The Tutoring Book - California State University, Sacramento

perhaps fruitful answers. Freirean, open-ended problem-posing questions, in particular, can be applied to
almost any writing situation with deconstructive and demystifying results: why, what, when, for whom,
and how? Asking these questions encourages writers to both examine and question the conventions of the
writing tasks assigned. For example, one of my tutees this semester was getting frustrated with APA
formatting, so we had a fifteen minute discussion about it, asking why we thought this system was created
in the first place, why it was so intricate, why citation was so valued in American academia, etc. While
the conversation understandably didn’t alleviate all of her frustration with the format itself, she was able
to discern that there was a logic and reasoning and values system behind it.
These kinds of questions can also help the writer move beyond simple conventions into thinking
about their writing in ways they might not have considered before. For example, another of my tutees had
an assignment for a writing class in which she had to research a rite of passage in a different culture, and
she was having a difficult time moving beyond regurgitation of the facts. So we started problem-posing.
Why do you think the teacher assigned this particular essay? How is this topic relevant to you? How
does your cultural vantage point affect how you view the subject matter? How does the cultural practice
you’re writing about make you rethink or validate your own cultural views? And so on. These questions
served several purposes: they allowed the writer to consider, and even accept, to an extent, the teacher’s
reasoning for the assignment, making it feel less arbitrary, they required her think of the assignment in
direct relation to herself, consequently making it more personally meaningful, and they asked her to
question her own cultural assumptions, which is one way to encourage critical consciousness. As Breuch
notes, “rote learning of subject matter, without understanding its relevance to one’s situation and the
world, does not improve one’s education” (119). Engaging in this problem-posing is perhaps one of
surest means of self-reflection. I think that it is a good idea not just to ask these questions, but encourage
writers to ask these questions themselves, beyond the context of the writing center.
Viewing the world, language, and writing as contextually situated can also help us to negotiate
the seemingly adversarial relationship between academic discourse and a student’s home discourse. For
this course, you’ve probably read an article or two about the Postcolonial pitfalls of academic discourse,
about how it assimilates students into an academic culture. This argument, while occasionally hyperbolic,
is not entirely off-base: while we may value a student’s home discourse in the writing center, in the
majority of academic writing situations, they must ultimately adapt to the language and conventions of the
academy. While the fairness of our academic situation is up for debate, it is the reality we currently face,
and for some writers, it can be quite daunting. I think that taking a step back and viewing academic
discourse as man-made allows us to see that it isn’t necessarily “right” or “better” than one’s home
discourse, but simply a different rhetorical context. As theorist Patricia Bizzell notes, academic discourse
is really just a series of conventions established “by consensus of the community this discourse unites.
Academic discourse conventions derive their authority more from their status as conventions than any
inherent superiority” (139). Of course, this doesn’t make academic discourse any less complex or
difficult for writers to adapt to, but it emphasizes the fact that it is not intrinsically more valuable than
one’s home discourse. As tutors, we are placed between these home and academic contexts, and
hopefully we can be effective mediators by helping writers negotiate the differences and similarities of
these contexts so that they can successfully and critically operate within both.
Works Cited
Bizzell, Patricia. Academic Discourse and Critical Consciousness. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburg
Press, 1992.
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