Rachel Gets Lost in Baltimore: Part 2

by: Rachel Olsen

THE IDEA OF THE WRITING CONSULTANT 

"The expectations students and faculty
have for writing consultants are high,
 and it is important for consultants to
have a strong understanding of their
role in academic support . . ."

My first blog post about the IWCA conference was about how we define students in writing centers.

Today I want to focus on issues surrounding the writing consultant.

The expectations students and faculty have for writing consultants are high, and it is important for consultants to have a strong understanding of their role in academic support and why that role is valuable.

As I made the rounds each day of the conference, I tried to attend a fair number of sessions centering on professional development for consultants/tutors.

Those who do writing center and tutoring work still believe that tutors not only put theory into practice, but also turn practice into theory, and this tenet was at work in Baltimore.

Rachel Gets Lost in Baltimore: Musings on the 2010 IWCA-NCPTW Conference

by: Rachel Olsen

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.