Kenneth Bruffee

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Kenneth A. Bruffee (September 1, 1934–January 20, 2019) was an American writing center administrator and professor emeritus in the department of English at Brooklyn College. Often referred to as "Ken" by his friends and colleagues,[1][2] he is best known for his scholarship on collaborative learning and innovations for college tutoring.

Career

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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,[3] but most of his career surrounded his work at Brooklyn College.

In 1966, Brooklyn College hired Bruffee initially to teach British Romantic literature.[4] However, in 1970, CUNY implemented open admission ahead of its scheduled plans to do so,[5] and Brooklyn College simultaneously appointed Bruffee to the position of Director of Freshman English.[4] The sudden and multiplicative increase in enrolling students contained more racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and linguistic diversity than the college had previously seen, and most of this new cohort was less academically prepared than previously typified college students.[4][5][6][7] This increase in incoming freshmen necessitated an increase in course sections to teach them. As the Director of Freshman English, Bruffee was in charge of assigning the faculty for those sections but found that the college did not have enough faculty to cover all of the necessary roles, especially while still offering additional writing assistance outside of class. Bruffee innovated a practice that would become one of his most significant legacies: peer tutoring.[4][6]

Though many colleges and universities already had writing labs of some form, Bruffee's innovation applied and broadened the budding pedagogical field of collaborative learning, which arose out of his belief in conversation as a method of knowledge-making.[6][4]. Throughout the 1970s, Bruffee trained and supervised the peer tutors and documented his practices.[6] Early into this journey, he published the first peer tutoring handbook, A Short Course in Writing, in 1972.[8] Based on his own center’s success, he penned “The Brooklyn Plan” (1978) and shortly thereafter his first book, A Short Course in Writing: Practical Rhetoric for Composition Courses, Writing Workshops, and Tutor Training Programs (1980), as a manual of sorts so that others could mimic his model.[6]

To that aim, in 1979, Bruffee garnered a federal grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FIPSE),[9] enabling himself and colleagues to found and run the Brooklyn College Institute for Training Peer Tutors, which trained peer tutors and encouraged the development of writing centers, writing labs, and writing groups.[9][4][10] This training on tutor-training program continued operating for approximately ten years.[9] Bruffee also delivered several speeches, seminars, workshops, and talks,[10][1] and wrote numerous other articles and chapters,[9][6][11] none so famous as “Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind” (1984).[6][8] This text, alongside Bruffee’s other works, led to his colleague Harvey Kail asserting in 2019 that Kenneth Bruffee deserves significant attribution for contemporary writing centers’ foundational value and methods.[6]

While a writing program administrator at Brooklyn College, Bruffee played a leading role in the development of writing center studies,[9] and he collaborated with both educators and administrators across several CUNY institutes and in institutions of higher learning across the country to establish peer tutoring as a standard academic support service within NYC public higher education and beyond.[9][7][10][1]

Leadership roles and highlights of his career included serving as the first Chair of the Modern Language Association Teaching of Writing Division in 1976[3] and as a president of CAWS (now CWPA)[12] and a founding editor of its scholarly journal, WPA: Writing Program Association,[13] a publication for which he continued as an editor from 1978 until 1983.[14] Bruffee also directed the Brooklyn College's Scholars Program for over thirty years,[15] as well as its Honors Acadamy.[15] Additionally, he was a Wolfe Institute Faculty Fellow from 1991-1992,[3] garnered a Brooklyn College Broeklundian Professorship from 1991 to 1994,[3] was a New York University Faculty Resource Network Scholar in Residence from 1998 to 2000,[3] and an editor at Liberal Education.[3]

Bruffee retired from Brooklyn College in 2006.[15]

In 2007, Bruffee gave the keynote address at the 25th National Conference on Peer Tutoring and Writing,[11] harkening back to 1984 and the NCPTW's first proceeding, which also had Bruffee as the keynote speaker,[1] as did the 1990 proceeding.[1] In 2008, his address from the 2007 conference was included as the first item after the editors' letters in a special issue of the Writing Center Journal which was themed after, dedicated to, and subtitled, Kenneth Bruffee and the Brooklyn Plan.[16] In addition, the Council of Writing Program Administrators dedicated their Spring 1986 issue of Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators,[2] and they continue to honor Bruffee annually by bestowing the "Kenneth Bruffee Award" to particularly exemplary and impactful scholarship in their journal, WPA: Writing Program Administration.[17]

Both while he lived and since he passed in January 2019, Bruffee's works shifted thinking in disciplines and topics such as writing program administration (WPA), composition and rhetoric studies, writing center studies and their assessment, tutoring, pedagogy, interdisciplinarity, and collaborative learning. His most direct and tangible lasting impact has been on tutor training, a task for which his texts are still common required readings and guiding principles.[1] His works have also served as lenses and frameworks beyond their initial contexts, from uses in information literacy[18] to discussions on AI, particularly AI in Education.[19][20]

Publications

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Books

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Articles and book chapters

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Maxwell, Ron (2008). "Kenneth Bruffee and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing". The Writing Center Journal. 28 (2): 11–17. ISSN 0889-6143.
  2. ^ a b The Council of Writing Program Administrators (Spring 1986). "Collection of Essays on Collaborative Learning" (PDF). Journal of the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA). 9 (3).
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Kenneth Bruffee: Brief Biography". English Department at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Archived from the original on May 29, 2024. Retrieved August 11, 2012.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Hawkes, Peter (2008). "Vietnam Protests, Open Admissions, Peer Tutor Training, and the Brooklyn Institute: Tracing Kenneth Bruffee's Collaborative Learning". The Writing Center Journal. 28 (2): 25–32. ISSN 0889-6143 – via JSTOR.
  5. ^ a b Steinberg, Stephen (2018). "Revisiting open admissions at CUNY". PSC CUNY. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Kail, Harvey (January 1, 2019). "Kenneth A. Bruffee, 1934-2019: An Exemplary Figure for Writing Centers". Writing Center Journal. 37 (2). doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1874. ISSN 2832-9414.
  7. ^ a b Sterling, Richard (2008). "Bruffee and the CUNY Circle". Writing Center Journal. 28 (2): 19–24. doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1704. S2CID 251329115.
  8. ^ a b Kail, Harvey (2008). "From the Guest Editor". Writing Center Journal. 28 (2): 3–4. doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1698. S2CID 251336919.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Trimbur, John (January 1, 2008). "Paper Trails: The Brooklyn College Institute for Training Peer Writing Tutors and the Composition Archive". Writing Center Journal. 28 (2). doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1712. ISSN 2832-9414.
  10. ^ a b c Kail, Harvey (2008). "Innovation and Repetition: The Brooklyn College Summer Institute in Training Peer Writing Tutors 25 Years Later". Writing Center Journal. 28 (2): 43–51. doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1709. S2CID 251333018.
  11. ^ a b Maxwell, Ron (2008). "Kenneth Bruffee and the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing". Writing Center Journal. 28 (2): 11–18. doi:10.7771/2832-9414.1702. S2CID 251331276.
  12. ^ Brereton, John; Gannett, Cinthia (2021). "Intergenerational Exchange in Rhetoric and Composition: Some Views from Here". Composition Studies. 49 (1): 119–124, 204–205 – via ProQuest.
  13. ^ Ianetta, Ianetta (2019). "'A Little Coda... Before We Go': Kenneth Bruffee, WPA, and Editorial History". WPA: Writing Program Association. 42 (3): 20–27 – via EBSCO.
  14. ^ "CWPA | WPA Journal Archives". www.wpacouncil.org. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  15. ^ a b c "KENNETH BRUFFEE Obituary (1934 - 2019) - Brooklyn, NY - New York Times". Legacy.com. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  16. ^ "Special Issue: Kenneth Bruffee and the Brooklyn Plan". The Writing Center Journal. 28 (2). 2008 – via JSTOR.
  17. ^ "CWPA | Awards". wpacouncil.org. Retrieved September 26, 2025.
  18. ^ Scales, Jane; Matthews, Greg; Johnson, Corey M. (May 1, 2005). "Compliance, Cooperation, Collaboration and Information Literacy". The Journal of Academic Librarianship. 31 (3): 229–235. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2005.01.006. ISSN 0099-1333.
  19. ^ Essid, Joe (December 27, 2023). "Writing Centers & the Dark Warehouse University: Generative AI, Three Human Advantages". Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies. 2 (2). ISSN 2831-347X.
  20. ^ Li, Ruth (2025). "Critiquing ChatGPT Compositions: Collaborative Annotation as an Approach to Enhancing Students' Metalinguistic Awareness of AI-Generated Writing". Thresholds in Education. 48 (1): 7–24. ISSN 0196-9641.



See also

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