Confusion about the assignment

When reading sample transcripts of sessions with ESL students, we were struck by the difference in how we talk about the assignment. Most native speakers come in and state the assign-ment in a reasonably concise, clear manner (“I’m writing a memoir/film review/feature article/English paper.”), but ESL students often struggle to ex-plain the assignment to the tutor.

In several transcripts of sessions with ESL students, the tutor had to work hard to pin down the assignment, often asking several questions before elicit-ing a clear explanation of the assign-ment. In some cases, even after several questions, the tutor did not entirely un-derstand the assignment. At that point, the tutor often asked the ESL student to read the paper, hoping to understand the assignment better afterwards.

In one transcript, an extended discus-sion of the assignment bled over into the post-reading discussion. The tutor who led this session later analyzed it. He wrote, “The assignment itself was very vague, and I believed right from the start she had probably approached it in the wrong manner.” The tutor rec-ognized, as we all do, that understand-ing the assignment is an important and sometimes problematic issue in setting the agenda and evaluating the paper, particularly with ESL students.

ESL students seem to have a more difficult time articulating the assign-ment in part because they struggle to find the precise language needed to ex-plain the assignment, and in part, be-cause they often only have a vague idea what the parameters are of the as-signment. Also, these students’ over-riding concern about grammar some-times pushes every other concern out of the way.

The quick fix (which we have done/ will continue to do) is to get the writ-ten assignments from the teachers of our ESL students. That will clarify the assignment for the tutor and will cer-tainly facilitate the session. However, an important part of the writing pro-cess for the ESL learner is to be able to articulate the assignment in order to understand and internalize the con-cepts, to communicate these concepts clearly to a native speaker, and thereby to “own” the understanding. It seems likely that even if the tutor understands the assignment fully, the very process of having the student communicate it clearly will continue to be a time-con-suming but essential part of the tutor-ing process for non-native speakers.

Cultural informing

In 1993 Judith Powers wrote that “ESL writers are asking us to become audiences for their work in a broader way than native speakers are; they view us as cultural informants about American academic expectations” (98). Since then, the term “cultural in-forming” has been used very broadly to include any discussion of the pecu-liarities of the English language. Some argue that whenever tutors engage in language-level discussions, such as the explanation of idiomatic expressions or even syntactical conventions, they are acting as cultural informants.

We are harking back to Powers’ defi-nition, which seems more interesting and unique to our work with interna-tional students. We use the term “cul-tural informing” for those situations where tutors or students share details about their national background or general culture, not just about lan-guage. By this definition, students as well as tutors act as cultural infor-mants.

When tutors and ESL students share information about their respective cul-tures, it helps students better under-stand the idiosyncratic cultural expec-tations of their American audience, which is of central importance in effec-tive writing. Conversely, when stu-dents share information about their cul-tures with their tutors, it strengthens the rapport between tutor and student, allowing for more confident, construc-tive criticism on the tutor’s part and improved writing on the student’s part.

Frequently, the ESL students we see in the Writing Center choose, or are re-quired, to write about aspects of their native culture, society or government, and in these cases discussion about cultural differences is almost inevi-table. One tutor found himself in a somewhat sticky situation when a fe-male ESL student wrote, in reference to a feminist Taiwanese political activ-ist, “The beautiful woman made the male politicians inferior and made them expose their shortcomings.” Al-though somewhat embarrassed, the tu-tor effectively acted as cultural infor-mant, pointing out to the student that, to an American audience, the combina-tion of the words “male,” “expose” and “shortcomings,” in practically any or-der, will inevitably carry unintended sexual overtones. In this example, the tutor, acting as cultural informant, fo-cused on language-level, idiomatic is-sues, but also helped the student better understand the cultural expectations of her American audience.

In the following excerpt from an ESL tutoring session, the native-speak-ing female graduate student tutor and a Japanese female graduate student ex-change cultural information on a more general level.

C: ‘Kay. This is another (paper).

T: A tofu shop??? (laughs)

C: You know?

T: No, but I love the idea.

C: You know tofu?

T: I love tofu.

C: You do? Is it, like, well known in the States?

T: I think so. . . . Maybe it’s just the people I hang out with, because we all eat a lot of tofu and vegetables and rice but . . . it is well known. It’s not necessarily well loved by everyone. Some people say, “Tofu? Uuugh! It has no taste.” But I love it.

This conversation may only seem like rapport-building, which is very important in its own right, but the student’s question, “Is it well known in the States?” shows her desire for cul-tural information and is also a good in-dication that she may not know exactly how to approach the assignment. A tu-tor responding to a question like this helps sharpen the student’s approach to her topic and to her audience.

Cultural informing, then, serves multiple functions in a tutoring session. It can further the rapport, clarify the student’s approach to a topic, and help the student understand the unique expectations of an American audience.

Collaboration and Socratic methodology

In recent years, an intriguing dia-logue has developed over the “role” of the tutor in ESL conferences. While most of us probably agree that collabo-rative methods tend to be the best way to “help the writer, not the writing,” some believe that with an ESL writer, the tutor needs to take on the role of a teacher instead of a peer (Powers; Mosher, Granroth, Hicks).

Three questions emerge from this initial study of collaboration in tutorials with international students:

1. How much collaboration occurs in these tutorials?

2. Is collaboration used for higher-order concerns, lower-order concerns, or both?

3. When, chronologically, is collaboration used in a session? That is, is it usually used at the start, the end, or throughout the session?

Our transcripts affirm that tutors did adopt a didactic style quite frequently. However, it was not necessarily any more frequent than we saw in a session with a native-speaking writer. Tutors seem to use Socratic techniques just as much as, if not more than, didactic ones to help ESL writers. And tutors seem to use these methods for higher-order concerns, which is where we usually expect collaborative techniques to work. But tutors also used them with lower-order concerns, such as sentence structure and grammar, areas in which tutors traditionally find themselves turning to more didactic methods.

In this excerpt from a tutoring session between a male native-speaking graduate student tutor and a Turkish female graduate student, the tutor used a combination of collaborative and didactic methods:

T: “Inside the country that is close to the border. . . .” What country?

C:

Turkey!

T:Yes. You have to spell it out. People do not know you are talking about the eastern border of Turkey. These other places over here where you mention “my country,” you have to say that it is Turkey or at least introduce yourself and your nation of origin at the beginning of the piece.

C:

Okay. (Writes something down.)

T: It’s still not grammatically correct. Where did it happen specifically close to the eastern border of Turkey? Deserted road? Village? Border crossing?

C: Border crossing.

T: So how would you write it?

C: This is a true story that happened at a border crossing close to the eastern border of Turkey.

Notice that the tutor used a combination of both didactic and Socratic methods—leading statements and open-ended questions—to help the writer create a very clear sentence.

In other transcripts we examined, sometimes the tutor and writer worked together to find the right word, as with the following excerpt. In this session, the writer brought in a script for a 2minute news feature on juggling. The feature was for her television broadcast class.

C: “Many people may have seen juggling but not many probably have actually tried playing it.” (pause) Practicing, or playing it. I wanted to emphasize that people maybe know about it but many people maybe don’t have . . . wait . . . played juggling.

T: Right.

C: I don’t think . . .

T: Right. I think played is probably the wrong verb. I think you’re right. (pause)

C: Tried?

T: Tried.

C: Tried, um performing it.

T: You might even just say, “tried it.”

C: Tried. Tried it. Okay. “Many people may have seen juggling, but not many probably have tried it.” No “actually.” Um. Because last time my professor told me not to editorialize (laughs), so I said people have seen juggling.

Notice that with both examples, the tu-tor helps the writer find her own way to fix her sentence. When tutors use collaboration, judging by our sample transcripts, it appears to be very effec-tive in helping ESL writers edit their papers while still maintaining author-ship.

We observed that some tutors seem to use a more directive approach early in the session and then ease into more collaborative methods as the session proceeds. Ironically, some tutors may be using a more directive approach to create rapport and build trust, creating credibility for the tutor in the ESL writer’s eyes. Or, the directive ap-proach might be used to buy time for the tutor, for it allows her to begin with some quick grammar tips as she as-sesses the writer’s needs.

Conclusion

As we’ve read through dozens of transcripts of sessions with interna-tional students, we’ve had some of our initial theories challenged and some af-firmed. For example, we found more collaboration than we thought we would find—and in intriguing configu-rations. We’re even more firmly con-vinced about the importance of cultural informing and think that there’s a great deal more information about the nature of writing instruction to mine in this particular area. And we were surprised to see how central a role articulating the assignment plays in the success of a tutorial session.

One clear message we’ve received is that, as we first suspected, the tutorial session with international students is different from the session with native speakers. It is, for one thing, more in-tensive, and, secondly, far fewer issues get covered within a single session. Sometimes the interchanges between the tutor and the student are both baf-fling and at the same time shed light on the challenges of tutoring ESL writers, as in this exchange between one of our graduate student tutors and his Asian student:

T: Well, what are you concerned with about this paper?

C: The most point I want to concerned it because English is not my native language.

T: Yes.

Susan R. Blau, John Hall, Jeff Davis, and Lauren Gravitz Boston University Boston, MA

Works Cited

Gillespie, Paula and Neal Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon Press, 2000.

Harris, Muriel and Tony Silva. “Tutoring ESL Students: Issues and Options.” College Composition and Communication

44:4 (December 1993): 525-537.

Mosher, David, Davin Granroth, and Troy Hicks. “Creating a Common Ground with ESL Writers.” Writing Lab Newsletter 24.7 (March 2000): 1-7.

Powers, Judith K. “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer.” The St. Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors. Ed. Christina Murphy and Steve Sherwood. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, 96-103.

Severino, Carol. “Serving ESL Students.” The Writing Center Resource Manual. Ed. Bobbie Bayliss Silk. Emmittsburg, MD: NWCA Press, 1998. IV.2-IV.2.7.

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Never say “no”

grade, we’ll lose sight of the writer and the writing process. Only by focussing on the process—the conversation, the questioning, the individual points of the session—will we help the writer get where she wants to go. In improv, if we begin a scene overly concerned if it will be funny enough, or if our audi-ence will like it, the scene generally belly flops. If we concentrate, how-ever, on the moment and the immedi-ate focus of the scene—who are we, what are we doing, where are we going next—the ending and the laughs follow in their own time.

For the Refugees, every practice, scene, and game we play requires com-mitted collaboration. I’m always sur-prised, given the independent streaks of every member of our group and also our individual tendencies towards wanting to be “the ham,” at how well we do this. In part, we are able to do so by our strict adherence to our main rule: “Never say ‘no.’” This is crucial in our process of collaboration to keep scenes going forward. In a scene, if a character first enters the stage and says “It’s so dark in this barn!” then the stage is immediately a dark barn; the other characters had better enter stum-bling, or bring a candle. We know we collaborate best by building upon and trusting one another, not trying to di-rect each other or single-handedly con-trol the whole scene. This is also true in the tutoring process—not that I would suggest that we “never say no” ever, but that in spirit we never say no to a writer. We should never deny the validity of a writer’s idea, process, or goals; it’s the writer’s scene and we’re the supporting cast. We can open pos-sibilities, question, and move furniture out of the way, but ultimately it’s not our show.

There is one game we play in prac-tice that specifically reminds me of tu-toring: “Heighten and Explore.” It re-quires a moderator outside the scene to guide and challenge the players, thus providing the structure of the scene and the handlebars of a format; it’s very similar to the job of the tutor. In “Heighten and Explore,” the scene be-gins with an audience-generated topic, with which the players will proceed to enact some sort of conflict. Intermit-tently, the moderator will pause the scene and yell out either “heighten” or “explore.” “Heighten” means that the players are to take whichever emotion or characteristic they are projecting at that moment and double its intensity; “explore” means similarly to take the current idea or nearby object and in-vestigate every possible direction for it to go. For example, one scene took place in a jewelry store where thieves were in the process of removing a dia-mond from a case. This could have merely progressed into the next mo-ment of putting the diamond into their bag or stealing something else, and the scene would have continued along that line. The moderator, however, yelled out “explore,” and the thieves, holding the diamond, ended up twisting the plot of the scene into the idea that they could build a laser out of the diamond and take over the world. This same idea translates well into tutoring (not the idea of taking over the world but of exploring!). Although I realize that I must articulate myself a little more clearly while tutoring, there are many times when I feel that I am merely pointing to a spot in a writer’s paper and yelling, “explore!” or “heighten!” By merely indicating to writers that there are countless angles of approach for any subject, and questioning them to encourage that consideration, I am able to send them off running with what was originally their idea anyway.

One of the most crucial skills that I am still working on in the Refugees and in tutoring is listening closely; in both scenarios, the action can some-times move pretty fast. On stage, we have to practice constantly to balance ourselves—not talking over one an-other but communicating who or what is the focus. Sometimes—like the boom of a sailboat—the focus will suddenly and forcefully shift. When it does so, we have to be ready to duck, pull the sail in, and adjust the course— all of which we can only do if we’re listening to each other and for the pace of the scene. In tutoring, we need to listen to the writers and watch for the changes; what they are saying in their papers and what they may be trying to tell us might be ready to shift suddenly or “come about” at any minute. A few times, I was nearly halfway through a tutoring session before I realized what the writers had subtly been trying to tell me. In one case, it was that the writer had been perfectly happy with her paper until students in her peer-reading group questioned what to their minds was a “non-academic” tone. An-other time, what was blocking a stu-dent was her feeling that her professor hated her. I’m not trying to suggest that the focus in either of these ses-sions shifted, or should have shifted, into a function more appropriate to a counseling center, but that in both I had to listen to more than what the stu-dents said in order to hear what they really needed from the session: valida-tion of their writing and encourage-ment to continue.

Ultimately, our best scenes work on stage when we relax and trust one an-other. Some of our best moments have been when, by merely meeting eyes across the stage, the two or three of us in the scene already knew we were leading to a really cohesive, funny mo-ment. Sometimes, the hardest part in this is also remembering to keep the focus, even in our excitement, and to step out of the way if our character is not supposed to be a part of the final moment. It’s about the scene, not about us. Moments of this kind of recogni-tion follow me from the stage into the writing center; I’ll catch myself, caught up in the excitement of a student’s sudden realization or new idea, wanting to jump in and say: “AND then you can do THIS. . . .” and I’d be off and running. I’ve learned to sit on my hands and bite my lip. After all, the scene will find its natural clo-sure, and the writer—if we’ve done our job well together—can certainly speak for herself.

Jill Stukenberg

Marquette University

Milwaukee, WI

Calm Wednesday afternoons are fairly standard at the Drew University Writing Center in early October, so it was a bit of a shock when a first-year student came barreling into our office, looked around, and then demanded to know with which writing consultant he would be meeting for his 4 p.m. ap-pointment. I volunteered that it was me, and upon noticing that I was an unfamiliar consultant, he irately asked, “How many people do you have work-ing here? Twenty?” Although taken aback by the sarcasm, I also noted the frustration in his voice. Obviously, this student was concerned about more than the number of employees at the Writ-ing Center. He began to talk rapidly about a paper he was working on, and how he would appreciate some conti-nuity with the help he was receiving.

“David,” as I shall call him, had already seen several people at the Writing Center. His file had few notes in it, and, in glancing them over, I could not find any reason for his irateness or his overwhelming impatience, and I de-cided there was a larger problem. As I asked David what he wanted to do dur-ing the session, he kept repeating “just write this down, just write this down.” Grabbing a pencil and paper, I wrote as David spoke the entire text of his pa-per. He had no interest in either writing things down himself or in dealing with the indicted text, but he was com-pletely capable of revising his (spoken) prose as we went through the session. I was listening not only to his paper, but also a specific trouble with the writing process.

At this point, I felt trapped: I knew I was working with an intelligent per-son, but I also knew that David had trouble communicating the ideas, sen-tences, and entire papers in his head to his fingers. Since New Jersey law and Writing Center protocol do not allow writing consultants to directly ask stu-dents whether or not they have learn-ing differences, I wanted him to tell me if he did. I told him that I would speak with my director and see if she would approve a weekly meeting time for David and the consultant of his choice, and then I asked if I could do anything more, hoping to uncover his underly-ing problem. David, although still a bit irate, told me that he had perception impairment (PI), which had been diag-nosed in high school. At this point, I was able to change the focus of what we perceived as the underlying prob-lem; instead of being dissatisfied with the availability of any one given con-sultant, David really needed extra sup-port from both our center and the college’s administration. I asked him if I could tell my director about his im-pairment and if she could discuss it with him further. David reluctantly agreed, perhaps not wanting to be labeled LD again, but thus enabling himself to receive further help.

What we found was that David’s PI kept him from physically writing his papers; however, the verbally articu-lated expression of his ideas was in the form of a paper. Furthermore, PI kept him from knowing precisely how much to write about any one part of the as-signment in relation to its other parts. So, after that week, David came in regularly on Wednesdays with me, and had an appointment with my director on Mondays to complete the task of transferring his essay-like thoughts to physical paper. Over the course of the semester, he began to trust me more and became more comfortable in the Writing Center. Our appointments be-came standard: David would come in, I would have a pile of paper and a sharp-ened pencil, and he would begin dictat-ing. David had no trouble composing and remembering his points; even speaking his paper and remembering where to fit in quotes came easily to him. Rather than copying quotes and losing the thread of his essay-narrative, I wrote down its first few words and its page number so he could insert it when typing and editing his essay. By con-sistently writing down his words, his precise words, I attempted to show him the bridge between what he was saying and what I was writing. The process of transcribing his words helped him rec-ognize his work; additionally, had he any qualms about his thoughts being college-level work, they were resolved by my continual affirmation of writing them down.

I quickly learned that he wanted to divide each idea or paragraph onto separate sheets of paper. Numbering the pages as we went along, David usually left the Writing Center with seven or eight sheets of writing. Be-cause his habit of mass-revising his prose—even as he said it—meant that we often ran out of space on each page, we also modified the way I wrote down his words: I left spaces between the lines like a regular double- or triple-spaced essay. Helping me to catch his thoughts exactly, this spacing system also helped David when he typed his now-written paper into his computer. It also functioned as a good psychological space: at any time, we could revise a given sentence, idea, or paragraph without worrying about add-ing sheets of paper. More often than not, we used it as he wrote and rewrote individually expressed ideas, whole sentences, and occasionally rewriting entire paragraphs. This also meant that David did not want to try voice-acti-vated software; because everything he said was revised by the end of the ses-sion, he felt that trying to decipher his final thoughts from a tape would be too difficult.

The first problem we encountered was that we generally spent the entire hour writing down the essay and had little time to examine the work in its entirety. Although the essay had under-gone extensive line editing during the writing process, there was little time to evaluate its parts in relation to one an-other. Since David also wanted to ex-plore every tangent he encountered, his papers became large in both breadth and depth, making it even more diffi-cult to look at his paper as a whole. Working on transitions between ideas as we encountered them was crucial; otherwise, the paper’s unity might be compromised.

By virtue of being in college, David had another inherent problem: several classes, which meant several papers and projects that had to be tackled si-multaneously. As they were assigned, he brought in diverse projects, all with their individual due date and workload, thus dividing the already-precious hour into smaller bits of time. Designating fifteen minutes for his political science class work meant reducing the time spent on his essay for writing class. Since the hour always dissipated quickly, the ability to focus was essential; David began to come in with a detailed list of things that he either needed or wanted to accomplish in the session. In this way we could evaluate the projects before starting them and estimate how much time each would take. Although we were rarely right on the estimated time, we addressed the most important projects before the hour was over, and were able to start the others so that he could more easily finish them at home.

Fortunately, toward the end of the semester, David had a large break-through: he was able to physically write his own drafts. The day he came in and sat down with something al-ready on paper was a fantastic mo-ment; David was becoming, with the introduction of his own written draft, a more independent writer. Having al-ready-written text enabled him to physically view his words as he was revising them, something difficult to do when they had come straight from my pencil. David could be in charge of marking up the drafts, rather than merely watching me put his ideas to work. Consistently listening, writing, and interacting with David, I tried to help the writer and address his prob-lem. Personally, this approach has de-veloped me as a writing consultant: I learned to listen to English as a Second or Other Language students as I did for David—sometimes all I needed to do was write down their spoken thoughts. For ESOL students, this is more impor-tant; in my experience, they are often insecure about their English writing skills, and to see that their spoken thoughts can also be their written thoughts is an immense help to their growth as writers.

Working with David has been both challenging and rewarding. From his first session, in which I had to decide whether the LD characteristics he dis-played constituted an actual impair-ment, to our most recent, when we talked about the most effective way to phrase a flyer selling trees, both of us have come a long way. David writes _{Do we have your OK?}and edits drafts autonomously and still chooses to use the Writing Center. He has learned, through consistent obser-Mary Jo Turley, the Managing Editor of the Writing Lab Newsletter, is vation and practice, to effectively com-working diligently to put the earlier volumes of WLN online. But to do so, municate through writing. I have we have been informed by our legal beagles that authors have to give their learned that a writing consultant needs permission for their articles to appear online. (Giving permission for this to listen to the paper in front of her, does not prevent authors from having their own essays reprinted else-and that she must also listen carefully where, but for-profit publishers must pay the author and the newsletter a to the student next to her. The paper a fee.) writer is capable of producing may not be the one brought to the table, and it Many of you who have authored articles that appeared in recent years is the Writing Center’s job to help it have already signed copyright forms when your articles were accepted, arrive. Making lists and outlines are and that’s sufficient. However, Mary Jo needs to hear from authors whose the tangible parts of being a writing work appeared during the first twenty years or so in the WLN. If you consultant; shaping a writer is more haven’t already sent in your permission, please do so. Let Mary Jo know difficult, but just as important. David the title of your essay plus the volume and issue number in which it ap-needed both—and has made me a bet-peared. A brief note agreeing to having the article appear online is fine. ter listener for it. Send to Mary Jo Turley: mjturley@purdue.edu

Jennifer Holly
Drew University
Madison, NJ

Sept. 14-15, 2001: Midwest Writing Center Association, in Iowa City, IA

“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.” (from “El Dorado,” by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I was traveling across campus to my office when an administrator, going in the opposite direction, paused long enough to offer a greeting, pose a question, and present a surprising tidbit of news. “Are you ready to move?” he asked with a grin. I must have looked somewhat bewildered, so he continued on, “You probably know that we’ve al-ready started to implement the College’s five initiatives for the New Century Challenge.” I shook my head affirmatively, aware that the initiatives he referred to were part of a fundraising campaign to enhance Wheaton College’s educational effec-tiveness with regard to faculty, tech-nology, library services, community, and student life. “The plan at this point is to link the writing center with the new computer research and instruc-tional center,” he went on. “That means that you will be moving from the basement of the library to the first floor, near the main entrance.” Rushing on to a meeting, he shouted that he would get back to me to clarify the de-tails, and he assured me that the move wouldn’t happen until sometime dur-ing the semester break. I thanked him for the good news, began walking again, and then thought to myself, “The semester break?”

Quickly I became overwhelmed by concurrent feelings of elation and anxi-ety. On the one hand, I did write a pro-posal requesting that the administration consider my ideas on how a new writ-ing center could promote the New Century Challenge initiatives. Obvi-ously they had reviewed my proposal and were ready to act on it. So, I couldn’t help but be pleased. Yet on the other hand, it seemed that I had re-cently finished the arduous task of get-ting the writing center up and running again after moving it from its previous quarters on the second floor of a build-ing halfway across campus. The thought of packing up books, comput-ers, equipment, and supplies, only to unpack them again and set up a new site, led me to view myself, my tutors, our work, and the writing center as downright nomadic.

As I continued the walk to my office, I recounted momentous events from our nomadic existence. My predeces-sor, now the chair of English and my boss, first put things in motion thirteen years ago with the help of a one-time grant. The early days were not easy: a case for institutional support had to be made and won, tutors had to be hired and given basic training, and some sort of space had to be found for our regu-lar use. Wheaton’s center, like so many writing centers that start up at small liberal arts colleges, began on a meager budget in an unused classroom, where unseasoned tutors met with guinea-pig student writers during limited evening hours.

After our center became established, the main administrative building on campus underwent renovation, result-ing in a spare office; it was offered to us for exclusive writing center use. Cramped but functional, the office be-came home, a place where tutors didn’t have to box everything up at the end of each long night, as they did in the classroom. And given its strategic lo-cation—near the main computer lab— we happily siphoned off a fair amount of daily, overflow business, which in-creased our numbers and lengthened our hours. We also purchased a com-puter and hooked up a printer, going from handwritten record keeping to an electronic database. My staff and I camped there comfortably, working contentedly and welcoming visitors to our congenial surroundings. Regularly we received compliments for the shaded blue lamps and the Monet re-productions on the walls, which had a calming effect on students. It was an easy place to tutor, and to learn, and to grow. But then, after several semesters, we were unexpectedly asked to move on to another area. Our space was needed for a new administrative office.

With the promise of a larger site to pitch our tent on, we trekked across campus to our present location, the lower level of the library. It was a se-cluded place, and less visible and ac-cessible to students, but it proved to be almost three times bigger. To enhance our new locale, we asked the College to outfit us with four additional com-puters (for student use), another printer, some furniture (including a siz-able bookshelf and a comfortable chair), and some plants. We got what we asked for. Word got around about our “new and improved” writing cen-ter, and students came in greater num-bers than before. All that took place less than three years ago.

Now, once again, the writing center needed to move, and I needed to start making plans to travel. As I arrived back at my office, in checklist fashion my mind was reviewing the sorts of things that I would soon have to do. Then, while reaching for the keys to open my door, something dawned on me: my reflections on the writing center’s nomadic existence had greater significance than I first realized. “What,” I wondered, “are some of the theoretical implications of a nomadic writing center?” Sitting at my desk, I let my thoughts wander from my head to the page in front of me.

One of my perennial challenges—as is the case for most directors—in-volves communicating to students, fac-ulty, and administrators what the writ-ing center is, and what it does. Many mispeceptions abound. Consequently, I sometimes have struggled to know where to begin in providing an accu-rate explanation to others. Bonnie S. Sunstein offers helpful insight, here, recognizing that there is an inherent difficulty in coming up with a stable definition for “writing center”:

Writing centers exist in an often

uncertain present—but they work

with a past brought in by writers

thinking about a future. For years,

writing center staffs have tried to

define our place to ourselves, our

administrators, and to our profes

sion. We’ve attempted to create a

definition that reflects our reali

ties—our struggles as well as our

successes—what we’ve been and

what we may yet become. But

definition eludes us. (7)

In my quandary to come up with a clear and honest definition, one thing I have come to believe is that a writing center must not be understood, first and foremost, as a place.

In reality, what has defined the writ-ing center at our college has not been an area or region understood largely in spatial terms—a center. As Sunstein poignantly observes, “A writing center cannot define itself as a space—we’re often kicked out of our spaces” (8). Being “kicked out” of an old space may not be all bad, as I have discov-ered at Wheaton, especially if it is a kick in the right direction. Writing cen-ters at colleges and universities—rela-tively recent on the academic land-scape—tend to be unstable phenomena, spatially speaking; they follow a sort of archetypal path, jour-neying from one location to another, as they gain credibility and worth. For that reason, and others, what best char-acterizes our writing center is not a place—though place certainly has some significance—but praxis.

Praxis, simply put, is theory put into action. “Travel” represents a nomadic understanding of praxis. In one sense, travel can be understood as actual physical movement, the common un-derstanding of the word; but it can also represent the intellectual process of at-taining knowledge and consciously ap-plying it to particular skills, like writ-ing, in order to extend those skills. Travel, in this sense, rarely happens quickly, easily, or directly; yet, for the committed traveler, it ultimately be-comes a meaningful and gratifying ac-tivity.

Knowledge is vital to travel. When students from diverse backgrounds and disciplinary interests sojourn to our tent, we first welcome them to our ground, briefly offering knowledge about our writing center’s approach and methods. Then we attempt to meet students on their own ground, asking questions to help us get to know them a little better and to understand what they are working on and how they think we might be able to help them. This preliminary interchange of knowl-edge is essential if we are going to travel well together; we have to know what to expect from each other. As tu-tors and writers speak and listen to each other, paying attention to their respective realms of discourse, they draw upon mutually disclosed knowledge. Often unpredictable and fascinating, the interaction is never static. Travel depends upon collaborative, sincere, energetic engagement.

With the foregoing views in mind, what, then, constitutes an honest de-scription of our writing center? As the director of a writing center on the move, when I describe what our writ-ing center is and what it does, I realize that I must attempt to represent the re-ality of tutors as they interact with writers. It starts with a fundamental narration. The action—the plot— which develops between these two people—the characters—must lead somewhere, as in any good narrative. Usually, however, this “somewhere” is an “unknown” for both characters, who, though they may have a sense of purpose and direction, seldom are sure exactly where they will travel; this is because, in part, the tutoring session cannot be reduced to a rigid set of in-terpersonal rules, followed to calcu-lated ends. There is no universal map that consistently guides every tutor and every student writer as they attempt to move forward. In light of this truth, Joan Hawthorne explains the impor-tance of “directive tutoring”:

Writing center conferences are

negotiated events between the

student and the consultant. There is

no “right answer” or “best confer

ence” to use as a guide. If students

leave the conference (a) with a

slightly better paper, (b) as a

slightly better writer, and (c)

feeling comfortable with the center

and likely to return so you can

continue the work that was begun,

you’ve had a “good enough”

conference. (5) Thus, the work of praxis depends upon negotiation. The tutors’ training—their theoretical knowledge gained through workshops, weekly memos, meetings, and required readings—finds expression in dialog, often intuitively and spontaneously generated, during the fleeting moments that make up a session.

Praxis depends upon writing-center dialog, which transports both tutor and student writer from one insight to an-other, leading to a clearer vision of the writer’s work and, ultimately, to a sen-sible strategy for revision. “Writing centers, then,” as Peter Carino states, “are social as well as linguistic, social in the sense of the praxis that goes on there, linguistic in the sense that all of that praxis is mediated by language both as it occurs and in any attempts we make to document it. As language, our documentation, our discourse, is always already interpretive” (32). Given that the language we use inter-prets what we do, the best linguistic descriptor to convey the kind of praxis that occurs in our writing center at Wheaton, naturally, is nomadic. Travel not only typifies our past and our fu-ture, with regard to physical movement from place to place, but it also charac-terizes the daily theoretical application that results from tutor-writer interac-tion. Tutors and writers are always coming and going, moving in a multi-tude of directions—bodily, verbally, textually. A nomadic view of the writ-ing center not only accounts for this flux, but emphasizes that such action— such travel—is central to its identity and function.

Ironically, our writing center’s wan-dering in the wilderness has been due, in part, to our successful praxis: stu-dents have sought us out to dialog and seek direction, and we have grown. Despite the center’s precarious pres-ence during the past decade—pitching a tent in one place, only to take it down and pitch it in another—students have continued to wander, as nomads, across campus to find us, coming in ever-increasing numbers. This is best illustrated by the fact that last year we provided more than four times as many tutorials as we did in our first year.

The steadily increasing student influx has factored into our need to be no-madic, moving to an ever more accom-modating place of praxis—a larger tent.

In thinking about students’ regular excursions to our tent, wherever it has been pitched, I sense that in several ways they see Wheaton’s Writing Cen-ter as a sort of oasis in the midst of their own nomadic lives. From semes-ter to semester, they move from one set of courses to another, from one class-room to the next, from one professor and disciplinary discourse to another, from one writing assignment to the one after. Exciting as these academic en-deavors can be, they are rarely easy. As David Bartholomae argues, “Since students assume privilege by locating themselves [my emphasis], within the discourse of a particular community— within a set of specifically acceptable gestures and commonplaces—learning, at least as it is defined in the liberal arts curriculum, becomes more a mat-ter of imitation or parody than a matter of invention and discovery” (278). This nomadic activity of “locating” oneself in discourse communities across the disciplines, of writing pa-pers using “acceptable gestures and commonplaces”—a highly complex kind of travel—can tire even the most seasoned of student travelers. Thus, from time to time students long for a place where they can find refreshment and encouragement for their academic journey.

When a writing center serves as an oasis, it represents a safe environment where students can temporarily stop off to discuss their writing, tell tales of grief and triumph in learning, confide in another with their fears and frustra-tions, and attain a clearer sense of their own process of composing. An oasis, as it is commonly understood, func-tions as a refuge. In that sense, no-madic learners regularly come to us wanting to pull up a chair, slow down for a while, and share a bit of their written reflections with a fellow trav-eler—a tutor. Sadly, this sort of dynamic exchange of talk, tales, and text between travelers happens too seldom.

Besides being a refuge, a writing center that operates as an oasis be-comes known as a fertile spot in the midst of an arid region. Simply put, green things grow here despite adverse conditions. When students drop by our writing center feeling lost in their thoughts, meandering hopelessly, lack-ing confidence in their ability to create something lively and worth a reader’s time, only to leave thirty minutes later with a sprout, something green and full of possibility, then our center has ac-complished something significant. Growth in writing results, in part, from three essential tutoring activities: wa-tering, fertilizing, and pruning. When watering, the tutor provides a steady stream of verbal and non-verbal sup-port to encourage and motivate the vis-iting writer. Fertilizing entails the tutor making suggestions for added nutrients that would enhance the growth of a given piece. And pruning involves the thorny work of the tutor offering ad-vice on what to eliminate—unneces-sary branches of discourse that may be twisted or broken, and therefore un-fruitful. These skillful activities have the potential to develop vital habits of thought and practice for any nomad who desires to perform an amazing feat—make something grow in the desert.

Most importantly, those who support a nomadic view of the writing center accept the responsibility of guiding students, of showing them how to “travel hopefully.” Hope emerges, for the traveling student writer, with the knowledge that certain debilitating frames of mind and habits can be con-sciously avoided, and other more healthy ones adopted. Clearly, tutors serve as vital catalyzing agents in the process of promoting favorable writing behavior. To promote hope and health within students as they write, staff members must adopt an ethic, one that helps them recognize and challenge counterproductive tendencies, one that directs their words and their actions. A nomadic writing center ethic signifies an ought, a better way to think about and practice writing. Such an ethic principally challenges two unhealthy motivations: complacency and unde-served gratification.

More than ever before, students feel pressured by subtle and overt forces, both societal and personal, tempting them to want success without its sub-stance. Many succumb to “just getting the paper done” and then “just wanting the good grade”; critically speaking, I describe this as “the drive to arrive,” a tendency to desire—even demand—the results of effective writing without the requisite process of travel. This atti-tude, needless to say, militates against learning to write well and represents a state of mind that the nomadic writing center attempts to change.

Based upon his research on brain-compatible learning, published re-cently in the Writing Lab Newsletter, James Upton discusses the need to help writers move toward better states of mind, particularly while being tutored at the writing center. “Brain-compat-ible learning strategies, the attempt to make formal school experiences reflect and utilize the brain’s natural ‘learning operations,’” Upton explains, “are the true keys to any meaningful educa-tional change” (11). Upton reminds us that students bring emotions with them into writing center sessions, emotions reflecting their current struggles:

“Writing center personnel are

often in a ‘reactive’ mode to the

actions and attitudes of others,

and . . . we may find ourselves

with less than receptive writers

who are angry, frustrated, bellig

erent, and/or apathetic.” (11) To facilitate change within writers, moving them into states of mind which are conducive to maximal learning, Upton provides several ideas. Among them, he suggests that tutors debrief with a writer before a session, help writers reduce unhealthy stress and fear, encourage writers to make time for reflection during learning, and pro-vide honest feedback in a positive manner (11-12). Upton believes that these approaches, and others, appropri-ated from brain research for instruction purposes, “will create a positive change in school structures and educa-tion practices” (12).

Upton’s insights, besides being rooted in research, implicitly reveal ethical conviction: they advocate better ways for tutors to influence writers which prove to be in sync with a holis-tic understanding of the human body. Because these ways promote elevated states of conscious learning, which have many long-term returns for the writer, they are superior to less con-scious learning behaviors. To change the inferior “drive to arrive” state of mind and its negative effects on writ-ers, workers at a nomadic writing cen-ter try to implement ethically oriented tutoring, like Upton’s, to encourage writers to travel a better route as they compose and learn. Gently and consis-tently, tutors remind writers to see their work as an extension of them-selves and to embrace the experience of learning as they go through the vari-ous steps of writing. These positive “state changes,” once accepted and embodied by students, facilitate healthy composing behaviors and en-rich the writing experience.

The notion of tutors becoming “state change facilitators” in the writing cen-ter may, to some in our success-crazed culture, seem radical . . . and it is. But for the writer who adopts these sorts of attitude alterations, with the tutor’s help, “true success” in writing will no longer simply be measured by the end product alone or the final grade it re-ceives, but also by the quality of the “labor” put forth to produce a paper. Appropriately, then, the process of writing itself becomes worthwhile, and the knowledge from writing satisfying. When the writer rejects “the drive to arrive” and adopts “the will to travel,” writing can become liberating, trans-forming, even exciting. The nomadic writing center empowers student writ-ers to value and pursue travel benefits such as these, and ultimately, to dis-cover, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, “a better thing than to arrive.”

Jeffry C. Davis Wheaton College Wheaton, IL

Works Cited

Bartholomae, David. “Inventing the University.” When a Writer Can’t Write: Studies in Writer’s Block and Other Composing Process Problems. Ed. Mike Rose. New York: Guilford, 1985. 273-85.

Carino, Peter. “What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Our Metaphors: A Cultural Critique of Clinic, Lab, and Center.” Writing Center Journal 13:1 (Fall 1992): 31-42.

Hawthorne, Joan. “ ‘We Don’t Proof-read Here’: Re-visioning the Writ-ing Center to Better Meet Student Needs.” Writing Lab Newsletter

23:8 (April 1999): 1-6.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. “El Dorado.” Virginibus Puerisque, and Other Papers. Project Gutenberg Page. 7 July 1999. <http://gutenberg.net/ index.html>

Sunstein, Bonnie S. “Moveable Feasts, Liminal Spaces: Writing Centers and the State of In-Betweenness.” Writing Center Journal 18:2 (Spring/Summer 1998): 7-26.

Upton, James. “Brain-compatible Learning: The Writing Center Connections.” Writing Lab Newsletter 23:10 (June 1999): 11-

12.

Back Volumes of WLN Available

The archives of old volumes of the Writing Lab Newsletter are taking up too much space in our Writing Lab, and so we’re offering them at “fire sale” prices. (By next fall, we hope to have these volumes available online.) So, if you’d like paper copies of any or all of the first twenty volumes of the newsletter, the price is $5/volume for the earliest volumes and $15/volume for the three most recent volumes (cur-rent and two preceding years).

Back issues will be 50¢/each for the earlier volumes plus postage when buying less than ten. Faxed versions of articles are 50¢/page, and the index is still $12. Please e-mail me on those requests: mjturley@purdue.edu.

Mary Jo Turley, Managing Editor Writing Lab Newsletter

Muriel Harris, editor Department of English Purdue University 1356 Heavilon Hall West Lafayette, IN 47907-1356

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