...FROM THE EDITOR...

You’ll notice a pattern or theme in this issue of the newsletter that hap-pened serendipitously. Normally, we print articles in the order they’re ac-cepted for publication (except for some that have timely information), and this month we have a collection of articles in which you’ll note a reverberation of the concepts of collaboration and net-working. Not an unusual occurrence in a publication focused on writing center theory and practice.

Margaret Garner and Carolyn Young introduce us to the collaboration they established with ESL students and their instructor in an engineering course; Denise Stephenson reports on collabo-rative projects tutors in her writing center have engaged in; Brandy Cunningham and Karin Foust offer us insights into the networking among their tutors; Dani Stein reflects on what she has learned by collaborating with the students she meets with; and Doug Enders updates us on NetMeeting, a software package that permits net-working with students online.

Also in this issue, on page 6, you’ll find Jeanne Simpson’s call for discus-sion about a project she’s initiated to collect statistics that will be useful for us all.

• Muriel Harris, editor

...INSIDE...

Group Conferencing: A Collaboration Between ESL Students, Their Instructors, and Writing Center Consultants

•Margaret Garner and Carolyn Young 1

Call for Discussion on Statistics Project 6

Learning by Doing: Collaboration in the Writing Center

• Denise Stephenson 7

Tutors’ Column: “Networking: Tutors Helping Each Other”

•Brandy Cunningham and Karin Foust 11

“In the Process”

•Dani Stein 12

Conference Calendar 13

Making Synchronous, Online Tutorials Easier: Microsoft’s NetMeeting 3.1

•Doug Enders 14

The need for group conferencing from the instructors’ perspective

Peer review groups are a regular fea-ture of University of Wyoming writing classes. However, these groups some-times do not provide all the peer feed-back that English as a Second Lan-guage (ESL) students need. When that situation occurs, the University of Wyoming Writing Center has found that group conferences facilitated by a writing center consultant can fill the gap. We began when a writing instruc-tor sought the writing center’s help for students in a sophomore-level writing course linked to a mechanical engi-neering laboratory. The linked course is designed so that in the writing part, students produce various technical documents, and in the laboratory part, they write lab reports. The writing in-structor and the lab instructor work to-gether on the assignments and discuss the students’ writing progress. When the class was taught that semester, four of the 24 students were ESL students. Normally these students do quite well in a regular technical writing course, but this semester their problems were exacerbated by three factors: they were struggling with the engineering con-tent, the laboratory instructor was not experienced in working with ESL stu-dents, and in-class peer review groups had not been productive.

Establishing a writing community. Setting up common goals and expecta-tions is important to the success of peer groups if groups are to be productive. A consensual agreement in which all participants will share their writing and their critiques with mutual respect has to be established. As in any group, per-sonalities and individual characteristics can often make communication diffi-cult. In this group, the Norwegian stu-dent was assertive, vocal, and impa-tient. The Asian students were quiet and reluctant to criticize. But the com-monality of their non-nativeness helped make the group cohesive. When ESL students are combined with na-tive-speakers of English in peer groups, they can often feel ignored and useless with nothing to contribute to the group. In contrast, this group gave these students the chance to participate in an interactive writing community, where they could speak out and be lis-tened to. With a writing center consult-ant trained in ESL, they could discuss their difficulties with the English lan-guage and talk about coping skills and writing techniques that could help them gain self-sufficiency.

Part of understanding academic writ-ing is recognizing multiple audiences, and establishing a writing community provided that opportunity. The students were the experts in WHAT they wanted to say (the content of their dis-cipline), and their writing instructor and consultant were the rhetorical and linguistic experts helping them with HOW to say it. In a small-group envi-ronment, students had to negotiate sev-eral mechanical engineering issues, such as the “right” calculations, vari-ables, experiments, or procedures. They were audiences for each other, listening and reading for content accu-racy while the consultant was the non-expert member of the group, listening and reading for comprehensibility and clarity. To facilitate communication among the multiple readers, the group agreed that everyone would come pre-pared with printed copies of text—as-signments and drafts—so that everyone could focus together on a writing issue. Also, by understanding that they had a responsibility to the “writing community,” the students agreed to give group time priority over individual attention.

Talking about organization and de-velopment issues. Many of the assign-ments that the students brought to the group conference called for a specific format and structure, such as the prob-lem/solution memo and the design pro-posal. Because these assignments were structured, organization was not as problematic for the students as was de-velopment. In this area, the ESL writ-ers had two main concerns: how much contextual and transitional language to use and how much descriptive detail to include. Understanding the purpose of document sections was not as difficult as understanding HOW to develop them or HOW MUCH language to use in various parts. One student knew that the introduction of a memo should di-rect the reader to the purpose of the memo. He used a one-sentence para-graph that accomplished the purpose, but because of HOW he stated it and HOW MUCH language he did not use, it was not an effective introduction. When the group members discussed his draft, they compared his with their introductions and gave him advice for development. The consultant role-played the response of a typical native-speaking reader and explained that “conciseness” in a technical document doesn’t always mean “short.”

When working on the design pro-posal, the students were uncertain about how much detail was needed to accomplish a certain rhetorical pur-pose. Questions like “Is this enough detail for a background?” or “How de-tailed should the project description of my proposal be?” were common. One student felt his proposal description was too repetitive because he described WHAT he was designing using the same language as HOW he was design-ing it. Addressing these kinds of ques-tions in a group environment worked well because the students themselves responded by comparing their writing with others’ writing. They negotiated a probable “answer” and confirmed their decision with the consultant, who ex-plained how to be concise but not at the expense of coherence and unity.

1. The students gained confidence in themselves so they could approach writing assignments with more confidence. This change was especially apparent in a student who was repeating the course. He no longer seemed afraid. Consequently, he had a stronger voice when writing.

2. Through the group they learned to help each other, which carried over to the classroom. They talked among themselves before class about assignments. And although the classroom peer review groups never worked well for them, they became more open about giving comments to others and asking others for comments.

3. Because they became better writers, they did better in the class. As a consequence of practicing their writing in conferences, they produced better documents for the class. Two of the three students earned Bs for their work.

4. An additional benefit was that through discussion with the writing instructor, the mechanical engineering laboratory instructor learned about working with writing and ESL students. She learned the concept that people’s writing styles reflect their cultures; she learned to focus on major errors and not minor ones and to understand these students’ thinking styles.

The results of group conferencing from the ESL students’ perspective

An interview with the ESL students revealed their perceptions about their preparedness for this advanced writing course and the benefits of the group conference.

What was difficult about being in an advanced writing class as an ESL stu-dent? Although both Asian students

Writing centers can make small-group conferences work if consultants use the patience and skills required to adapt one-on-one conferencing strate-gies to small-group strategies and if consultants are willing to understand the cultural and academic needs of ESL students. At the University of Wyoming, we have found group conferencing with ESL students who share the same assignments to be yet another way the writing center can of-fer assistance to students and expand our educational goals.

Call for discussion on statistics project

Years center has been in service

Square footage of center’s space

Availability of online services or OWL

Number of on-line consultations

Type of training program for tutors/ consultants: none, workshops, non-credit course, credit course, counted in compensated hours

Institutional location of center: independent, departmental, learning center, WAC program

Physical location of center: classroom building, library, student services building, residence hall, other

• Source of funding: student fees, annual budget allocation, grant funding [Issue: defining each source and asking for approximate percentage of each]

Number and affiliation of professional staff of center: faculty/ tenured, tenure-track, untenured with long-term or short-term contract non-faculty

Number of clerical/support staff

• Number of computers available in center [Issue: should computers used by director and staff be counted or only those available for student use?]

• Reporting line for director (department chair, dean, provost, other?) [Issue: defining this reporting line ONLY for the directorship, not other duties; place close to percentage of appointment item]

Typical length of conferences/ tutorials

Highest degree earned by director of writing center

Learning by doing: Collaboration in

Learning while doing is one of the bricks a writing center is built upon. Writing centers are not mechanics shops where experts slowly replace parts at exorbitant rates while the cus-tomer waits at home. Nor do they func-tion as emergency rooms where highly educated specialists rapidly make life and death decisions, again at exorbitant rates, this time while the patient lies unconscious. Rather, when students enter writing centers, they must be pre-pared to participate in the process. They must be the expert, the specialist. Yes, they are assisted by others, by the writing consultants, the tutors. But the students learn while they are there. Though they usually get the service free with no exorbitant hidden fees, they cannot drop the paper off (at least in most centers). They cannot sit un-conscious while someone else repairs the damage in the paper. Instead, they learn while working on their papers themselves.

Not only do the students who come to writing centers learn while doing, but the act of tutoring is a learning ex-perience for the tutor as well. The cliché suggests that you never learn a thing as well as when you teach it. And tutoring certainly has that element. Tu-tors, though they are typically already confident writers, learn a great deal about writing in working with other student writers. Tutors learn a variety of ways of starting a paper. They learn some of the conventions that they themselves have struggled with. They learn how important audience is and why writing for the all-knowing teacher doesn’t create a paper that stands alone. And they also learn a great deal about human interactions. Working one-on-one or in small groups quickly exposes a tutor to a range of human emotions and situa-tions which demand thinking quickly and responding ethically and empathetically.

With all of this learning happening in situations where tutors are virtually, if not literally, on their own, most writing centers have training programs that mentor them, especially at the begin-ning. These training programs vary widely with compensation in the form of course credit or wages, with training happening before performing the job or while learning the job, with training from supervisors, faculty and peers. Many of us find that storytelling is a vital aspect of this training, with train-ees explaining what happened in a given session, reflecting on their own actions in the situation, and asking for input about what else might have been done. Those listening use their own ex-periences as well as readings and theory to add to the collaborative brainstorming of possible solutions. I find this narrative aspect of training particularly critical for novice tutors. In addition to a one-credit course the first semester, all of my tutors get paid to meet weekly to discuss how things are going. The learning curve is par-ticularly steep for beginners, and this form of interaction allows them not only a learning opportunity about tu-toring, but a chance to be reassured that they are succeeding in many ways even while they are struggling with im-portant questions about how to do the job better.

That’s great for beginners, but what about returning tutors? How do we continue to help them grow in their knowledge of what it means to help others with their writing? Doing the job itself provides one of the best sources of continued learning. And participating in the training of inexperienced staff by sharing their experi-ences solidifies knowledge, while also raising questions which challenge ex-perienced tutors to continue to be ana-lytical about the tutoring process. But even in situations where the telling of tutoring tales is structured to require experienced tutors to reflect and possi-bly adapt their tutoring styles, the learning curve for the experienced tu-tor is greatly reduced. This is to be ex-pected. During their second semester I often witness the relief of developing tutors as the process becomes more au-tomatic so they can begin to relax and be less self-conscious during sessions.

Other than my student tutors, I am a staff of one. Anything that needs creat-ing, doing, or developing falls to me. Why not get some help from the tu-tors? I decided that in winter, tutors would have work groups rather than discussion groups. If there were a job to be done, tutors would once again be learning while doing. At the end of fall term our lead tutors conducted brainstorming sessions in their groups to come up with ideas of what the cen-ter needed. Then we had tutors priori-tize their interests, and we scheduled work groups based on those prefer-ences. While I let this process evolve, I did guide the design of the work groups so that the topics were areas I believed beneficial.

In some cases, the primary purpose was knowledge to be gained by the group members themselves. For ex-ample, one group studied learning dis-abilities and another studied the teach-ing of English as a second language. Both of these groups did research and discussed their findings, learning about these special populations and assessing how tutoring might be altered or chal-lenged by them. Each group also pro-duced something for orientation the following year. The LD group created a trifold brochure that highlighted a few of their findings which they dis-tributed at our orientation, and the ESL group designed an experience for ori-entation. The experience was to simu-late for tutors what it might be like for foreign language speakers to be in U.S. classrooms. To create the simulation, one member of the ESL group spoke German for several minutes without explaining in English what she was saying or doing, overwhelming the tu-tor audience with language they couldn’t understand. From the LD group there is a brochure that we can continue to use or develop further. The ESL group didn’t leave a legacy; their one-time simulation ended their contri-bution to the center, though I know that some of them learned a great deal about working with second language writers.

A third group, focused on creativity, developed a 16-page handbook called, “Get Out of Your Mind!” The hand-book offers many ways of breaking through writer’s block, being open to new and creative ideas, and adding in-terest to papers. There are fun activi-ties for individuals and groups. The booklet has been used by tutors, espe-cially when they are working with our basic writers in small group meetings. But they have also been requested by faculty who liked the idea and wanted to use some of the materials. This group believed that creativity makes writing more interesting, both in the process for the writer and ultimately, in the product for the reader.

Actually doing something is the key to learning by doing, and I discovered, not surprisingly, that the more concrete the purpose, the greater the reward for the group. Last year’s creativity group spent many hours coming up with ideas and creating materials beyond what they were paid for. The group leader even took a two-credit intern-ship to complete the handbook and make sure it had a professional look. Of the four members of that group, one person moved on to another college, but the other three all took on leader-ship roles in our center this year. One might conclude that this group pulled together our most talented and dedi-cated folks. That isn’t necessarily wrong, but the enthusiasm generated by the incredibly useful resource they created also deepened their commit-ment to the writing center.

At the beginning, I helped them think about what use could be made of their investigations into creativity. They lamented the boring papers they wrote and read. They discussed the lack of opportunity they perceived for creativity in academic writing. And then they hit upon the need they had for lively, interactive, confidence-building writing exercises to use with their basic writing groups. The mo-ment that purpose was identified, they were off and running. I became one of their proofreaders, and I also offered feedback along the way, encouraging some of their ideas more than others, pointing our what could and couldn’t be reproduced easily. But mostly, I watched as they came together weekly, excited about each new idea and how it might fit.

Similar problems occurred in the re-maining groups as well. Without a clear purpose, some groups were far less successful from my perspective, but that’s mostly my fault. The creativ-ity group invited my input, other groups didn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay very close attention to each of the groups as the semester wore on, and in some cases groups got stranded at the brainstorming stage and didn’t fully move into implementing their ideas. A topic alone does not provide a purpose or project. The “doing” aspect fell away as groups talked their way through the semester. It was a more fo-cused discussion than previous years, but the talk was never embodied in any physical form.

With that in mind, I made it clear this year that I was looking for tangible results. Halfway through the semester, groups are working on the following:

Revising our hiring process—by

changing the essay applicants

critique and the structure of our

group interview to make it less

intimidating and by developing

recruitment tools.

Improving orientation—by structuring a more interactive time with faculty when they join us and by eliminating elements that don’t pertain directly to tutoring.

Developing public relations tools—such as writing center flyers to post around campus. Designing a logo and slogan contest. Creating materials to use when we go into freshman seminars for presentations.

Expanding a resource about the problems that tutors face—by writing scenarios of common problems and ways of address-ing them. Written ways of offering such tutor talk are sometimes desired by quieter tutors.

Developing ways to improve faculty relations—by sending out surveys to faculty and tutors to create a handout for new tutors that explains how to work effectively with faculty in the composition classroom.

Designing a web page for the center—by exploring the web sites of other university writing centers. Without much web-authoring experience in the group, they’ve decided to carefully design a home page with photos as links to the areas of information they’d like to have available. However, they don’t expect to get those links done this semester. (This limitation of expectation helped the group move from flounder-ing on “I don’t know enough” to enthusiastic creators.)

This semester I’ve gone into the

groups to check on questions they

might have. I discuss with lead tutors,

who run the groups, any problems they

sense in group dynamics. I help brain

storm ways of creating collaborative

environments. This makes the job of

leading the group easier for them and

creates more positive attitudes among the group members. I’ve made sure that groups are prioritizing their ideas and working toward concrete goals. The groups don’t need me watching over them or holding their hands, but they do need me to set parameters and expectations. I try to monitor items be-ing sent with the writing center’s name on them, like the surveys, but other-wise I mostly stay out of the way.

In the past, our conference presenta-tions have been relatively local—state or regional—and have involved only a couple of tutors. This year, we’re go-ing to the National Writing Centers Association Conference. The costs of such a trip for five tutors is much greater than our budget can bear. This obstacle created another kind of con-crete need that had to be addressed. While it involves only 15% of my tu-tors, it’s given us a goal to attain to-gether. In two weeks of working on this problem, we’ve not only raised most of the money we need, but we’ve generated a great deal of publicity about our planned presentation. And our plans for the actual presentation have been the most vigorous undertak-ing I’ve seen yet. There’s a genuine team effort under way. Individuals are taking up ideas and developing them. One person went to the president of the university and got half of the money we need. Another person contacted the student paper and landed the best ar-ticle we’ve ever had about the writing center. Someone mentioned our project to a faculty member who is now going to join us in our presentation. Tonight we’re deciding what materials need to be developed and what elements are critical in our presentation. Individuals and pairs will take tasks and prepare them for our next meeting, all without pay. And the event is still two months away. It amazes me the extra energy that these students are putting forth. These are undergraduates. Most of them are not English majors, and most of them are not going to be teachers. But they work at the writing center, and they see this as a great opportunity for fun as well as personal growth and professional development.

Denise Stephenson Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI

Tutorial Coordinator WritingBucks County Community College

Full-time position in the Tutoring Center (51205) Ex-^{Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in English; experi}

empt level 14. Responsibilities include assisting students ^{ence in teaching and/or tutoring; and the specific knowl}_{in mastering writing and study skills necessary to suc-}edge that is required to tutor all of the courses in the as

cessfully complete their courses; overseeing the Writing ^{signed area. Must be able to work evening hours as} _{Area of the Tutoring Center which includes recruiting,} needed and occasionally travel to other campuses. Start

interviewing, training, scheduling, and supervising Per ^{Date: May 21, 2001. Send resume to:} Diem Instructional Assistants, Professional Tutors, and ^{Bucks County Community College} Peer Tutors to ensure proper tutoring is provided in all ^{Office of Human Resources} assigned areas. ^{275 Swamp Road}

Newtown, PA 18940-4106

Networking: Tutors helping each other

Such situations are discouraging to a tutor who can then begin to doubt his or her ability. But if the lines of com-munication are open in the Center, an-other tutor can volunteer to see the stu-dent. If there are no conflicts, a joint session can also be conducted. Some-times this helps the unfocused student as well. When these students are di-rected to a second tutor, they receive additional reinforcement, not only of the writing process but of the need for proper scheduling and manners.

Problems can also evolve among tutors. When one of our tutors quit close to the end of the semester, it created an unfortunate situation. The tutor had not mentioned to any of us that she intended to quit, nor were we aware she was having problems. After she missed a day at the Center, the director called the tutor and discovered she no longer worked with us. We were frustrated that she would not discuss her prob-lems. Not only did she let us down, but she also let her students down. And each of us had to take up where she left off, whether it was taking an hour that she was supposed to work or having to pick up students who knew and de-pended on her. If she had communi-cated her concerns, we might have been able to encourage her and prevent her from quitting. The loss of her knowledge and abilities handicapped our resources.

Communication between tutors is ex-tremely important because we are play-ers on a team, and without a team, the others have a greater struggle than if all tutors work together. We are rarely scheduled to work at the same time, so in our Writing Center we keep a writ-ten log that documents any problems, questions, or comments we have or wish to share with each other. It is just as important a means of communica-tion as verbal communication is. And we are a constant source of encourage-ment to each other. We are still learn-ing ourselves, and networking allows us to broaden our horizons and helps us create a successful team strategy.

I also know that I have a lot to learn about interacting with students who come into the writing center for help, and that’s something I was already aware of without any class discussion or experience. Although I haven’t had any upsetting consults yet, I still feel nervous and intimidated just thinking about the students who might come in, the questions they have that I might not be able to answer, the things they’ll want from me that I won’t be able to give them.

Becoming comfortable with tutoring comes with experience, and I’m work-ing on that. So far working with the students has taught me something that I often remind myself of but still don’t remember: me helping them with their papers does not equal me being put na-ked in some spotlight for everyone to pick apart and laugh at. What I’m say-ing is that although it is common and normal to be anxious about tutoring, and I realize this, it’s not the nightmare that nervous tutors can sometimes build it up to be.

Calendar for Writing Centers Associations

April 7, 2001: Northwest Regional Writing Centers Association, in Bellingham, WA Contact: Roberta R. Buck, Coordinator, Western Washington University Writing Center, Wilson Library 492, Bellingham, WA 98225-9124. Email: Roberta.Buck@wwu.edu; phone: 360-650-7338. Conference website: <http://www.wwu.edu/ ~writepro/Conference.htm>

June 18-20, 2001: European Writing Center Association, in Groningen, The Netherlands Contact: e-mail: eataw.conference@let.rug.nl; fax: ++31.503636855. Conference website: <http://www.hum.ku.dk/ formidling/eataw/>

Sept. 14-15, 2001: Midwest Writing Center Association, in Iowa City, IA Contact: SuEllen Shaw, shaws@mnstate.edu, or Cinda Coggins, CCoggins66@aol.com. Conference website: <www.ku.edu/~MWCA>.

The more I work with students, I think, the better I’ll be able to grasp these ideas and feel less nervous about consults and more excited about shar-ing with students the love of writing and any helpful knowledge that I have.

Writing Lab Director North Carolina Wesleyan College

Assistant Professor of English/Director of the Writing Lab Tenure Track position to direct the Writing Lab in the Student Support Center at North Carolina Wesleyan College begins July, 2001. This is a 12-month position and will re-port to the Dean of the College. Duties will include development and implemen-tation of a writing lab, supervision and staff development of writing tutors, and developing an online writing lab.

Requirements: Ph.D. or ABD in Com-position/Rhetoric or English. Applicants for this full-time position should have at least 3 years of experience in administer-ing or serving in a writing lab, college teaching experience, and relevant back-ground or interest in instructional tech-nology, electronic portfolios, and OWLs. Send letter of application, vita, and dos-sier to Darrell Whitley, Director of Per-sonnel, N.C. Wesleyan College, 3400 N. Wesleyan Blvd. Rocky Mount, NC 27804. Applications will be accepted until position is filled.

Making synchronous, on-line tutorials easier: Microsoft’s NetMeeting 3.1

A second fix to NetMeeting 2.1 has put a halt to what we at Indiana State coined “mouse wars,” the frustrating battle between client and consultant which occurred because NetMeeting

1. allowed only one party at a time to control the mouse/cursor. In suffering long delays while in chat, impatient participants would inevitably try to take matters into their own hands by clicking the mouse to enter a new chat message before the other person could reply to a previous one. This inappro-priate (but understandable) act, of course, disrupted the communication process, producing a series of on-screen non-sequiturs and a lot of wasted time. Designers of NetMeeting

2. wisely have made alterations to avoid such struggles for the mouse. The new version automatically gives control of the mouse to the consultant, but with a new “ask/grant function,” presents the consultant with the option of offering control to the client (or re-claiming it) as necessary. While this feature obviously awards more control of the tutorial to the consultant, it does so with the benefit of greatly increas-ing its efficiency. At Indiana State, we have found the trade-off worth it, as it was largely responsible for helping us cut our average 75-second delay be-tween chat exchanges to about 14 sec-onds, a far more endurable rate.

Another improvement that NetMeeting 3.1 offers is a highlighting feature that allows one to bring por-tions of text to the attention of the other participant. With NetMeeting 2.1, highlighting could be done only by clicking and dragging the cursor over the desired portion of text. The prob-lem with this was that selected text was easily lost if someone hit any key on the keyboard. Now, because NetMeeting 3.1 is more fully inte-grated with Microsoft Word functions, one can highlight by clicking on the highlight icon in the Windows toolbar with no danger of losing text. More-over, one can highlight in different col-ors for ease of identification, a nice feature considering that when online one can’t point a client’s eyes to a pas-sage with one’s finger.

A third tactic is to schedule two-hour, online tutorials. While it might not be beneficial to work online with a client for two hours (there are argu-ments pro and con), it could be useful to the consultant to have up to an hour to prep for an upcoming tutorial to put into practice some of the suggestions made above. Tying up a consultant’s time this way may not be so much a scheduling liability as a way to make online sessions worthwhile.

While it hasn’t replaced the need for face-to-face tutorials, Microsoft must be applauded for developing NetMeeting 3.1. They have truly de-signed a product that makes doing syn-chronous, online tutorials easier and at no direct cost to the consumer.

New institute for writing center research

The Liberal Studies Project at the University of Louisville vide a centralized repository of writing center research, has provided funding for a national institute for writing cen-scholarship and publications. An advisory board consist-ter research. The mission of the institute is to provide ongo-ing of Allison Holland, Eric Hobson, Brad Hughes, Neal ing support for two projects: the statistics and benchmark Lerner, Carol Mattingly, Michael Pemberton, and Jeanne project initiated by Jeanne Simpson and the NWCA, and an Simpson will meet in April. Anyone wishing to donate archive of writing center scholarship. The project aims to materials may contact Carol Mattingly at the University gather and publish statistical information about writing cen-Writing Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, ters to enable valid comparisons and benchmarks. Periodic 40292. The advisory board would like to thank John Hale surveys and reports will provide meaningful data for writing and the Liberal Studies Project at the University of Louis-center decision making and planning. The archive will pro-ville for initiating this national resource.

Reissue of reference book for

Quotable QuoteESL tutoring

I like to tell my students that an essay and a good dinner party work the

Alice Maclin’s Reference Guide to English: A Handbook of

same way. The introduction is the ap-

English for Speakers of Other Languages, originally published

petizer, and as such needs to stimulateby Holt, Rinehart & Winston, in 1981, has been reprinted by the

my appetite and make me want to readClifton Language Institute. Reprinted by the United States In-

on to see what this writer has to offer. formation Agency in 1997 and distributed around the world to

The body of the essay is the mainUnited States embassies, the book is a particularly helpful re

course of the meal, substantial, filling,source for tutoring ESL students who are at intermediate or ad-

wholesome. Finally, the conclusion isvanced levels of learning English. Arranged alphabetically by

the dessert—by many accounts the besttopic, the book is meant to be used as a reference. There are ex-

and most memorable part of the meal.tensive sections on articles, determiners, adjective forms, word

Please don’t serve rewarmed appetizerorder of adverbs, questions, and other topics relevant to non-na

(it was good the first time, but trytive speakers of English. There is also guidance with matters

something else here—a tasty tidbitsuch as documentation, connotation, and alphabetizing (for us-

saved for this special occasion, perers of other alphabets).

haps, or a contrasting flavor from the main course). Balanced meals and bal-Copies can be ordered by writing directly to the author, Alice

anced essays should leave the eater/Maclin, 1723 East Clifton Road, Atlanta, GA 30307 or through

reader satisfied with the experience.her website at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/

maclins. The cost is $15 plus $3.50 shipping in the U.S. per

York Comprehensive High School,

copy or 10 copies for $100.00 plus shipping charges.

THEW RITING L

AB

NEWSLETTER