The act of composing is equally social and collaborative, since the ideas we write down are actually the product of our interactions with others. Writing center tutorials focus on language as a social practice and, in turn, enact a social practice. Writing implies a reader. Writing center tutorials provide real readers, critical readers for their student clients. Tutors help those clients to experience the ways that their words affect others.
Collaborative tasks prepare students to participate in their communities.
Peer tutoring can help tutors and clients learn how to communicate with others whose ideas, beliefs, values, and language practices may differ from their own. Students' voices and values matter. A tutor's role in the tutorial is strictly facilitative. Peer tutors can model strategies, discuss expectations about the conventions for writing within a given discipline, and help clarify assignments for students.