Each student in a classroom may come to us with very different language practices from his or her home community. A writing center tutorial allows students to share those practices with another student and to experience the act of negotiating meaning. Language is, at its very nature, a social entity. 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.