Thoughts on Directive and Nondirective Approaches to Advising

I know it has been a while now since we interviewed advisors for the Profile assignment, but I wanted to share one part of the conversation I had with Katie Chounet, a second-year advisor. During the interview, we discussed the ongoing debate about directive versus nondirective advising approaches. We agreed that both may have their place in the writing center, but Katie described their places particularly well. Although most writing center advisors seem to prefer a nondirective approach, Katie acknowledged that “at some point, you need to be a little more directive than nondirective. If the biggest problems in a paper are big ideas,” she explained, “you need to be less directive to draw out the writer’s thoughts. However, if the problems are more sentence-level, you need to be more directive in order to help them.”

To me, this application of a nondirective or directive approach according to the particular aspect of the paper being addressed made a lot of sense. Instead of using only one advising approach to conduct an entire session, each may be used as different types of problems in a paper are discussed. If a student writer seeks help with the ideas or style of a paper, a nondirective approach is best to ensure the writer’s control over the paper. On the other hand, if a student comes in seeking help with more basic, structural or sentence-level issues, the advisor may be able to safely take a more directive role. By alternating between the two advising approaches according to what is being discussed, it is quite possible that both approaches may be used in the same session. In summary, an advisor must always maintain the student’s full control over the paper while finding the best ways to help the student learn and grow as a writer, which may require both nondirective and directive approaches at different points in each session.

The necessity of such adaptability while advising is further emphasized in Sharon A. Myers’s essay, “Reassessing the ‘Proofreading Trap’: ESL Tutoring and Writing Instruction,” which provides examples of the ways nondirective advising has failed to help ESL students. These students, who may frequently struggle with technical or structural aspects of writing, would likely benefit from an advisor who is willing to adapt and be more directive when an explanation of grammatical or cultural language rules is necessary. However, an advisor who remains nondirective at all times may not be able to help these students become “better writers,” which is, according to Stephen M. North, the goal of writing center work.

On a slightly different note, I really enjoyed Myers’s essay and could continue writing about it for quite some time. Unfortunately, though, I have an incredibly long day ahead of me, so I will have to save the rest of my thoughts for my next post.