The Writing Center Journal is back on line and 23.1 is available article by article or in its entirety.
http://136.165.114.52/wcj23.1/wcj23.1.html
Take a look, too at the blog (most recent post is about tutoring so of interest to Katie). In fact maybe this is a good opportunity to explore the blog as an important resource.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Writing Center Journal
Posted by Susan Romano at 9:32 AM
Labels: Writing Center Journal
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14 comments:
Regarding the blog: When I first visited the WCJ blog, I was excited by the idea of it. I thought it was a great alternative to listservs, which I find difficult to sift through. My excitement lasted until I saw the date (year?) of the last post: 2005. I'd really like to know what happened--perhaps because the WCJ is a print journal, it's more difficult to take it online? When you're reading online, perhaps it's a lot easier to just click on a link and follow along to the blog...Maybe that's one of the benefits to having an online version of a journal?
Deleted posts...it's been a long day, and I somehow managed to post my first comment multiple times--not in duplicate, but fourfold. Sorry about all the deleted posts.
"Writing Center Users Procrastinate Less": I was interested in this article because I consider publishable research findings that bring something new to the conversation. In this case, the study tests and confirms commonly held beliefs. Although the premise is not groundbreaking, the authors offer a worthwhile discussion of the implications of their findings. Of particular interest is the discussion of how the findings would be relevant to writing center administrators in the current climate of assessment. Another implication of this study was a sort of encouragement for writing center tutors: although tutors may feel like they are constrained by students' lack of planning ahead, students benefit from the presence of the writing center.
In terms of research and evidence, students assessed themselves according to a research instrument for this study. These students rated their own performance.
Toward the end of this article, the authors did add to the conversation. In comparing writing center appointments to other administrative/bureaucratic tasks, we have the opportunity to consider the physical space of the writing center and the ways in which the writing center has the same "feel" as other bureaucratic tasks.
This piece seems very report-like in format. It lays out the authors' hypothesis, methods, findings, and implications. Interestingly, this formality is tempered by conversational headings (i.e. "What We Did" rather than "Methods"). This approach seems in consistent with the conversational tone that the WCJ tends to foster in contributors.
I was particularly interested in this journal because I have been part of the Writing Center community for the past three years. I worked two years at the Texas State Writing Center and the past year in the UNM Dept of Education Graduate Center. Since I teach English 101 and 102 classes as well, it's easy for me to connect the benefits of a writing center to the quality of student work.
The article on procrastination was interesting primarily for the research statistics associated with it. It seems to make logical sense that any student who completes an essay in time to have it reviewed by a writing center and then have the opportunity to rewrite it is likely not a procrastinating student. It's good to see the research numbers though because I can use them in support of funding and expansion of our writing center.
The article I was most interested in, however, was the one on tutoring non-native English speakers. This is a conversation that I've been following since I started working in Writing Centers since half, or more, of the students who come into a writing center fall in this category. Considering that NNES student make up less than 5% of the overall student population, it is a somewhat skewed statistic. It also ties into the article about procrastination among students. Based on the actual numbers, one could argue that NNES students are less likely to procrastinate than Native English speaking students. At the same time, the NNES students also need the most help, so I'm not sure the analogy holds.
Most importantly, I'm happy that the author takes on the conventional wisdom that tutors should not focus on surface mechanics for writing students. I cannot emphasize enough my objection to that philosophy. Grammar, Punctuation, structure, etc. are the bases or our language. How can anyone construct a solid essay without a solid foundation for the language. Voice, style, illustration and explication are the meat of an essay, but focusing on those topics to the exclusion of mechanics does such a disservice to our students that I believe Writing Centers who employ that philosophy do more harm than good in their overall support of a University. I've tutored literally hundreds of NNES students, and while I do help them with the top-level issues, I also carefully mark and discuss mechanical issues, and they are always grateful for the direction and help. These students desire to learn our symantics and structure and are often frustrated that other tutors are unwilling or unable to help them with those issues.
In checking out the more recent journal sites, I wasn't really expecting to become so engaged with the WCJ site. I ended up pulling two articles, one by Susan Blau & John Hall regarding the tutoring of non-native English speaking students and another article by Twila Yates Papay about a South African Writing Center. In attending the University of Denver (2006), part of my TAship consisted of working at their brand new writing center. Despite the ridiculous administrative process, my experiences working with NNES or ESL students was phenomenal. I think one of the most important comments in the first mentioned article has to do with valuing cultural differences and seriously considering this when we work with these types of students. Getting to know more of the cultural "mores" of the students that I worked with helped make my experience in the writing center very valuable and worthwhile. While at times I admit it did get frustrating, I also find myself agreeing with the authors' suggestion of addressing clarity and sentence line-by-line
for a portion of the paper to make good sense. These students need to be made aware of these areas, but also made aware that writing tutors are not editors. Robert Kaplan' article "Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercultural Education" is definitely a piece that I would like to research in learning more about this particular group of students. Overall, I enjoyed the site and will definitely refer to it in the future for issues related to ways that we can help our ALL of our students.
I also found the Procrastination article interesting. My first thought was to share this with my students. I sent them a link but only a couple students looked at it. I did give them the highlight in class and though they did give me the glazed over look, at least a few of them were interested.
My second thought was why was such a important issue, procrastination, only brough up in the WC journal? I thought it could be easily applicable to a wider audience. I found the study very detailed. I was impressed by the questionnaires, detailed rubrics, methods of assessment and the anxiety inventory. It seemed to be almost scientific in nature. But the second half, the analysis was not as impressive and I found the graphs difficult to interpret. Their suggestion at the end did address some of the concerns.
Like Greg, I had many comments on te Guilt-Free tutoring article.
I liked that they started with the quotes from NNES and NES students.
One question I had, why did they label the students who were learning English as non-native english speakers? Why did they not use ESL (English as a Second Language) or ELL (English Language Learners)? I know its a silly point, but I did not understand the need for the new acronym. I did google this and maybe NNES is the 'new' way of identifying them.
I think when they began with the teachers' (writing center tutors) guilt and frustration. This seems to fit, and compelling to TAs, WCs, tutors, and anyone teaching writing to NNES students. This was presented as a wide problem- somewhat universal.
I liked that they addressed various myths about teaching NNES student. I think it is good to look at what misconceptions in thinking and challenging these misconceptions (especially when they are presented in books about how to teach NNES).
It seemed that the study was a meta-study of sorts, they compiled lots of 'data'-- anecdotes, student text, conversations with students/tutors, books, etc.
I also liked their implications and the in-depth description of how TAs/tutors should approach teaching NNES students. The things that most struck me:
spend time informing on culture.
Overall comments on WCJ:
I liked that it was online, very inline with the times, a bit like Kairos.
I thought it was interesting that the statement of purpose/mission statment was right up front. I felt it would remind the reader/submitter about the mission and what to expect in the issue.
They used a wide variety of methods in this issue: narrative, case study, personal experience, use of student/ WC quote.
Articles were mid-length, 15-20 pages each and relevant to WCs and very practical in nature.
I think out of all the articles, one that can model what to do for my article seemed to be the Collaborating with Difference article. Intially, there is a quote, unlike a quote from a student or others, it is one that describes the nature of the scholarship in collaboration in writing centers. She brings up the contact and comfort zone issue and how that comes into play in various cultures.
I liked her metaphor, comparing the writing center to a 'safe house.' And a place that 'welcomes diversity.' She points out the universal needs of writing centers: funding, printing costs, language barriers, etc. She also says that collaboration is key- and they do it quite well (between tutors and even between students). And the denial of priviledge that is prevalent in writing centers in America, she did not see this problem as much in Africa.
She also mentions key players in the contact/comfort zone idea, Pratt and North. She has a strong problem statement and follows through with her own personal narrative throughout. The problem statement seems to point out universal problems in funding and the inherent power struggle (priviledge). Writing centers are not valued and therefore not funded because the people who use them are traditionally not in the priviledge.
She describes the situation in Africa in-depth. For her methods she records her own thoughts, interviews, meetings, and anecdotes/dialogues with students.
Although I'm not as vested in this journal because the subject matter doesn't fall within my area of research interest, I do work at CAPS so I am interested in tutoring.
This journal seems less formal to me compared to others we examined as it seems primarily focused on practice (which would be expected given the journal's focus) with much less emphasis on theory. There also didn't seem to be much a lit review (name dropping)--really setting the stage to make the argument as jumping right in to the subject matter.
I also found the content fairly accessible. The 'guilt-free' tutoring was especially interesting because working with NNES students (what we would probably refer to as ESL) is something we (the tutors I've worked with at CAPS) always struggle with so I appreciated the discussion here. I also appreciated the international perspective—-a South African Writing Center and the contact zone (a la Pratt) so I appreciated the approach used in exploring the problems presented in these articles.
Given the title, it’s no surprise that the purpose of this journal is to publish articles, reviews, and announcements of interest to people who work in and administer writing centers. The journal does not limit its audience to the university level—topics related to junior high and high school writing centers are also invited. The submission guidelines specifically request theoretical articles and reports of research.
One of the things I find interesting about this set of articles is that many of the authors use some sort of narrative, metadiscourse to describe what they were doing and thinking as they wrote their articles.
In Meg Carroll’s brief review of Tutoring Writing: A Practical Guide for Conferences, she mentions a point that I find relevant to a lot of what we do in teaching and tutoring writing: Carroll says that because tutoring is complex, preparing for tutoring is complex and fluid as well, which means that it’s difficult to stick with one tutor training text for very long. I find that I’m often looking for the “solution,” as if there were one simple answer to “fix” FYC programs. If we would all just go back to teaching via imitation, practice, and theory (i.e., the progymnasmata), all students would magically be transformed into Aristotles and Platos. Well, maybe not Platos... But it’s good to be reminded that there is no one thing that will work for every program or every student.
In “Writing Center Users Procrastinate Less,” Beth Rapp Young and Barbara A. Fritzsche present the results of a study that proves the truth in their title. The whole article is set up rather scientifically, with sections on introduction/background, their hypotheses, description of methodology, discussion of results (which included statistics and graphs), and a synthesis/analysis of their results. The whole article is written in a format that bears a striking resemblance to the analytical report format that I teach in technical writing. Ironically, it hadn’t occurred to me to use any of the formats that I teach as a frame for my article—obviously, I’m not writing an analytical report this time, but it’s worth keeping in mind for future articles.
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