The Online Tutor as
Cross-Curricular Double Agent
The OWL and Epistemological Space
The graphic above attempts to depict the space within which an OWL
tutoring conference takes place. Most of the composition faculty embrace
Social Epistemic Rhetoric and have trained the
tutors accordingly. However, some composition faculty and most of the
rest of the faculty subscribe to notions about knowledge
(student knowledge in particular) which are more closely
aligned with Current Traditional Rhetoric. Consequently, the tutors
regularly face requests and expectations which are more about correcting
texts than they are about helping students become writers.
