Kenneth Bruffee

Bruffee published the first peer tutoring handbook, A Short Course in Writing, in 1972.[1] While a writing program administrator at Brooklyn College, Bruffee played a leading role in the development of writing center studies, and collaborated with both educators and administrators across several CUNY institutes to establish peer tutoring as a standard academic support service within NYC public higher education.[2] The rise of writing centers was necessitated by a growing population of students who were unprepared for college writing.[2] In 1979, Bruffee and colleagues founded the Brooklyn College Institute for Training Peer Tutors, which trained peer tutors and encouraged the development of writing centers and writing labs.[3]

In 2007, Bruffee gave the keynote address at the 25th National Conference on Peer Tutoring and Writing.[4] In 2008, the Writing Center Journal issued a special issue on Kenneth Bruffee and the Brooklyn Plan.[5]

Bruffee graduated from Wesleyan University and earned a Ph.D. in English from Northwestern University. He taught at the University of New Mexico, Northwestern University, the University of Virginia, Columbia University, Cooper Union, and the University of Pennsylvania."[6]

• Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence and the Authority of Knowledge (Johns Hopkins University Press; 1993)
• A Short Course in Writing: Composition, Collaboration and Constructive Reading (Peason, Longman; 2006)
• Elegetic Romance: Cultural Change and the Loss of the Hero in Modern Fiction (Cornell University Press; 1983)

• Writing Centers
• Peer tutors