and self-sufficient writers