Next From Michael Mattison: Chicken Soup for the Writing Center Director's Soul

I found Michael Mattison’s “Managing the Center: The Director as Coach” to be insufferable. To be honest, though, I find the whole genre he is borrowing from to be an unbearable accumulation of cliché and pretension. What I find especially bothersome, however, is the suggestion common to this genre that the reader can simply choose to be successful. I am, evidently, just not the audience Mattison has in mind. He assumes either that his reader knows more about coaching than about directing a Writing Center or that the collected wisdom of John Wooden is for the reader a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down—and neither of these is true in my case.

Giving Childers and Lowe the business

As a business and marketing person, I appreciate Childers and Lowe’s attempts to incorporate strategic planning into the administration of writing centers. However, both authors ignore a couple of basic steps in effective strategic planning: begin by considering those you wish to serve, and include strategies for affecting the institution(s) and discipline(s) of which you are part. Failing to address these steps reveals their traditional hierarchical view of business management that a strategic plan is only a management tool for the WC. In reality, it can be much more, especially if we consider it not something that’s done once a year, but an ongoing strategic examination of the WC. This leaves room for considerations like racial diversity raised by Weaver and attends to the collaborative business of relationships as Peters, Fitzgerald and Stephenson suggest.

Unclean! Unclean!

Coogan’s electronic writing center would, it might surprise him to discover, fit nicely into the strategy of containment that he is trying to undermine. He seems to think that decades of misunderstanding can be wiped away through sheer force of suggestion, but if that does not work he is simply left with a writing center that is contained in a virtual space rather than a physical space. For the university that wants to employ a metaphor of illness and containment this is a real improvement: no one has to come into physical contact with these unclean students and the embarrassment of a center devoted to remediation has been erased from the campus map.

As an aside, the practice of not wanting to come into contact with the student’s essay can take on a similar meaning in the context of this metaphor of illness. What may be intended to engender agency may also appear to be fear of contagion.

Online Tutor Training

An ongoing conversation about online tutoring of tutors is happening on Open Forum for Learning Assistance Professionals [LRNASST-L@LISTS.UFL.EDU] and I thought that you might be interested in it.
Nichole Bennett-Bealer, PhDAssistant Director/Writing SpecialistClaude J. Clark Learning Center SUNY College at Plattsburgh518-564-2265 At SUNY Plattsburgh we have trouble meeting our "modest" goal of all of our tutors (we had 234 student employees this past semester with an estimated 144 students returning in the fall) achieving CRLA Level I certification. I am working on a spreadsheet to track the courses our current tutors did well in so we can meet requests for courses from within our ranks and limit the number of new tutors we hire in the fall.We do realize that a large part of our problem with CRLA certification is the number of students we employ. We also acknowledge that many of our tutors simply cannot attend the Tutor Training course to become a content tutor. All Writing Tutors must complete ENG390 before beginning to tutor; a policy we cannot equally enforce with our content tutors as we often receive requests for tutors in new courses after the Tutor Training course has begun or run (it is only 5 weeks long and starts the second week of each semester). Those content tutors who cannot complete the Tutor Training course are required to meet with the Grad Assistant for a two-hour overview, mostly policies and procedures with some discussion of tutoring strategies.To address the problem with training, we are considered online training modules. We are aware that CRLA limits the number of online training hours that will count towards certification and we will stay within those limits, but we want to make sure that our online training provides the best possible alternative experience for our tutors. Especially as many would be able to achieve CRLA Level I certification by attending the two hour overview, attending the required six hours of staff meetings (which we calculate to equal two hours of CRLA training as we do mini-training exercises during the meetings, i.e. Learning Style Inventories and discussions, sticky situations, etc.), and completing the maximum number of three online training hours CRLA allows each semester (or so I have been informed).So after that long-winded explanation, comes my request. Do any of you use online training modules? And if so, would you be willing to share your advice/experiences with such training? Sample modules if available would also be much appreciated. Thank you! Nichole

Christopher S. GloverTutorial Program CoordinatorLearning and Academic ResourcesLong Beach City College Office: E-08-LEPhone: 562.938.4669Email: c2glover@lbcc.edu
I would like to piggyback off (on?) Nichole's question: in achieving the proper, CRLA-mandated balance between F2F and online training, how does one know how much time online training takes? I know how much time 6 hours' worth of meetings takes--6 hours. But I don't know how long 10 online modules take. Maybe they take as long as I say they take? (In other words, if CRLA wants no more than 3 online training hours, then maybe that's how long my online modules take to complete!)That said, though, someone said here not too long ago (and my apologies to whomever it was who said it; I've forgotten who it was) that these CRLA restrictions on online training ignore or dismiss the power of online communities and peer groups to result in real learning/teaching opportunities. Tutors-in-training aren't simply pressing buttons and interacting with a computer or even just the web; rather, they are engaging in fruitful discussions with their peers and mentors, discussions that would be much harder to have in a more strict environment bound by time, schedule conflicts, etc. They are also learning via a medium with which they are comfortable and may evenprefer. How might this situation be addressed? Christopher

Karin E. Winnard, Tutorial ProgramLearning Assistance Resource CenterSan Jose State University San Jose, CA 95192 (408)924-3346
This is an interesting conversation that I believe has been brought up a few times since I have been on this listserv. So I will do my best to make my response brief.
*Since our tutors work with students face to face, I feel that training in the classroom, face to face, is imperative in developing the interpersonal and communication skills of our tutors. Role-playing, a key-part of tutor training, provides very different results when it is part of the face to face training session/class than when it is used as part of on-line training.
*Being exposed to nonverbal and verbal nuances in tutor training that tutees will use in their sessions, are best used in face to face training.
*As a trainer, I look at the non-verbal cues of my tutors to adjust my training to meet specific needs that may be missed as part of online training.
*I think team-building is a huge part of tutor training which also helps to minimize the isolation that some tutors feel when they work with their students.Having said all of this and clearly being in favor of face to face tutor training (and hiring tutors only at the beginning and end of the semesters and not mid-semester... but that is another conversation) I understand why some trainers are in favor of on-line training. My only hope is that, as we look as tutoring as supplementing instruction rather than replacing it, that we look at on-line training as supplementing face to face training rather than replacing it. Have a good one! Karin

Penny Turrentine, Ph.D.Director, West Campus Learning CenterITPC Interim CoordinatorCertified Learning Center Professional-Level 4Pima Community College2202 West Anklam Road Tucson, AZ 85709-0001Phone: (520) 206-6796 or 206-3196Fax: (520) 206-3119 I just got the opportunity to read all of the postings about tutor training and CRLA requirements. Please know that CRLA is closely examining this issue and you will be seeing some changes made in the very near future. I am very excited about the number of possibilities in terms of eliminating some of the problems that the 60% face-to-face training requirement poses. All I can say is, please stay tuned. Penny

Empirical Research II

This post goes with what Michelle talked about in a previous post about empirical research. As I was reading the last part of Coogan's book, I coudln't help but think about the fact that he uses this as dissertation and because so, makes choices that might not have been made otherwise. I'm wondering how this research would have been different if he would have observed another tutor/tutee correspondence and not heavily relied upon his own. Since he is very invested in helping his students, not just because he is a tutor, but because he is doing research, he seems to only highlight those instances where the tutor session works with his research. I think he could have done a better job explaining his role as a researcher and how that might have changed his tutoring.

Professional Development for Adjuncts

Now training and pay incentives are being provided for some adjuncts. Read Professional Development for Adjuncts. http://insidehighered.com/layout/set/print/news/2008/05/28/nisod

Need some context for Coogan's WC

I wonder about the context of the writing center in which Coogan worked while doing the research, or of other university writing centers at the time. While he brings in numerous theorists to back up his criticism of the academy and the state of composition in the university, there is no other evidence to support his assertions except what he reads between the lines of his interactions with students as an online tutor and, frankly, some of his conclusions are a big inductive jumps. This odd combination of a little empirical research with lots of theory makes me wonder why Coogan is so frequently cited in composition and writing center journals, unless it is because he addressed such a new topic at the time.

Dialogic Dreaming

Leading into his assertion that "there is a life for student writing beyond the course and the semester" (91), Coogan betrays his idealistic dream that networked computers will somehow bring a new era of dialogic learning. Today electronic classrooms are still often configured in rows, and now they're even bolted to the floor. Add in the projector screen and it seems we have not exactly shifted "away from the 'proscenium' classroom, where students sit in theatre-style rows facing the stage" (91), Thanks to the unlimited digital distractions available on those networked computers, we have a dialogic classroom all right--it's just that students are having dialogic interactions outside of the classroom community. I always thought they were socializing on facebook, but maybe they were sharing their writing projects with students at other universities. ;-) Anyway, back in the old days, we could still rearrange the room into small groups, and we even had primitive writing technologies. What was weird though, was that the only way to interact as a group was f2f. Of course, we didn't know any better. I guess we could have passed a notebook around the room and created a discussion board that way, but I don't recall anyone thinking of doing that. So computers did help people create some new ways of doing things that are useful. But I don't think any technology or theory in and of itself will make all our dreams come true.

What is the Value of "educational fantasy"?

What I really like about Coogan is that he takes the time to lay out and explore what he thinks the "electronic writing center" could and should be. His outline gives a concrete image of what he wants to see happen. Whether or not it is plausible can be debated, but I liked seeing his vision for the future so clearly laid out.

This is also what bothers me about the piece ultimately. He is not ultimately advocating his EWC be created in a certain place or time. He is merely drawing a nice picture. Yes, he explore what happened when he tutored electronically, but he never implemented any of the things he suggests as being vital to the EWC he imagines. He could have piloted the database at his own institution with published writing to see how it could have worked. He could be proposing how to implement such a center at a particular type of university, but he doesn't. Coogan paints the picture then leaves it for someone else to work out the logistics.

Is this a common convention of "idealized" writing centers? Am I asking too much of this work?

Writing Tics

We've spent so much of our time in 693 (the "other class" Tess, Carolyn, Karen and I are in) talking about recognizing and correcting out "tics" in speaking and writing that I am now hyper-aware of those things in others' writings. So I have to vent: If Coogan used "in other words" one more time when discussing other people's theories, I might have lost it! I know it is nit-picky, but it seemed to be showing up in every single paragraph of lit review!

I think it is amazing how little things like that can get through the editorial process.

Thank you all for listening to my mini-rant. I feel like I can move on now!

empirical data

I know that it is hard to collect empirical data on something as subjective as writing, but I still think it would be valuable to the research we've read. In Coogan, I would have liked to see figures (or a graph or something) about how many students specifically emailed in, how many "disappeared" when the conversation went not as planned, and how many were deemed "successful" tutoring sessions. Defining all those terms would be tricky, yes, but it seems like all our authors have been selective about what studies they detail, and this weakens their arguments. Rather than accepting the study fully and discussing its strengths, as a class, we seem to criticize first, and the criticisms come from "holes" that we notice. I think this could be fixed with a few simple, clear graphs and charts that represent the numbers.

Coogan and Goffman

I really appreciate Coogan's interpretation of Goffman's "face-work" as it complicates the student/tutor relationship. Both are working to create a certain images and then need to maintain those images, for themselves or the other person. This is just as true in the classroom too. This complication of the "simple" relationship is a perspective I think we haven't seen much of yet.

I also appreciate the way that he discusses how these "faces" change in the email tutorial, but that they are just as present. I haven't yet fully processed this part of the face issue, but I am glad to have it to think about.

Intervention is necessary

A while back Emily asked if there wasn't a time when a teacher was permitted to intervene in a student's writing life. I'm beginning to think that intervention is necessary if student writing is to become meaningful. I'm not talking about directing here but about questioning that broadens the student's horizons about what could be, deepeing the student's concept so that s/he doesn't see things as black and white but as gray and negotiable. I'm wondering though why Coogan thinks that e-mail is better suited to this kind of questioning. Couldn't the writing center extend this conversation at the point of need as well?

Neubauer research proposal

Research Proposal on Language of Email Tutoring

Introduction/Questions

In January 2008, I began working with Dr. Lynne M. Stallings, assistant professor, Department of English, Ball State University, and Dr. Dawn M. Formo, associate professor and chair, Literature and Writing Studies, California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), on their research into the language student writers use to request feedback. My assignment has been to conduct library research to inform an analysis of transcripts from online asynchronous tutoring between tutors from the CSUSM online writing lab (OWL) and area high school students between 2001 and 2006. We hypothesize that paying attention to the language students use to ask questions about their writing may allow teachers and tutors to use students’ language as a bridge, rather than a barrier, to academic writing. Specifically, I have been looking for history, theory and research methodology that will help address the following questions:

1. How does existing pedagogical research in composition studies prepare teachers, tutors, and students to bridge the cultural linguistics gap between students’ non-academic language experiences – especially those shaped by technologies such as email, instant messaging, and texting -- and the requirements of the academy?

2. How does the special genre of OWL asynchronous tutoring differ from other collaborative practices in theory and practice?

3. What can be learned from a close examination of the language between students and OWL tutors that might be helpful in fostering more effective collaboration? For example, are there linguistic cues that illustrate the level of knowledge, understanding and engagement students have in the academic writing process? To what extent do students’ questions about their writing reflect a deep understanding of academic language (and writing conventions) or a rudimentary understanding of the vocabulary used to discuss academic writing? Can linguistic cues be used by tutors in the “contact zone” of the asynchronous online tutoring session to guide their responses and to help students ask questions that result in the help they need?

4. If the students in this study are representative of incoming university students, what patterns do we see that would help make wise pedagogical use of the rhetorical agency they will bring into our classrooms in the fall?

Format

For the purposes of our research, I will prepare a qualitative research proposal as outlined in John W. Creswell’s Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. 2^nd ed. including the following sections:

· Introduction/Definitions – including an outline of the research project and questions, purpose of the and significance of the study, definitions of key terms, scope and limitations, and situating our study in existing research, trends, and academic conversations.

· Literature review of the discussion of student language in requesting feedback, including a summary of those from composition research, texts and handbooks (which is minimal), but mostly from the writing center discipline, where the bulk of recent research on student language has occurred.

· Discussion of methodologies, including the population, variables, use of the SAT rubric, Peter Elbow’s “Three Ways of Revising” and “Eleven Ways of Responding” to writing, and Marzano and Kendall’s New Taxonomy.

· Works Cited

At the Point of Need

I know that this sounds like the last book we read; however, I see an application to one of Coogan's statements: "What really failed . . . in Hairston's view was not so much current-traditional rhetoric but practitioners of current-traditional rhetoric: 'untrained teachers' in English departments . . . . (xiii). Later on the next page Coogan identifies these practitioners as "part timers" and "adjuncts". When I began teaching for Taylor and Indiana Wesleyan Universities, I had only taught 3 classes of adult professional composition classes. The reason given for dropping me was that I didn't have enough English classes and they were starting the accreditation process. Of course, not having enough English classes wasn't an issue before because APS was experiencing need. Even more surprising was that I was immediately picked up by TU and IWU - still without any education in teaching English classes or writing. I saw my need immediately and continued my education. But the point I want to make is that as an adjunct I was available at their point of need.

ISA is "The Man holding us back"

I had to look back at the publication date of Coogan's book several times because it reminds me of the rhetoric of resistance I grew up with in the late 60s and 70s, especially when he talks about ISA, or the ideological state apparatus (beginning at 5). He brushes by the source of that term, Louis Althusser, who was a Marxist writing in the 70s and pushing back against capitalism in particular. My interpretation of its use by Coogan is that email tutoring should be viewed not just as another service or tool of the WC -- a benign supplement to the sacrosanct f2f conference -- but as an opportunity to be a "technoprovocateur" (28) and participate in "'revolutionary' technology" (57) that resists the social constructions of the WC, literacy, student writing, and the academie.

The Great Divide

David Coogan brings up some good points about technology's lack of neutrality, warning that we can't ignore the social aspect of it as if it "somehow came before someone's intentions to enable some minds to do some things" (qtd. 61). There was a time when computer technology was only usable by the technologically proficient, and even when programming knowledge wasn't necessary, the DOS commands were enough to scare people off. It seems the more the technology interface has been "dumbed down," the more sophisticated and useful the technology has become in terms of allowing people to access it and make rhetorical choices in their use of it. I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, but it seems to relate to his point that there is "a 'Great Divide' between university experts and lay persons" (62) in terms of access and exclusion. However technology is used, someone in some place of power is deciding who gets to join the conversation and what is allowed to be said.

Isolationism

When Coogan talks about the liabiliaty of rigidly defending Intervention, he mentions that "by insisting that their ideal teaching situation (one-to-one with the student) is actually created through this isolation from the academic community, writing centers often perpetuate their own vulnerability as mere support systems" (23). I' m wondering if there is still an entrenched and defensive isolationism today, almost ten years later.

forced indifference?

In the early portions of Electronic Writing Centers, David Coogan references Maxine Hairston's point that a possible reason for the struggle with composition teaching is the "untrained" or "indifferent" instructors. While I may be alone in my lack of teaching experience, from what I understand, many of the writing/comp instructors are poorly compensated for their time and effort, let alone any outside research into the world of rhetoric. It doesn't seem like teaching English 101 is a substantial enough income to be a primary income, so I assume these teachers are either working on an advanced degree (and are new to composition studies) or, are working another job as well. I understand why research is an important component of creating a good teacher, but if it becomes an expectation, it should somehow be worked into the compensation that these instructors receive. I think it was even mentioned in class today, that this is a problem that is a result of how these faculty are treated.

Coogan asserts that early writing centers were motivated by an “urge to contain . . . functional literacy” (xiv), and that contemporary writing centers have not been able to change this identity because it is given to them—by universities, English departments, corporations, politicians, and the public—rather than chosen by them. If this is true and if this condition prevails, he continues, the disconnect between the outsider perception of what should happen in writing centers and the insider perception of what should happens in writing centers cannot be overcome by more carefully crafted public relations campaign (xvi). That is, however, what his book seems to be. It is an effort to demonstrate that a writing center that is aligned with prevailing composition theory will not look like a remedial center for the functionally illiterate. Such a writing center would also, incidentally, not look like the expressivist writing centers that emerged in the 1960’s—but given that writing center theory seems to have moved away from that model this seems to be beside the point. I wonder, however, whether naming the forces that contribute to misunderstanding—and offering an alternative model—satisfactorily addresses those forces.

Knowing Technology

I have always accepted that I need to know, at least minimally, the programs students would be using to create multimodal texts. Even as a tutor, I felt limited when I could not help with the technology part of student construction. Sheridan has given me the first really sound, logical reason why knowing the technology is important.

On 342 when Sheridan is discussing how a student wants to use a photograph for a project, things finally clicked for me. "A multiliteracy consultant who knows photo-editing application can talk with her client about what kinds of revisions are possible, can guide her client through the process of making those revisions, and can talk about the rhetorical effectiveness of those revisions once made."

I had never thought this clearly about the rhetoric of lightening or darkening an image, and knowing how to do that to see that rhetorical significance is important. This just makes so much sense to me. Now I feel like I have a solid line of reasoning to support my intuition that knowing this technology is important.

Tech support

While working on my multimodal project for my technology class last semester, I didn't even consider the writing center as a source of help. I made friends with the tech staff at Taylor University. Tenerally, I was quite satisfied with the tutoring sessions; however, that changed to dissatisfaction when the "tutor" took over my computer. I wonder how the tech staff is trained to work with its "clients". In addition, I wonder if the writing center staff at BSU would have been able to help me with my projects.

Online tutoring and WC ethos

The question that Healy raises about the loss of "collegiality and work-place ethos" is one I've also considered, in both business and academic environments, but I wonder if it's a generational thing. When I worked from home or was traveling a great deal, even though I was in constant contact with my office via Internet, cell phone and conference calls, I definitely felt the loss of a collaborative effort with my team members. It's not that they were no longer cooperative but I noticed the loss of "informal contact with peers and supervisors" through which "appropriate courses of action generally are determined" (547). I just missed out on information and impromptu collaboration that happens almost without us recognizing it when we are physically working together. I've heard similar complaints about online courses. Does being physically cut-off from the bricks-and-mortar WC affect an online tutor's ability to work collaboratively with students and peers?

I am persuaded that writing centers should provide the kind of multimodal consultation Sheridan recommends for his multiliteracy center. It seems to me, though, that English departments must come alongside writing centers by prioritizing multimodality in composition curriculum. It is not enough to allow or require multimodal projects—they must help them to attain at least a function level of multiliteracy.

From Analyzing to Composing

Sheridan tells us that the 20th century asked us to be "consumers of multimodal compositions," while the 21st century is asking us to be "composers of multimodal texts" (342). This new mode (ha, pun intended) of thinking is difficult to adjust to at times, at least for me. I was just getting used to the idea that composition class meant analyzing more than text: it meant analyzing web sites, film, music, speech, photography, graphics, typefaces, and even cultural artifacts. Fortunately I haven't been in the field long enough to have developed any stubborn mindsets; however, my ranking of comfort level with multimodal texts is 1. analyze, 2. compose, 3. teach. Multimodal texts do seem to take teaching and tutoring to a more complicated plane, and I wonder if more collaborative efforts are called for here.

Tutor and Tutee relationship

Healy raises some valid questions about online tutoring using the scenario of Arie and Talia. Specifically, he asks "At what point are tutors off the clock?" "How can directors document tutors' work outside the writing center?" From this scenario, I thought of several more questions that arise from a situation such as this: "How do tutors and tutees develop a long term relationship?" and "should they?" "If tutors are not allowed to respond to their tutees' writing after their office hours and if other tutors take over, what message does this send to the tutee?" "If tutors are allowed to respond after hours, how much is too much, and how do they say no to the tutee and still maintain a good relationship?"

really? a 1984 reference?

After finishing Healy's essay, I noticed I felt much more discouraged than I usually do, even after reading criticisms of WC's that were more harsh in nature. I think it is simply because he used a 1984 reference-- a book that does NOT portray Big Brother in a positive light. I understand that without causal ability to oversee, it must be more deliberate, and this is a more threatening feeling, and the metaphor works. But actually quoting the novel brings discomfort, especially if you've read the book and remember the seriousness with which the Thought Police were described. It took me a minute to realize that WC's will (hopefully) never experience that degree of Big Brother-ness, but I can't help but dislike the reference anyway.

Topic Knowledge

If I'm reading her correctly Irene Clark thinks that it's important for students to have some knowledge of their writing topic prior to accessing information sources because "information without context and coherence does not result in knowledge; it remains an overload of undigested facts" (565). I tend to agree. Learning how to access, analyze, and evaluate sources of knowledge is hard enough without throwing an unfamiliar topic into the mix. After all, there is always more for students to learn about a subject they're already familiar with. Having some prior knowledge might help them to learn how to recognize good sources and steer clear of the questionable.

Quick Fixes and Genres Centers

Dave Healy addresses the concern that online conferencing environments might not only change the dynamics of the individual conference session, but also disperse the writing center into mini-centers. This is not a new concern for him since there have already been proponents of geographically dispersing the activities of the writing center; for example Geoffrey Chase argues that this function should be moved into dormitories and academic departments so it can be “connected to the central experience of students” (qtd. 542). Chase does seem to have a point at first glance, but then it becomes obvious his idea would eventually put students into social and disciplinary ghettos. I imagine dorm centers becoming last-minute fix-it shops and curriculum-specific writing centers turning into genre centers focused on perfecting templates of a particular field.

How Much is Too Much?

How much can a peer tutor learn? Leave information literacy with the librarians. Clark’s reason is true: “those who can access and work with information will have a significant advantage over those who cannot” (563). However, then she ties it to being a “primary determiner of life quality and economic independence,” to impacting “our democratic way of life and on our nation’s ability to compete internationally” and further to guaranteeing “the survival of democratic institutions” (564). While all of this seems logical about those who know how to access information, it doesn’t mean that the writing center should do it.

Old Questions Still Discussed

Even back in 1985 Geoffrey Chase argued for moving the writing center to dormitories and academic departments. The other day in class someone suggested the same idea. Surely someone in between 1985 and 2008 tried moving the writing center to dormitories. If it were tried, what was the outcome? Putting tutors in classrooms didn’t work for BSU according to the discussion we had in class the other day.

OWLS

Carino’s last statement says it all: “If OWLS are going to carry us into flight rather than eat us like rodents, if MOOs are going to produce more milk than dung, if we are going to cruise the informational highway without becoming roadkill, we will need to remain vigilant against the intoxication of our enthusiasm” (517). The enthusiasm to include technology in writing center practice must be accompanied by careful thought about its effects on tutoring, tutors, tutees, and administration. It seems to me that the Purdue OWL isn’t just a place to find tutorials on grammar, punctuation, etc. Does it also provide synchronous tutoring for papers? That isn’t offered to outsiders, is it?

f2f

The excerpt on page 487 about the student and tutor in an asynchronous conversation about a paper when they were only a room apart – one in the tutoring lab and one in an adjacent writing lab – reveals much about what the student thought was valuable: fixing parts of the paper s/he thought needed fixing instead of also conversing about audience and development. The student failed to realize the importance of those 2 aspects in writing a good paper. It also reminded me of Nelson’s policy to let the student decide what to work on in a piece of writing. Here the student knew what s/he wanted to work on but didn’t see the relevance of the peripheral learning that would have occurred in the f2f conversation with the tutor.

Online and OWLS

The dichotomy seems quite evident between the writing center and OWLs but not between writing center tutoring and online writing center tutoring, but Hobson seemed to put them in the same category – online – without making a good distinction between the divergence of theory and pedagogy.

Evaluating Information

Peter Carino says Irene Clark's belief in the necessity of discerning "the relative merit of one source over another" (qtd. 307) has important implications for tutors, who should model more than one "correct" method of researching. Carino says the ability to evaluate sources will "become crucial with the availability of unregulated internet sources of information" (507). I agree, but this task becomes more complicated each day and we can't always assume the tutors--and even instructors--have all the answers. The Internet is so chaotic and the sources of information--not all of it legitimate--expanding so quickly, that it's difficult for anyone to negotiate it all, much less be able to accurately evaluate it all. The danger of not being able to evaluate it all is what makes it so important to keep working at it.

The Future is Now

Carino's 1998 prediction that the world wide web might "continue to replicate our culture with cyber shopping malls, infotainment, virtual spaces for socializing...more than it will provide scholarly information" (516) has come true. Anyone who has taught in an electronic classroom knows the allure of the distractions available in just a few keystrokes.

How teens use language in technology, writing

This report from the PEW Institute is fascinating in its examination of how teens use language in social technology and how it influences their attitudes about writing for school. The report was done in April and relates to our readings this week. The summary: "Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them."

Off-campus online tutors

H&P's discussion of tutors online (538) inspired a couple of questions. Are some tutors better f2f and others better online? Is tutoring online something done off-site from the WC? Might this open up tutoring opportunities to students who might not otherwise work for the WC, perhaps because of conflicts with classes or work, or because some physical attribute makes working onsite difficult?

Men and Women online

Carino mentioned Selfe and Meyer's 1991 study that found that men dominate online talk (510). While a minor point in his article, I'm wondering if that is still true today. I'm wondering if there have been any recent studies that examine the differences between how men and women use online technologies in the writing center. For example, do more men use instant messenger to get help from online tutors? Do women prefer to tutor online more so than men?

Purdue's OWL

As I was reading these articles this weekend, I couldn't but think about Purdue's OWL each time the texts mentioned an OWL. Carino writes "my fear is rather that such a center will become the benchmark for judging others and the desired norm in contexts where it may not be as appropriate" (513). While he was not speaking of Purdue's OWL, I couldn't help think that in some way Purdue's OWL has become a benchmark in which all other OWLs compare themselves to. What would be the point of creating a website for a writing center (other than to let students on campus know where to find the writing center and perhaps give email info.) if Purdue already contains so much?

OWLs as marketing, recruiting

Harris and Pemberton's discussion of how an OWL fits in with the institutional mission (534) got me thinking about whether Purdue's OWL, for example, works as a recruiting tool for students and maybe even faculty. It is so well-known and widely used by students outside of Purdue that I wonder if repeated exposure to it doesn't influence a high school student's consideration of the college. It also made me wonder how our Writing Center fits with BSU's commitment to being a wired campus.

Computer Literacy

At a school like Ball State, how often do problems in computer literacy impact the effectiveness of websites or online "stuff"? How about at two year colleges? Community colleges? Bigger campuses?

Throughout these readings I saw the authors worrying about student abilities to understand computers and computer applications. This seems especially true in Harris and Pemberton who have not one, but two sections on the phenomena (531, 537). While I appreciate their concern in the time frame they wrote in, is it still a problem today? If it exists, how can it be remedied? Or can it be remedied at all?

Next from Longman: The Longman Guide to the Horseless Carriage

I understand that it takes time for a book to be published—even when the process does not include copy editing—but it must have been possible to include something more contemporary about the implications of emerging technology in the writing center. The assigned articles model sensible ways to think about the implications of emerging technology in the writing center, but the intervening decade has rendered portions of each article distractingly dated.

I Would Delete This If I Knew How

This is an accidental post.

Some Missing Links?

I found a couple items that might provide more insight to our reading this past week. One is a review of At the Point of Need, which appeared in CCC in May 1992; another is an essay co-authored by Wilson Nelson that appeared in 1998 in the American Educational Research Journal. Although the review was overwhelmingly positive, the reviewer did bring up a concern about the focus on self-directed writing in terms of not demonstrating how these efforts translated into success on "course-assigned writing that was undoubtedly based on the capacity to grapple with challenging academic readings"(Zamel 264). The essay describes the difficulties qualitative researchers have had to face in having their work recognized as legitimate by institutions more familiar with and more trusting of quantitative research.

As I mentioned yesterday, I think it is strange that Nelson uses student success in the classroom as a way to demonstrate the efficacy of the WTC. Carmen’s 92 on a Russian History paper is a typical example. It seems that when a student struggles to meet the expectations of writing in the classroom it reflects poor teaching by the classroom instructor, but when a student succeeds classroom practice seems to be tacitly endorsed—or at least no longer worth bothering about. It may be, I suppose, that Nelson is only worried about the harm that composition instructors are inflicting on student writers, but her invective against the hierarchical structure and subtractive evaluation that are typical of universities suggests that she does not believe the problem to be limited to the English department. In her defense it may be worth noting that there is quite a bit of talk about the failures of the WTC tutors. On the other hand, all of their failures turn out not to be failures at all. And interestingly, it seems that when she writes about failures in the WTC those failures are always personified by the students (e.g., “she was ‘one of our failures’”), whereas when she writes about the failures of classroom instructors she names specific deficiencies.

Research Project Proposal

Topic and Motivation:

I will be exploring recruitment of tutors across the curriculum in my project. I think that the diversity of tutors in many writing centers that occurs without recruitment is amazing, but I think that diversity, in background and major focus, could be improved greatly. To this end, I will investigate the best methods of recruitment. I also think that by soliciting suggestions for tutors from academic departments, we can better market the real purposes of the writing center. If we market to teachers and chairs, we can not only get excellent tutors, but we can also get our name and purpose better understood across campus.

Research Questions and Specific Research:

At what level does misunderstanding about WC purposes lie? What are the best methods of tutor recruitment? What are the secondary outcomes of recruitment materials?

I will be doing traditional research into the theory of recruiting and marketing. I may also attempt to investigate how other schools do their recruiting.

What is the format?

I want to make this a conference report that speaks to many schools' ability to implement a plan, but I also want to make some materials for Ball State's program specifically. I think this means that the presentation would present the theory and the method but not the results, which I find a bit problematic. I suppose this set up could lead to a presentation and a possible publication when the results come in.

Questions:

Can my format work? Can I present theory and materials/methods but not results? Is it acceptable?

Problems:

I may not be able to find out what other schools do to market directly at least in this time frame. I think that could limit my findings. I also know that I don't have time to survey what opinions are across campus at this point. I wonder how that would affect my work: if perceptions are already pretty good, then would we need a strong plan to "fix" attitudes through recruitment?

Closing Down

Did anyone else find it mildly disturbing that the center under discussion here was closed before the text was finished? Without the reasons why the center was closed, that act seems to speak volumes about the value of the work done there that I doubt Nelson intended to convey.

Intuition

Again and again Nelson comes back to the idea of "intuition" aiding in the work of the WTC. I noticed this especially in her discussions of Dianna's work with Carmen. Her intuition told her how to help this student progress before the theory in the book was created. I know we have already talked a great deal about how this may simply be a method of making all her data "fit" the theories she created by looking at them. I don't want to belabor that point again.

What I am more interested in is this idea of how intuition works in the writing center. In my reading of Nelson, she attributes much, maybe most, of what tutors do as being intuitive. This seems to be why reflection is needed: to understand what happens "naturally." I agree that some of the work done in the WC is intuitive. You sometimes have to read students quite intuitively to understand what they are not saying or asking for. But I have a problem thinking the balance of the work is intuitive. That seems to negate the training and expertise that tutors develop.

What do we think the role of intuition is in most WC situations?

Nudging Student Breakthrough

Yesterday, Emily asked if it wouldn't be appropriate to nudge students who are close to a breakthrough. Nelson answers that question on page 189: "we can't force or mandate breakthroughs in understanding. . . . We can't even pinpoint with certainty what understanding we need to provide for a particular student at a particular time. But we can provide a context in which better attitudes, behaviors, and products are nurtured, reinforced and supported." I believe in planned incidental training of children at the point of need. That's how they learn right from wrong and how to properly conduct themselves with other people. In fact, I can say that the best teaching times with my children were the times when I zeroed in on their curiosity which of course was aroused by design. But at some point in time (when they go to the institutionalized school) learning become a must activity. Children are evaluated on what they "know" about what they are suppose to learn at that time. Learning is no longer fun and satisfying. Someone else is prescribing what to learn and when to learn it. On the other side of the coin though is another problem: if we just left it up to students to decide what to learn and when to learn it, some students would choose to go fishing instead. Even in graduate school, students have to conform to taking classes they don't really care about, have assignments, must meet deadlines. Learning doesn't happen at the student's pace. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.

Where did the "strengths on which to build" come from?

Given that Wilson Nelson frequently blames WTC students' previous teachers for crushing their writing spirits and "forcing them into a downward spiral" (197) shouldn't those same instructors get at least some credit for the positive things that occurred in the writers' experiences before the WTC: the "strengths on which to build" (208) and "hidden skills" (192) that the WTC's student-lead methods are able to bring out? If the "slope" (204) of Carmen's learning curve was just stretched out further over time, isn't her previous instruction vindicated somewhat (just as her work in the first semester of the WTC is credited) by her eventual success?

Vigotsky's ZPD

I've found the diagram posted at this URL helpful in understanding the zone of proximal development and the recursive loop, as discussed by Wilson Nelson.

Learning from ourselves

One last point that I like about Wilson Nelson's work is the idea of reflective teaching and working in teams. She and the consultants are constantly observing, reflecting on their observations, testing assumptions, and looking for new ways to help their students. Yes, I know it was part of their research and we've found lots of things that bother us and needlessly complicate the work, but I still get a sense of a group of educators who are committed to their students and their field. In a way, it reminds me of our Teaching Circles in the English department, and makes me wish for more of this kind of interaction between instructors and writing center staff.

Certification

As I was reading the last of this book, I kept waiting for Nelson to talk more about how students were certified. Sure enough, she includes figure 8.1 (p. 245) to give us an idea about how students are certified. However, I was still left with some questions. While she mentions that tutors are the ones to decide whether or not students are ready to be certified, she does not talk about how she is included in the process of certification. What is Nelson's involvement in certifying whether or not students are ready? Also, students are there at the center because they scored below the cut-off on a test of Standard English, but Nelson does not talk about how the students are assessed or who does the assessing of this test. I'm assuming someone other than those who work in the center are the ones who are telling the students they did not make the cut-off. It would be interesting to know how these students were assessed as they took the test.

negative cases

Especially after today's conversation, the top line on pg. 257 stuck out as if already highlighted: "(See Nelson, 1988, for negative cases)". Not only did Nelson isolate Carmen's case in her own chapter, but the rest of the negative cases are found in a different publication all together? Maybe that actually means something different, but that's what it seemed like to me. I understand that Carmen's case was long, so having its own chapter made sense for organizational purposes, but the lack of detail everywhere else was more disturbing. We talked a lot about this in class today, so I don't want to be too repetitive, but this was interesting to me. It seems like class discussion seems to predict the next day's reading on a fairly consistent basis!

Word Choices

When Nelson first started using the acronym "WTC" for their center, I knew I was going to have to fight my first reaction to those letters. I have to actively stop myself from reading it as "World Trade Center." I know that she had no idea that choice of letters would ever have such a meaning, but I had to struggle with that reading. Then she started talking about "WTC terrorists" and I had to stop and calm myself down again.

I know this has nothing to do with her actual content, but it made me think about how meanings change, sometimes to something with hugely negative connotations. I wonder how we can be more aware of this in our teaching/tutoring. Should we worry about language that my hurt students because of their personal histories? How do we deal with times when those hurts surface?

Fiction in the WC

After reading about how using fiction helped George, I wondered: can the writing center only be used for class assignments, or can students bring in anything they're working on? Would extra-curricular writing need to be taken to a writing group or club? I think it would be interesting to study further how academic writing could improve by efforts concentrated on something more recreational. I would assume that improvements in one would mean at least marginal improvements in the other, but I can also see a rift in the relationship between creative writing and academic writing.

physician, heal thyself

When I started teaching I consoled myself at the end of each depressing day by telling myself that at least I wasn’t doing any harm. It is probably just as well that I did not know at the time that in addition to hindering my students’ ability to improve I might also cause them to regress as writers.

Good Cop Bad Cop response

Response to Emily's post Good Cop, Bad Cop: Where does blame lie? Certainly not on the director or on the tutor or actually on the administration but shouldn't it lie on the who hasn't taken responsibility for his/her own learning. The buck stops here.

Psychology of War

After reading Chapter 4 in Nelson’s book, I’m beginning to think that tutors and teachers need to have extensive instruction in psychology. Even though she indicates that all it takes is “giving basic writers control of decisions about their work,” practicing patience, and creating safe environments to turn a resistant writer into a good writer, it seems way too simplistic. We just don’t have the luxury of plenty of time to wait for the miracle to happen. When dealing with hostility about being forced to take the “course,” Nelson writes, “Once we saw how often anger interfered with learning, I began to teach coping strategies in the seminar. Relying on anti-terrorist techniques devised by earlier teams and on standard conflict-management approaches, we …” Is anyone else bothered by her term “anti-terrorist”? (117). I’m beginning to feel like I’m in a war zone and in need of a psychologist to help me navigate to avoid being maimed by the explosions.

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Nelson ends Chapter 4 by explaining that her tutors were allowed to use her, the director, as a bad cop, to help tutors direct their students' hostility or blame for being at the WTC and to set up tutors as allies, or good cops, to thier students. While in Nelson's eyes this had several advantages for tutors since they were having difficulty dealing with difficult students, I'm wondering what kind of consquences and disadvantages for both directors and tutors this might have. If I were a director, I'm not so sure that I would want to be the one whom students blamed.

five is right out

Five may be good for small groups, but it is right out in the context of the holy hand grenade.

Empathy

Again and again Nelson returns to this idea that to be effective teachers (at least in her formulation) we must have empathy for the students we work with. Just to make sure I was understanding Nelson correctly, I looked up empathy in the OED: The power of projecting one's personality into (and so fully comprehending) the object of contemplation. Is this a reasonable goal for WC work? For the work of teaching more generally? I think I understand that Nelson wants teachers to think about where the students are coming from and thus helping create lesson plans based on those specific needs. Still, this seems like a huge goal.

Should we always aim for empathy? If not, what should we be aiming for?

Freewriting Prompts?

Because Wilson Nelson seems to champion the idea of freewriting, I was curious that she didn't specify the kinds of prompts used except in a general sense. I think prompts can inhibit students from writing if they aren't specific enough to generate an idea, so it would have been nice to see some of the specific prompts tutors used. Or did I miss something? Also, I wasn't exactly sure how the freewriting was used: How many opportunities for freewriting were there prior to selecting a topic for a particular assignment? Was freewriting sometimes used as a "warm-up" or as a way to generate discussion and create goodwill among group members?

Getting my mind off reading about writing

I'm glad that we've turned to book-length research because I don't know that I would have believed any essayists we've ready so far who suggested that students' writing mechanics improve once they got their mind off structure (seems counter-intuitive but I sure hope it's true), that ESL and basic writers go through basically the same process in developing their writing, and that student writing improves overall when their anxiety about writing is reduced and they write about topics they like (so that's why diagnostic essays are filled with vague generalities and meaningless universal assertions). The latter is especially interesting to me since I am reading an ILLiad version of Nelson and cannot underline or take notes in it, so I've had to "relax" and just read. I found that I enjoyed the reading more and still got the main points (I think). Maybe there is something to this relaxing thing...

Diversity

In At the Point of Need, Nelson notes in her observations that independence emerged and development improved when working with diverse groups of students as opposed to working with groups of students, for example, the same country (66-68). This struck me as interesting since in my preparation for teaching I was told to pair students of similiar abilities together; that it would be unfair for one student to pull all the weight. For example, if students are trying to learn to write in English, wouldn't that place a larger responsibility on the English speaking student to teach the non native speakers English? Would it be fair for the English speaking student, who might perhaps already know, to have to wait until the rest of the group caught up? Nelson talks about how the All-American group was not very motivated and conforming, but perhaps that would be something the tutor could help prevent.

brian's final project proposal

Topic and Motivation

I would like to prepare a document that can serve my administrators as an introduction to writing centers as they decide whether or not to include space for a writing center in their campus plan. It strikes me as likely that these administrators assume that a writing center is a fairly straightforward enterprise, and that if left to themselves they might plan an inadequate—never mind ideal—space. I wonder whether it might also be worthwhile to offer to them an estimate of what it might cost to staff and administrate such a facility in the event it is built.

Research Questions/Methods

How does the physical space available to a writing center impact the kind of writing center that can inhabit that space? Or, perhaps more positively, what kind of space would be ideal for our school?

How much will it cost to staff and administrate such a facility? How should the writing center director’s position be defined? How many tutor hours will be required per semester? How much should tutors be paid? What other costs should be considered?

Format of Project

I think that a document would be a good place to begin—though I can imagine being asked to turn such a document into a presentation at some point.

Questions

Will I have to make decisions about this writing center that will significantly determine its character in years to come?

Should I offer staffing options, or is it best to view this as a proposal that reflects a well-defined vision for this writing center?

Please peer into your crystal ball. Will I, in the event I choose to reveal the existence of this document to my administrators, be in danger of being named writing center director whether I want to be or not? The answer to this question will help me to decide what sort of salary to recommend for the position.

Should I focus on just the space, or should I think about furnishings, staff positions, cost of operation.

Should I present a case for the value of a writing center, or should I just offer this as information that might help them to make decisions.

Should I describe the relationship a center would have to the rest of the university and to the English Department?

Issues and Problems

This seems like a big project. It also seems interesting and useful, of course. Can I finish this project in time?

Is the information I need accessible?

Consider this

All--as you work on your proposals, keep in mind two possible journals for your final projects; both of these publish brief articles.

The first is The Writing Lab Newsletter (http://writinglabnewsletter.org/submission.html). They accept articles that are 2500-3000 words in length. They publish an issue every month, so the rate of acceptance is good.

The second is Praxis (http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/14). It's an online journal, but from what they say (which is a little odd) they only take typical Word-formatted essays. They want articles that are 1000-2000 words in length.

Just Kidding....

I just read the first three chapters of WCD Resource Book for extra credit. >;-)
Now on to my real homework. Sorry you had to experience the confusion in my mind after misreading the syllabus.

safe writing done here--and only here?

At the Point of Need interests and excites me because of the research methods it describes, because it emphasizes peer-group influenced learning, because it makes interacting with ESL students seem less intimidating, and because it emphasizes reflective teaching. I wonder, though, whether it has much to say to writing centers that work with students primarily by appointment or drop-in. As was implied by therapy and master class metaphors, a protracted relationship appears to be an essential part of what Nelson describes.

Mass vs. Individualized Instruction

One thing I think we need to keep in mind when looking back and analyzing/criticizing past methods of writing instruction is that, way back when, people were dealing with less than ideal conditions--just as we still are today. Maybe in some future more enlightened time, people will look back at the turn of the century and wonder how we could have allowed tutors unschooled in theory and lacking in serious credentials to work one-on-one with impressionable, vulnerable writers. Who knows what turns theorizing will take by then, much less what resources will be available or what demands will be made upon students and educational institutions? Especially when I see criticism of a "bad" method, I wonder, where is the evidence? Isn't it possible that "bad" methods might actually work for some people, particularly since we also like to claim that instruction should be individualized? Isn't it also possible that without what Frederic Burk calls "preposterous pedantry" (qtd. in Lerner 4), such as lecture, memorization, and recitation (Lerner 4), that masses of people would have been left with no instruction at all? Writing instructors have always had to balance what would be ideal with what is. Of course, what I'm saying here demonstrates the continued (and continual) need for research of teaching methods to justify writing instruction to all the stakeholders of our society.

Group work

All through the essay, I thought the students had come to the writing center and had been formed into groups. By the end of the reading I was wondering if tutors were brought into the classroom where the teacher had divided the class into writing groups of 5 and had assigned a tutor to each one. Allowing diverse students to be in the same group all semester instead of for a particular paper might work well in a classroom if each group had a tutor. Another observation was that what was being "worked on" had meaning at that moment and was not limited to just developing the writer but also developing the writing. I think a balance is needed.

Backing Off

Brian mentions the problems he has with the conclusions that Kiedaisch and Dinitz. I agree that some of the conclusions are problematic. What I think is more problematic, though, is the backing off from their original claim that generalist tutors are sometimes not enough. Instead of pushing for more research to make their claims more substantial, they claim that the need for non-general tutors is not really that big at all. An anyways, teachers should be doing the work that the non-generalist tutors would be teaching anyways.

When can we just let a claim stand on its own? Why this backing off of something that might be important?

Kiedaisch and Dinitz

The observations made in the Kiedaisch and Dinitz article are, by their own admission, insufficient for drawing conclusions. I am not sure, though, that it is reasonable to assert that the only thing that keeps them from drawing conclusions is their small sample size. And that qualification seems beside the point since they immediately get down to drawing conclusions anyway. They conclude, I am simplifying a bit, that disciplinary knowledge seems to be important but that generalist tutors are good enough. In defense of the generalist tutor they offer three arguments—the first two of which strike me as worth examination. Their first argument in favor of the generalist tutor is that it 70 percent of their sessions are over composition essays written to a general audience. If this is true, it seems to me that 70 percent of their sessions should probably address audience—which might well lead them back to the question of whether a discipline specific tutor is required. Their second defense of the generalist tutor is that students leave their writing center pleased with their experience—and that if they leave satisfied and motivate, they have benefited. This also seems like a highly dubious assertion.

Peer Psychology 101

Is anyone else a little disturbed that Christine Murphy compares the tutor/student relationship to a therapist/client relationship? Is she devaluing psychotherapists or overestimating the ability of peer tutors? After all, therapists need, at minimum, a master's degree and a license to practice. I guess I'm wondering how many peer tutors experience "unconditional positive regard toward the client"and "an understanding of the client's internal frame of reference" (299). It seems a bit much to ask of an undergraduate tutor. As for students, I'm not sure they are the emotional wrecks depicted by the contention that they are in "a state of incongruence, being vulnerable or anxious" (299). It seems to be overstating their dilemma. The main similarity I see relates to the joke about how many psychologists it takes to change a lightbulb: only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change.

Co-learning

Finally, I’m beginning to see that tutees and tutors are truly co-learners; they just aren’t leaning the same things. Learning to interact with and develop another writer takes lots of knowledge and skills beyond knowledge of and skill in writing. Murphy’s article about brining Freud into the writing center makes sense in light of what we discussed in class on Monday. What other instruction does the counseling department offer to tutors?

Writing Center Purpose

Trimbur misuses North’s axiom: North states, “we aim to make better writers, not necessarily – or immediately – better texts (73); Trimbur states, “As Stephen North put it so well, the job of tutoring is to produce better writers, not just better writing” (289). Trimbur is attributing an outcome for writing center tutors that North did not indicate: student writing will be improved.

Successful Tutoring Sessions

Kiedaisch and Dinitz’s discussion about the limitations of the generalist tutor interestingly resembles the discussion in ENG 693: successful writing must conform to that discipline’s expectations. Even though the tutees’ evaluations of the sessions were positive, professionals in the field regarded them differently. Since students are being evaluated by the professionals, in my opinion, the professionals’ opinions carry more weight. The authors of this article seem to think that “if students leave satisfied and motivated, they have benefitted. A session that is less than it could be is not by definition a bad session” (270). I disagree. While the profession says that the process is more important, its practice makes the product most important. I do agree with Kiedaisch and Dinitz that tutors in the writing center should not “[shoulder] the responsibility for showing students how to think and write in the disciplines” (270).

Research Proposal

Michele Scott
Dr. Grutsch McKinney
ENG 690 WCA Research Paper
May 19, 2008

Topic: Writing Centers + Residence Halls

Motivation: If a main problem with writing centers is miscommunication through advertising, it seems beneficial to educate students correctly about the center before they have a chance to hear otherwise. Since Ball State requires freshman (save commuters) to live on campus, starting in the Residence Halls seems perfect. By providing pre-made bulletin boards and programs to Resident Assistants, a new angle is added to the marketing strategies of the Writing Center. Not only would the presence in the Halls be valuable, but costs would be minimal after the initial fees to create reusable products.

Research Questions:
-Where do the philosophies and goals of Writing Centers and Residences overlap?
-How can both institutions work together to better accomplish these goals?

Research Sources:

-academic articles; especially those mentioning need for “community,” “comfort,” or a major emphasis on marketing practices
-primary examples; other universities with Residence Hall programs, and what these programs entail
-Residence Hall research/ community ideals and plans/ goals
-samples from previous marketing campaigns

Format:
Presentation – ?
End product – packet of samples, 5-7 page written explanation

Issues/Problems:

-deciding on a format for the presentation

Questions for Dr. McKinney:
Are there any Universities specifically known for similar programs or practices?

Training Tutors

I located two articles one by North "Training Tutors to Talk about Writing" and one by Bruffee
"Training and Using Peer Tutors" both of which were referenced in Trimbur's artical "Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms?" Is Trimbur suggesting a sequencing of elements from both the apprentice and co-learner models relative to the experience and development of individual tutors? He seems to be saying 1. Bruffee – new tutors need to learn to become collaborative learners – deals with “expectations and definitions of their activity as tutors” “concrete and practical experience co-learning” which will lead to confidence; 2. As they become more experienced, they need composition theory and pedagogy according to tutors’ interests and purposes. Won’t this create more of a crisis between the tutor/peer concepts?

Generalist tutoring

I was not convinced (and a little disappointed) in Dinitz and Kiedaisch’s study. At the beginning of the article, I thought they were going to do a study of tutors who had no prior knowledge of the discipline in which the tutees were writing in. Yet, for their study, they choose the discipline of literature. While I think that literature does have certain conventions that undergrads might not know, I’m willing to bet that everyone at least at some point in their life has studied literature. When I was reading their article, I was expecting Dinitz and Kiedaisch to study a different discipline, one which not everyone has had experience with. For example, what would the study show had the tutees been writing in the field of engineering? Would someone who had experience writing in the engineering field react in the same way as Joanne does by taking over the student’s paper? While this might be a little nit picky, I think their argument would have been more convincing had they chosen a different discipline. Moreover, I was not convinced when Dinitz and Kiedaisch say at the beginning of the article that “what we saw led us to conclude that the ‘ignorant’ or generalist tutor sometimes has limitations” (261) and then in the end include the customary disclaimer, “We know we can’t reach conclusions based on this small number of cases, but in the sessions we looked at, the tutor’s knowledge of how to think and write in the discipline did seem important.” (269)

Therapy and Writing

I think the therapy metaphor for writing and writing centers has been one of my favorites so far, at least from a broad perspective. In therapy, one of the most common suggestions in a one-on-one setting is to add group sessions to the schedule; not to replace but to add. The insights from those dealing with similar issues can be more valuable that the "experts," if only because it is better received by those needing or wanting help. Adding some type of writing group to the writing center's work would be an interesting dynamic. This might better incorporate all the competing philosophies surrounding writing centers, without having to sacrifice any completely. It also allows the various strategies to enhance the positives and compensate for the holes that each theory inevitably has.

Misleading Comparison

I really appreciate Shamoon and Burns discussing alternative means of tutoring. I am actually working on a project that explores what composition pedagogy can learn from musical voice pedagogy. Still, I feel like the comparisons that they are making are not quite sound. They do a good job of describing the music/art studio and of explaining how learning happens through imitation there (231-2). They also do a good job of discussing how they have learned well through directive "tutoring" from faculty on their own writings (228-30). Finally, I appreciate their discussion of Harris' work with "Mike" that follows a different pattern than traditional tutoring (235). I don't think that these are three like examples, though. I can see the similarities between the two. The "student" has produced something that the "teacher" goes in a creates a stronger version of. The "student" ultimately takes on some of those suggestions and leaves with a stronger piece of writing/music/art etc as well as a stronger understanding of his/her medium. With Harris' example, though, the student is learning a way of approaching a writing situation. I think that is the difference that Shamoon and Burns are failing to see. Learning an approach is from imitation or emulation is very different than having a work strongly critiqued. Beginning writers may very well need that emulation, but it is of a different sort than that seen in the studio model they support. I feel like they make an interesting argument on comparisons that are not quite sound.

Worst Case? Really?

The scenario that Brooks disparages at the beginning of “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work” is, it appears, the kind of directive tutoring that Shamoon and Burns advocate in “A Critique of Pure Tutoring.” Brooks appears to believe that no knowledge has been produced—and that while the student’s paper has been improved the student is unchanged. Bruffee, Shamoon, and Burns, however, suggest that what this student may have received—in addition to an improved essay—is insight into the normal discourse of the discipline for which she is writing. That makes sense, but I wonder whether there is something wrong with Brooks’ scenario. Does it matter whether or not the student recognizes that her essay has been “normalized” to meet the requirements of a specific rhetorical situation? There are other ways for a student to interpret what her tutor has done, after all. Does it matter whether or not the student recognizes that knowledge is socially constructed and that her willingness to cede power to her tutor has epistemological implications? This scenario could, after all, reinforce her belief that knowledge has an independent existence and is transferred rather than socially constructed—and that the normalized discourse of a discipline need not be interrogated. Brooks’ depiction of this scenario as a writing center worst case scenario makes me think that he is a bit of a gloomy Gus, but I am not sure that what he describes here is ideal.

Research Proposal: A Marketing Program

1. Topic and Motivation: Since I’m an outsider (what I’ve always been as a copywriter on any project) it makes sense for me to approach this project as a Marketing program for a Writing Center. I can’t pretend to offer advice about what I haven’t experienced either as a student or tutor, but I can take an approach more familiar to me, which is to listen to what insiders have to say about themselves, their product/service, and who they think their audience is.

2. Research Questions and Methods: There is no one-size-fits-all approach to a marketing program for a “type” of institution, so I’ll have to focus specifically on the needs of a particular Writing Center, which, in this case, would be Ball State’s Writing Center. My first task would be to determine what the Writing Center’s goals are and where a marketing program can possibly help based on constraints, such as budget and time. I would need to know what marketing materials are currently in place, what seems to be working and what doesn’t, and what facts and figures are available to illustrate that. What, specifically, does the Writing Center want to accomplish? Some results might be measurable (increased number of visitors), while other results might be less tangible (improved reputation). My next task would be to understand the Writing Center’s mission in order to articulate an effective message. Would teachers and students be marketed to using the same materials—or are different messages required? What can a student reasonably expect to gain from a Writing Center visit? If the Writing Center has any competition (Learning Center?), is there a way to differentiate itself? What kind of language should be emphasized, and what kind of language should be de-emphasized or avoided? What are the demographics of the target audience, both teachers and students? Are any students or tutors willing to provide testimonials? In addition to getting the answers to some of these questions, I can start researching other university Writing Centers online to determine how they are marketing themselves, particularly universities with similar demographics and stated objectives. This not only helps to generate ideas but to be aware that “fresh” ideas might turn out to be stale—not necessarily a bad thing if stale, i.e., commonplace, is what works. I also plan to research scholarly articles to find out what I can about what has worked or not worked for other Writing Centers.

3. Format of Project: This project would most likely take the form of a written proposal with speculative creative work in rough drafts (scripts, storyboards, thumbnail sketches, etc.). I would present these in handouts and some kind of visual presentation.

4. Questions Now: Are you available for interviews? An important consideration for me is to understand exactly how the Writing Center wants others to view its purpose so that I can accurately communicate this to the target audiences. There is nothing worse than prospects perceiving that the Writing Center is selling “A,” when it is actually selling “B.” Those who show up for “A” will be disappointed; those who want “B” won’t show up at all. Another question is whether I should visit the Writing Center myself to get help on a paper to find out how the process works and to get a general feel for the atmosphere. Other questions are related to perceived goals: 1. Increase in use: How many students could the Writing Center handle versus how many actually use the services now? Are there space/hiring restrictions that would prohibit growth at this time? 2. Increased goodwill: How is the Writing Center perceived on campus by students, teachers, administrators? Is there a lack of awareness? Confusion about its purpose? Any particularly positive or negative attitudes?

5. Issues and Problems: Time is going to be an issue, but that’s a given. I should be able to access most of the information I need. I anticipate problems because I’m under the jurisdiction of Murphy’s Law, but the nature of those problems is unknown at this point.

What Do You Want?

In "A Critique of Pure Tutoring," Linda K. Shamoon and Deborah H. Burns echo the words many of us have heard from our students: "What do you want?" Although we say we want students to invent it or figure it out for themselves what they need to say, in reality, we do have certain expectations. This was also brought home to me in the reading for English 693, Richard McNabb's "Making the Gesture: Graduate Student Submissions and the Expectation of Journal Referees." If we, as graduate students, have difficulty entering the academic conversation because we are not aware of or don't pick up on the "rules," then how can we expect undergraduates to figure it out on their own? I think if we aren't explicit in some ways about what is expected, we increase resistance in students, who get frustrated with "trying to nail Jello to the wall." By the way, in my experience (oops, not scholarly enough), that was a common expression among those of us in collaborative work groups when we were asked to be "creative" without any substantial direction. The more open-mined the client claimed to be, the more that client had something specific in mind that he/she figured we would figure out through osmosis. We would spend a lot of wasted time spinning our wheels or reinventing wheels, when what we could have used was the template the client expected us to use all along, but kept hidden from us. Writing is difficult enough without throwing up those kinds of barriers. It's also insulting: You invite people to a garden party dinner, assure them that the other guests are friendly, tell them to be themselves, and then criticize their table manners and attempts at conversation. Give them the etiquette book before the event and warn them about the snakes in the grass!

Non directive and Directive Tutoring

While Brooks and Shamoon/Burns differ in their peer tutoring activities – non-directive and directive – and while both activities are beneficial to writers, effective peer tutor training, as Bruffee suggests, is essential if peers participate in both non-directive and directive activities. One of the ways I use to instruct my students in writing is to rewrite a paragraph from an essay that exhibits language, unity, and coherence problems. Afterward, I put them in groups to rewrite other paragraphs in the essay; the rewrites are analyzed and discussed. I have found that many of my students really don’t know how to write coherently using academic language and need to see how to do it and what it looks like. Having examples help, but doing solidifies the learning. I am one of those learners who needs examples of what is wanted instead of just receiving instructions outlining it. Should peer tutors help a student rewrite a sentence to make it more concise? I think that practice is sometimes needed; however, the tutee should be asked to locate and rewrite other wordy sentences because doing is learning. Then both the writer and the writing would be made better.

Conversation Thought Writing

Bruffee has described my writing process. The public social talk refers to the authors I consult who have previously written on my topic and the conversations I have with others about what I have been reading. What I hear becomes an internalized conversation. What I write makes the conversations public again. What is interesting about this process is that the sometimes I seek out people who really don’t need to know anything about my topic. All I need is a listening ear; as I talk, I work out what I want to say. Other times though I seek out someone who is an “expert” to help me see how I fit into the existing academic conversation.

Research Rationale

1) Topic and Motivation: My time as a tutor was a great learning experience that definitely prepared me for teaching writing. Therefore, I’m going to write a conference paper on how the knowledge I have gained working as a tutor in a Writing Center translates for me most effectively into the one-to-one conferences I have with my students as a writing instructor. However, while I find one-to-one conferences with my students to be most like my experience working in the Writing Center, I would also like to talk about how my experience helped me to teach students the difference between revision and editing. Often students enter the first year writing classroom without a clear idea of either process. During in and out of class activities and lectures throughout the semester, students in my class work to define for themselves what it means to revise and to edit. These activities and lectures were specifically designed because of my training and experience as a tutor.

2) To research this, I will examine academic books and articles that articulate the connectedness between tutoring writing and teaching writing. Particularly, I will research texts that relate to teaching revision and editing strategies. I will try to answer questions such as: what are the best practices in the writing center that can be applied to teaching writing, specifically in one-to-one conferences and in revising/editing essays? In what ways do writing center theories/texts offer teachers of writing ways of engaging students in the classroom? I will also examine my own practices in order to show my own connections. If I have time, I might talk with other instructors, particularly grad students who were trained in the writing center and who have had similar experiences.

3) The final product will be an 8-10 page conference paper, which I will present to the class.

4) Questions for you: Is there anyway to search The Writing Center Journal without subscribing? I can’t remember if or which article we read that mentioned another article about the position graduate students are put in since they are tutors, students, and teachers. Does anyone remember this article?

5) Problems: Since this is a conversation that has been going on for a long time, I think it will be hard to read and analyze everything that has been said before. However, I’m hoping that by relating it to my own experience, I’ll be able to say something that is unique.

Cognitive learning and textbook/handbook design

Similar to Carter, who Shamoon and Burns mention, composition researcher and theorist Janet Emig talks about how cognitive learning and our mastery of language progresses from novice to expert. These ideas got me thinking about the cognitive levels of readers, and wondering if the trend toward more graphically driven textbooks for undergraduates isn’t actually reinforcing the textbook’s demise. It’s not only the ideas about writing that are more simple in freshman composition textbooks, the language and formatting of these ideas is also more graphically driven with shorter sentences and paragraphs, extensive use of headings , call-out boxes, numbering, tabbing, etc. Graduate student texts I’ve seen rarely look anything like textbooks, but are just big gray boxes. In fact, graduate texts that make too much use of graphics might imply to the reader that the content is too “elementary” (S&H, for example, has lots of points that could be enhanced graphically, like the five practices discussed on 227-228 and the three research strands on 233-234, but the writers chose not to). While textbook publishers might see the use of graphic devices as a way to make information more accessible, does it also make the text seem more directive and authoritative (Look here! This is important! Don’t forget this!), and therefore less valuable to their level of cognitive learning? How does this reflect on writing handbooks like Faigley’s or Hacker? Or are they more of a reference that needs to have the ability of quick access?

The editor in me notices typos

Okay, I’ll sacrifice myself on the altar of editing. I’m amazed by the amount of typos in this anthology. Of the 15 essays we’ve read, I’ve noticed at least five typos – mostly SpellCheck-type errors like the one on page 228 “chanced” versus “changed.” It doesn’t make me question the validity of the content, just the expertise of the copyeditor. Still, why would it horrify me if I was one of the contributors to see a typo in my essay? When I was advising a student newspaper at a college in Michigan, an administrator member had a hissy because a typo appeared in an article she authored and was published in the paper. It was the editor's error and we noted that in our next edition and corrected it on the online version of the paper, but she insisted the article was "ruined" for use in her vitae. Why do we take typos in our work so personally? Is it just a social construction that typos or other mechanical errors make the writer look unprofessional, sloppy or stupid? Or is that just an anal attitude of some people? I've often told my students that mechanical errors can get in the way of their meaning because some readers will hold the mistakes against them, but I wonder if I'm just propagating that attitude.

Shamoon and Burns

When I read Shamoon and Burns’ story about the master’s thesis, I was reminded of the story Michele talked about in class on Friday. If I recall, correctly, Michele said that her friend needed someone to show her exactly how to use a comma. It wasn’t that she was a bad student, but that she had never been taught in a way like Shamoon and Burns describe. These authors seem to think that imitation is a good way for some writers to learn. When I read this, I was reminded of Quintilian and what he says about imitation in Insitutes of Oratory. He writes in Book 2, Chapter 4, “It will also be of service too, at times, for the master to dictate whole subjects himself which the pupil may imitate and admire for the present as his own.” But, if imitation of expert writing does help students write, what constitutes expert writing? Would we be placing a value on certain kinds of writing and excluding others? Would we fall into the trap of creating a canon?

Mom + Pop vs. WalMart... and Writing Centers

The bulk of today's conversation seemed like the argument that people make against major corporations (the Wal Marts of the world) versus the Mom + Pop stores that you rarely see anymore. And yes, people miss elements of the old, but our world has changed, and it has different needs now. Similarly, if writing centers are going to keep their places in the University (regardless of what form that takes), there is going to definitely need to be new elements added. Without research and theory to support writing centers, it would be very easy for sudden cuts to be made, and the writing centers take the hit. At least if there is theory in place, arguments can be made in defense or better yet, before it even comes to that.