I would certainly agree with Bruffee's overarching argument that students learn better when they work in groups, as opposed to when they work independently. First of all, unlike Lumsford's rather codescending tone in her essay, Bruffee argues that students, though somewhat inexperienced, are never COMPLETELY idiotic, but rather always have something useful to bring to the group, simply by having been involved with other things in their lives, which they use indirectly in their learning process. I appreciated Bruffee saying this, and it certainly gave him some credibility in my book.
As my education at Ithaca has progressed over the years, I've experienced more and more individual/group work in the classroom, as opposed to class discussion, in which the professor guides the direction in which students should be thinking. I think this gradual lead into more group-directed learning certainly has had a positive impact on my own education, though I cannot speak for anyone else.
Although I've never done any formal tutoring, I have helped friends with their papers before, given them feedback, edited, made grammatical corrections, etc., as I've done in numerous writing classes in which we workshop our fellow students' written work. Each time I gie feedback on work, I feel like I'm consciously beginning to realize things I already learned how to do, but was never aware of until that moment. It's strange, but I have experienced first-hand just how effectively the collaboration of two or more inexperienced students can help to spark a productive, intelligent conversation.
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