Gertrude Buck in the writing center : a tutor training model to challenge nineteenth-century trends

In this dissertation, I explore a writing center tutor training model based on the theories and practices of Gertrude Buck, a nineteenth-century teacher and scholar. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Buck was among the few offering an alternative to the dominant view of writing as a tool to reflect existing ideas objectively and correctly. She instead held a Deweyan view of language as a practice that allowed students to explore knowledge and come to a better understanding of themselves, others, and their communities.I examine evidence that effects of prescriptive nineteenth century trends linger in our contemporary writing center setting at Ball State University; next, I describe the process of creating a tutor training model over the course of a semester as I introduce Buck's ideas, observing how Buck's principles are discussed and implemented in writing center sessions and staff training situations. Specifically, I ask the following questions for the descriptive study that I conduct: What practices emerge as a result of using the principles of Gertrude Buck in writing center tutor training? What are the relationships among this tutor training process, tutors' perceptions of writing, and their resulting practices and approaches toward tutoring writing?Findings from the descriptive study demonstrate that the use of Gertrude Buck's principles in our writing center enabled tutors to openly, productively discuss the complexities of writing and language and to more confidently meet the needs ofdiverse writers in a range of situations. The use of Gertrude Buck's principles, which emphasize collaboration, an inductive approach to learning, and continuous reflection on the relationship between practice and theory, in fact have a broader application beyond writing centers. Writing center administrators, tutors, and teachers of writing can benefit from Buck's principles as a guide for examining their own practice and theory connections and creating models for teaching and tutoring to fit their specific contexts.Department of EnglishThesis (Ph. D.