by: Rachel Olsen
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Rachel Olsen is the supervisor at OCCC's Communications Lab |
Hello readers!
I attended the 2010 IWCA-NCPTW conference in Baltimore last month, and I'd like to share my thoughts.
This conference is a gathering of writing center administrators, teachers, and writing consultants.
I had a great time connecting with fellow writing center colleagues, plus the keynote talk given by Andrea Lunsford was phenomenal!
If you have not read her 1991 article, “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center,” it is a must-read for writing consultants and lab assistants.
Conference obligations notwithstanding, I even made time for a scrumptious brunch, a mini-trip to a local museum, and a reunion with some of my former writing center colleagues at Kansas State University.
Anyhoo, I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to distill all of the information I took away from my conference experience, and I have come up with three overall areas on which to focus.
Since I am also getting more and more long-winded as I age, I am going to break my conference reflection into a series of somewhat bite-size segments (Take note, gentle reader! This means I really want you to read what I wrote and chat with me about it.)
Admittedly “Northian” in their origins, I decided that the central ideas are the ideas we use to conceive of the student, the writing consultant, and assessment.
THE IDEA OF THE STUDENT
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| The 2010 International Writing Center Conference was held in Baltimore, MD, at the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel. Pictured above is the Walters Art Museum |
The ideas that make up the student in the minds of writing center staff are at the heart of writing center theory and practice.
At the conference, there were all sorts of discussions about the advanced writing student, the developmental student, the ESL student, the resistant student, the needy student, the confident student, the oppressed student, the student as tutor, the student as collaborator, the student as research subject, the student as writing center evaluator…I could go on for ages!
And don’t get me wrong, it is truly exciting to absorb so much thought about how to serve students, as well as how to understand them as subjects, but these examinations beg the question: in order to best serve students, how should we understand students as subjects?
One group of presenters did a series of demonstrations on reading body language in a tutoring session, and another group presented papers about marginalized student identities in the writing center.
John Chapin, writing center director at the University of Baltimore, has designed an online writing lab with his students’ needs and preferences in mind.
For instance, Chapin did not want to use Microsoft Word’s revision balloons because students can accept changes automatically without doing their own revision work.
So, Chapin devised a color coded editing system that is easy for students to understand, and it requires students to process online tutoring feedback and make revisions independently.
It is clear that, overall, writing centers and other tutoring labs are deeply invested in understanding student identities as they tailor programs and tutoring strategies.
Conversely, I think it is easy to let these pre-conceived ideas hijack our tutoring sessions and other interactions with students.
Therefore, how do we sometimes check these ideas at the door?
For example, Sam Van Horne from the University of Iowa shared compelling data making the case for students to read their own papers to consultants based on research outcomes that suggest the reader of the writing is more invested in the session.
Van Horne’s findings call on consultants to have high expectations for student engagement and participation, a charge that is often difficult to facilitate when students seem unsure about how to talk about their writing or identify areas needing improvement.
Finally, I attended a fantastic workshop that asked participants to challenge basic assumptions about writing centers.
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| "These sessions all suggest that the concept of a student should be fluid, but at the same time, writing center staff should be able to articulate who students are at their institution." |
In the course of the conversation, many participants questioned the wisdom of quick denials of proofreading activity in the center.
Perhaps students don’t necessarily need to understand the difference between higher and lower order concerns; they need to feel as though they received substantial writing help, and for them, that higher order help may be termed proofreading.
These sessions all suggest that the concept of a student should be fluid, but at the same time, writing center staff should be able to articulate who students are at their institution.
If any Complete Thought readers would like to tackle these questions, don‘t be shy, post a comment!
In the Comm. Lab, we interact with all of these ideas of students. How can we take calculated, creative risks in our tutoring that energize Comm. Lab clients?
What is your “idea of a student?”
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