...FROM THE EDITOR...

As you may have noticed in recent issues of the Writing Lab Newsletter, an increasing number of institutions are advertising for writing center direc-tors. And reports from some institu-tions indicate a scarcity of experienced and/or qualified candidates—which points to the need to train more people to step into these jobs. And while some graduate programs offer graduate courses in writing center administra-tion, a new institute will be held next summer to meet the need for an inten-sive focus on writing center direction. On page 9, you’ll see an announce-ment for this institute, and their Web site will soon offer more information.

This issue of the newsletter also in-cludes D’Ann George’s reflections on the politics of proposing a new course in tutor training, and Rachel Perkes summarizes for us what she learned about the number of hours writing cen-ters are open for operation. Other ar-ticles offer new approaches to peren-nial topics: Adar Cohen explores the use of improv games in tutoring; Steven Corbett gives us excellent sug-gestions for visits to classrooms to ex-plain our services, and Rebecca Day introduces us to another model for how people learn.

• Muriel Harris, editor

...INSIDE...

Lobbying for New Courses in Writing Center Theory/ Pedagogy

• D’Ann George 1

From Stage to Page: Using Improvisational Acting to Cultivate Confidence in Writers

• Adar Cohen 6

Tutors’ Column:

“The Role of the Emissary: Helping to Bridge the Communication Canyon Between Instructors and Students”

• Steven J. Corbett 10

Conference Calendar 11

Writing Center Hours of Operation: What Influences Them?

• Rachel B. Perkes 12

Viewing Writing Centers through Brian Cambourne’s Model of Learning

• Rebecca Day 13

Politics and allies

Almost the moment I set foot on the campus where I now direct a writing center, I began designing a syllabus for a new course to train writing center staff, which I quickly proposed at one of the first meetings of the writing commit-tee. I would later regret my haste and wish I had spent more time getting to know my new colleagues and the cam-pus culture before proposing some-thing new. I wrongly (though perhaps reasonably) assumed that because I had mentioned a new course for peer tutors in my job interview, I somehow had a mandate for a course and didn’t need to waste time crafting a rationale my colleagues would accept.

Many of my colleagues acknowledge suffering from similar symptoms of political myopia. Deborah Martinson (Occidental College), for example, ad-mits excitedly blurting out her ideas for a course at a meeting when the committee chair asked if anyone had plans for a new course. Later, after several people raised questions for which she had no prepared answers, she had to backtrack. It was then she realized the course sounded too much like an imported product and not an an-swer to a genuine institutional need. It would have been more politic for her and writing center co-director Tom Burkdall to solicit colleagues for their ideas about what writing tutors needed to know and then to position the course as, at least in part, a response to their perceptions.

At Bristol Community College, Howard Tinberg’s mindset was like-wise an obstacle keeping him from be-coming more politic. When he first proposed his course to the divisional curriculum committee, he was thinking primarily about the advantages of a course for the lab and for himself as WPA. With a course, he could train tu-tors much more efficiently and system-atically. He could expect them to show up for meetings having read assigned articles. Believing that others would yield to his claims of expertise on the best way to run a writing center, he wrongly assumed a rubber stamp of his proposal.

The experiences of Tinberg, Martinson and myself demonstrate that developing good relationships with people in power on your campus lays necessary groundwork for any kind of curricular change or program develop-ment you will eventually do, whether or not you think your proposal contro-versial. Without strong advocates in a key department or committee, you may not be able to proceed to the next level of governance. Or you may not recog-nize the course you proposed after a committee edits the description and ra-tionale.

For writing center administrators who are not members of an academic department, finding allies for a pro-posal can prove exceptionally difficult. Jim Bell, a full-time staff member at the University of Northern British Co-lumbia, found he wasn’t even invited to the department or senate meetings where his proposal for a course was discussed. Perhaps because he couldn’t advocate for his own cause, the En-glish department took two minutes to reject his proposal. Unwilling to give up, Bell shopped his proposal around, taking it next to the psychology depart-ment, where the course found a willing buyer but with a heavy discount: they wanted to teach the course themselves after Bell taught it one semester. He next tried the department of education, where they turned his proposal into a course in “individualized instruction methods,” suitable for a wide range of teachers-in-training at the expense of a focus on writing.

Though you may face an uphill battle for course approval without faculty sta-tus, you can increase your chance for success by seeking natural allies among faculty who share a strong commitment to undergraduate teaching and feel they benefit from writing cen-ter services. At the University of Wis-consin-Madison, for example, the best advocate for Brad Hughes’ course— beyond faculty within the English de-partment— proved to be a history pro-fessor who already believed in the importance of writing-intensive courses and understood how well-trained writing center consultants sup-port them at institutions like Brown and Yale. Similarly, members of the chemistry department who at first op-posed Martinson’s course became strong advocates after she showed them that 46% of students in their courses had used the writing center.

Michele Eodice’s experience, on the other hand, demonstrates that some of the best allies are not natural but cultivated. At the University of Kansas, she won the support of an assistant dean by asking him for feedback on her course proposal before she submitted it to any committee. She thinks he felt flattered because her request seemed to indicate he played a pivotal role on campus. From this successful experience, Eodice learned that support for a course—and for a writing center itself—requires deliberate networking.

Another way to attach your course to the coat tails of your college’s mission is to look for existing programs that al-ready have some momentum on cam-pus. Tinberg, for example, positioned his course as both a service learning opportunity and an offering through the honors program. Similarly, when Hughes proposed his course for under-graduate writing fellows, he saw a strong connection between his goals for the course and a new Pathways to Excellence Program that would at-tempt to involve undergraduates in re-search and teaching initiatives. In al-most all the discussions and oral presentations about the course, he em-phasized that link.

In addition to looking at stated goals and existing programs, consider whether faculty and administrators at your institution circulate any myths about the nature of the student popula-tion, or the history of the school, or the school’s identity that might prove fa-vorable to your cause. For example, many of Martinson’s colleagues be-lieved that the college’s mission was to train undergraduates for graduate school and professional work through a “writing centered” approach, so she ar-gued that a truly writing-intensive cur-riculum required a first-class, state-of-the art writing center, which of course meant a rigorously trained staff.

Institutional lore can help you to move your proposal forward, or it can prove a real obstacle, as when it shrouds procedures for proposing new courses. Such procedures may be straightforward and clearly explained in an official document at your institution, but at some schools they exist only in the unreliable memories of col-leagues and administrators. Both Beth Young (University of Central Florida), and Sally Joranko (John Carroll Uni-versity), for example, had a difficult time figuring out how, when, and to whom to submit proposal materials. Both advise asking several different authorities on your campus about pro-posal procedures, and getting answers in writing. If a source is vague, says Young, ask follow-up questions: What is the first step? When are the due dates? What materials will the commit-tee need? How long will each step of the process take?

If you fail to grasp procedures for proposing a course, you may find that your proposal takes much longer than you think to gain approval, or that it stalls somewhere in the process. Bruce Pegg, for example, found that propos-als went from the sponsoring depart-ment to a dean’s advisory council, from which they would return, re-jected, with no rationale for the disap-proval. If he had learned about this process earlier, he could have scouted members of the advisory council in ad-vance and made sure that at least one felt accountable to him for the decision concerning his proposal.

Perceptions

Your biggest obstacle to getting a course in writing center theory/peda-gogy on the books may be your col-leagues’ doubts about the academic merit of the course. Both Martinson and Burkdall, for example, had been hired to co-direct the Writing Center and as writing specialists. Martinson reports that there was a widely held perception that she and Tom were “writing people” and therefore skill purveyors. The course, people wrong assumed, would teach basic skills rather than subject matter more typi-cally taught in a small liberal arts col-lege. Similarly, Pegg’s proposal for a course never got past his small writing department because members feared it sounded too vocational for a liberal college. Pegg felt they were buying into a university mentality about courses in pedagogy, but he was none-theless unable to overcome their self-defeating attitudes.

Researching courses at other institu-tions should help you not only to build a stronger course but also to define the academic content of the course in a way that colleagues on your campus will accept. If your school is a commu-nity college, for example, collect syl-labi from other two-year schools, and discuss the how these model courses have defined abstract concepts like “writing center theory” and “writing center pedagogy.” Or if your school is an elite liberal arts college (or aspires to be one), consider modeling your course, at least in part, on those at other elite liberal arts colleges like Wellesley and Colgate. Remember that different institutions, and even differ-ent colleagues within institutions, may have different standards for what counts as academic content or rigor. Be willing to listen to your colleagues’ concerns and prepared to point to simi-lar institutions where course content includes such topics as collaborative learning theory or critical pedagogy.

Language choices

As you write your official proposal and prepare to talk with campus deci-sion makers about your course, con-sider carefully the language that will describe what you want to do and what students will do. Don’t assume a friendly audience who shares the per-spective of writing center professionals on the importance of formal training for tutors. Likewise, don’t assume an audience comfortable with discipline-specific language for describing what students can learn from working in and theorizing about writing centers. The discourse of writing center circles tends to over-represent the part of our work that involves training in practical strategies and under-represent more traditional academic concerns, like theories of writing or learning. Don’t even assume your colleagues will auto-matically accept course titles that are on the books at other institutions.

For example, when Pegg titled his course “Composition Theory and Prac-tice,” an innocent-sounding title, writ-ing department members objected to the word “practice” in the title. He speculates they were following the lead of the education department at Colgate, which emphasizes theory but not hands-on practice. Still, Pegg found their objection baffling since writing courses in his department emphasize practice.

Objections to the word “practice” are not uncommon, however. The Dean of Arts & Sciences at first objected to Bell’s course because it was “too prac-tical.” Quick on his feet, Bell sug-gested that instead of practical matters, the course begin with Aristotle and fo-cus on the “Philosophy of Writing.” With this more elevated language, the Dean bought in. Similarly, Martinson believes a course title or description that included the words “practice,” “tu-toring” or “training” would never have passed at her small, liberal arts college. Her title: “Theory and Pedagogy of Writing.”

Young recommends language that makes the course sound like typical academic work, though she wasn’t al-ways so careful. When she first began working with graduate students, they resented having to attend her “training meetings.” But after she began calling them “seminars,” the next group of grad students was more cooperative. In another savvy rhetorical move, she be-gan to call observations “professional development projects.” The word “training” still exists in her profes-sional lexicon, but she is careful to pull it out in the right context—for ex-ample, in a promo advertising the center’s services to students.

Back doors

You may be able to avoid an obstruc-tive curriculum committee if you can co-opt a course that already exists. At Coe College, Bob Marrs co-opted a class called Process in Writing, a course that had originally consisted of a 30-minute conference between in-structor and student and had nothing to do with preparing tutors to work in a writing center. The advantage of co-opting an existing course, says Marrs, is that it is easier to argue for a proven track record of something you are al-ready doing successfully than to argue you will do something well in the fu-ture if given the chance.

Chloe Diepenbrock co-opted a course from the communications de-partment called “Undergraduate Practicum,” but says her experience taught her that it may be worth it in the end to fight your way into the curricu-lum through the front door rather than the back. Though tutors in her campus do take a course, Chloe teaches it as an overload without extra compensation. To make matters worse, reviewers of her third-year application for promo-tion claimed her writing center articles and conference presentations were ser-vice, not scholarship. She feels the problem on her campus is one of lack of respect for what writing center di-rectors do. My question about her ex-perience: would her colleagues be less in the dark about the value of her work had she argued for the place of her course in the undergraduate curriculum rather than co-opting an existing course?

As we argue for the place of our courses in the curriculum, we do more than attempt to make our administra-tive task easier. We also do more than attempt to provide systematic, rigorous training for peer writing consultants. When we argue that a course in writing center theory and pedagogy should ex-ist on our campuses, we argue for the intellectual and academic nature of our work and that of writing consultants. Therefore, time spent talking about the course and its goals with faculty mem-bers, deans, and other members of powerful committees, isn’t a waste of time. Rather, it is central to what we do. If writing centers are going to thrive, we must be good rhetoricians who consider our institutional context when we shape the language we use to propose and promote new programs and courses. We must be careful read-ers of our institutions and rhetors within those institutions.

Me: “So, what are ways that you could develop this paragraph?”

Tutee: “Well, I could talk about the ways that children avoid their par-ents. —(ding!)— I could . . . talk about the way children stick to-gether and drift away from their parents.”

Me: “That sounds interesting. What else?”

Tutee: “I could mention how some kids move out before they are 18 —(ding!)—-I could mention how very few kids move out before they are —(ding!)— I could talk about how I moved out before I was 18.”

Me: “Wow. Is that true?”

Tutee: “Yeah, that’s why I am inter-ested in this topic —(ding!)— that’s why I want to write about this topic—(ding!)— that’s why I want to prove that teenagers can make it on their own.”

The game Actually is usually played with two people. The actors create a scene and engage in dialogue, which can be interrupted at any point by the bell. When it rings, the actor must change the last thing he has said, and continue to do so until the bell and its ringer are satisfied. The above impro-visational game excavated some pre-cious ideas and revealed a gem of per-sonal experience.

It is safe to say that most reluctant writers are not boisterous jokesters. Many students will feel uncomfortable playing Improv games the first time they visit a writing tutor, and many tu-tors will be hesitant to initiate this deli-cate process. We should try to push through the unease, recognizing it as both a cause of the tutee’s difficulties and an authentic emotion that should not be ignored. We must walk this tightrope with sensitivity and resolve. Unless the tutee is genuinely petrified, the show must go on. The discomfort is part of the medicine. Hiding behind ambiguity, wordiness, and self-censure is comfortable. Pushing through bad habits and working hard to form new ones cannot be a comfortable process.

Improv slips through the fingers of those who try to define it. Its amor-phous, transformative nature evades any attempt to classify it as a theatre sport, as psycho-drama, or as im-promptu comedy. However, these cir-cumstances have not discouraged people from dipping their hands into the water and trying to grasp the slip-pery art form. Viola Spolin, author of the first authoritative book on the sub-ject, Improvisation for the Theater, called it “a moment in the lives of people without needing a plot or story line for the communication” (384). Greg Atkins, accomplished actor and Improv guru, offers another definition. He emphasizes “the freedom of impro-visation—no script, no director, noth-ing but a group of actors creating rela-tionships, conflicts, dialogue, plot, songs . . . off the top of our heads” (xiii). Why is it that writers lack the confidence to do the same?

What evil forces have instilled ap-prehension in today’s writers? How has self-doubt become an epidemic? How have vagueness and inappropriate neutrality become such common vices? Why does “the academy” encourage the composition of ornate bouquets that choke the clarity out of students’ writing? These are legitimate chal-lenges that writers of all abilities must face.

In The Confident Writer, Constance Gefvert outlines four of the major rea-sons why writing demands so much confidence. First, writing is not as natural as speaking. We talk every day, and we learned how to do so long be-fore we articulated any of our thoughts on paper. Second, writers do not have a tangible audience to give instant and continuous feedback. Third, unlike writing, speaking is usually provisional and does not feel cast in stone. The idea that writing is permanent and irre-vocable is yet another source of anxi-ety that diminishes confidence. Fourth, while we converse freely on any sub-ject that pleases us, writing in the workplace and in schools is often as-signed. Limiting a writer’s topic to as-signed drudgery will only suffocate a spirit of confidence and creativity.

Word Ball taps into the phenomenon of free-association and encourages the unrestrained generation of ideas. This game can be used with students who have difficulty generating creative al-ternatives to mundane words that con-gest their writing. Word Ball affirms the value of the student’s ideas. If they are zany, good. If they clarify, great. If they are unique, honest, and appropri-ate to the piece, save them; they’re priceless. This game may not put tutees at ease, but they will get used to it. The results are worth it.

Self-criticism: Resuscitating creativity

Writers who lack confidence make harsh judgments of their writing. These frustrated, pessimistic decrees usually sound something like: “I don’t feel that I’m being successful with this assign-ment” (Taylor 25) or “it might be kind of dumb” (Newkirk 319). Improv re-places these self-conscious tendencies with a liberal reverence for any cre-ative effort.

Reticent writers can benefit from One-Word Story. This game is played with as few as two people (tutor and tutee) or as many as twenty (an Improv class or troupe). For a large group, the actors sit in a circle; if only two people are playing, they should sit facing each other. The participants tell a story to-gether, alternating one word at a time. The story shouldn’t be complicated. The establishment and resolution of a conflict and the clear presence of a be-ginning, a middle, and an end are the only requirements. One-Word Story sharpens an actor’s ability to move a storyline forward, organize his ideas, and vocalize his thoughts quickly and with assurance. Why wouldn’t it do the same for a writer?

Mechanics: Postponing preoccupation

Many writers have snuffed out their flames of confidence by worrying about insignificant aspects of their writing. They are so preoccupied with mechanics, grammar, and spelling that they miss the precious opportunity to “engage, soar, create, discover . . . ” (Bishop 45). Improv does not permit the writer to miss these opportunities. Sound-Ball enforces this policy. It is played exactly like Word-Ball except that instead of random words, the ac-tors throw and catch spontaneous sounds. Tutors can use this game to help tutees overcome the anxieties that smother confidence. Since generating non-sensical noises in a discursive, academic context is unconventional, even unheard of, this game has the po-tential to cure writers of their writing fears. But if the tutee is completely un-easy about playing this game, drop it. Torturing tutees is counterproductive: it doesn’t help them write better pa-pers, and it certainly doesn’t promote repeat business.

Gibberish Ball resembles Word-Ball and Sound-Ball. But instead of words or sounds, whimsical imitations of for-eign, if not otherworldly, languages roll off the actors’ tongues. The ball is thrown and caught as the players try to outdo each other’s vocal concoctions.

This game is perfect for the writer who has the tendency to deem her ideas wrong or inadequate. How can gibberish be wrong? Like other Improv games, Gibberish Ball salutes any cre-ative effort and ignores the typical con-cerns: Is it boring? Is it all over the place? How will it sound? Did I even do it right? Some of these concerns are important elements of the writing pro-cess, but they become destructive when they dictate, dominate, manipu-late, and subdue. Gibberish Ball can keep them in check by resuscitating the breath of creativity when it gets re-stricted.

Improv in practice

Alexis brought me a draft of the proposal she was writing for an environmental work camp in Brazil during her winter break. She was concerned with her overuse of certain words and her supposed inability to replace them. “I can’t come up with better ones,” she explained, “and I get so frustrated!” Her proposal’s introduction was en-gaging. She described the expressions she had received when she told people that she had spent her summer at a work camp: I wonder how many crazy looks I received. Per order of Alexis, crazy had to go. We played Word Ball. Two things were clear: the game had enormous consciousness-tapping po-tential, and it would be a considerable challenge for Alexis, who is shy and easily embarrassed. I began, throwing crazy at Alexis. She froze, smiled, and threw back my mom. It wasn’t quite what we were after, but I continued. Bizarre. She paused again before pro-testing, “I don’t see how this is sup-posed to work.” I considered dropping it but decided to give it one last chance. “Just one more try,” I pleaded casually. Bizarre. Alexis: Unique.

But how else can this theoretical re-lationship be propelled into practice? How can the relationship’s potential be harnessed? Workshops on both art forms could blend a bit of each other into their programs. Writing experts could incorporate Improv into their teaching and vice-versa. Appropriate English and Theater courses at colleges and universities could be departmen-tally linked to enhance the education of students studying Writing or Improv. What if more opportunities to Impro-vise were offered to high school, middle school, and elementary school students? What if they were granted the opportunity to experiment with and explore this fascinating realm of spon-taneous, interactive theater as they de-veloped their writing skills? The re-sults would be magnificent.

Both arts begin with a blank canvas: a stage or a page. Wild vivid brush strokes blend with softer, subtle ac-cents to paint a story. Soon the canvas is alive with color, texture, and mean-ing. The painting is no longer a canvas but a reality that provokes laughter, tears, illumination, dialogue. This painting becomes a portrait of the cre-ator, and if she watches closely and searches deeply, her confidence will emerge from the chaos of the once-blank canvas.

Atkins, Greg. Improv!: A Handbook for the Actor. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1994.

Bishop, Wendy. “Is There a Creative Writer in the House? Tutoring to Enhance Creativity and Engagement.” A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One. Ed. Ben Rafoth. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2000. 44-54.

Daiker, Donald A. “Learning to Praise.” Writing and Response: Theory, Practice, and Research. Urbana: NCTE, 1989. 103-113.

Gefvert, Constance J. The Confident Writer. London: Norton, 1985.

Newkirk, Thomas. “The First Five Minutes: Setting the Agenda in a Writing Conference.” Writing and Response: Theory, Practice, and Research. Urbana: NCTE, 1989. 317-331.

Spolin, Viola. Improvisation for the Theater. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1963.

Taylor, David. “A Counseling Ap-proach to Writing Conferences.” Dynamics of the Writing Confer-ence: Social and Cognitive Inter-action. Ed. Thomas Flynn and Mary King. Urbana: NCTE, 1993. 24-33.

hand if you consider yourself a perfect writer.” Here I pause and wait to see what type of response I receive. I have asked this question before, and usually no one raises a hand. People chuckle and look around the room, but no hands go up this time, so I continue, “As you notice, no one raised their hand, including your instructor.” She just shakes her head in accord. “And that is because ‘We are all apprentices in a craft where no one becomes a master’ (Hemingway).” Now that I have everyone’s attention, I proceed.

I point to a student in the front row and ask, “What type of concerns do you have when you are getting started with a paper?” Direct questions loosen students (and me) up a little, starting the flow of conversation. If the stu-dents relax slightly, some of their true concerns may surface. After a few of his classmates have spoken, a student sitting right next to his instructor raises his hand and bravely asserts: “I thought I had done a really good job with this paper, but I just got it back and she totally shredded it and says it is unacceptable.” (The teacher only smiles self-consciously.) I tell him that the first thing he will want to do is talk to his teacher about it, to try to under-stand why the teacher “shredded” the paper and how he might be able to im-prove it. Next I let him know that this type of situation is exactly what we at the Writing Center are here for: to help students understand/interpret instructor’s expectations. During the course of the discussion, I keep my language clear but colloquial, keeping my audience closely in mind. Students can smell condescension and pretense a mile away, so I do not try to talk down to them. Instead, I try to talk with them as much as possible, letting them know how important communication is in the writing process.

While visiting another class, this time for peer response groups, I quietly approach a group and begin by saying “I don’t want to interrupt or intrude, but would it be all right if I sit in dur-ing your critique? Maybe I can offer something helpful.” After listening to them finish off what they are saying, I start by talking of communication: “What is your instructor’s name?” They look at each other, searchingly. Finally, after a five second pause, two of the students chime in together “Ms. —.” I get the impression that this group does not use their teacher’s name very often. “Are you allowed to call her by her first name?” I query. No one knows. I go on to explain how En-glish instructors are famous for being on an approachable, first name basis and are generally interested in commu-nicating with their students. I tell them they should approach their instructors with the intent of finding out what sort of teacher they are: what sort of expec-tations they have; how much freedom of expression the teacher will allow them in their writing; can they use “I,” can they use narrative, and of course how the teacher wishes to be addressed —communicate, communicate. Then we get down to the basics: theses, topic sentences, introductions (you know the list). Again, I am speaking with them, trying to get them to loosen up as much as possible, while still maintain-ing an air of credibility. I ask ques-tions, then listen carefully to what they have to say; they end up saying a lot and having good, specific questions. Finally, I try to leave each group with the memory of a Writing Center they can come to for assistance in coordinating information one-on-one, the same type of coordinating they should endeavor to establish with their instructors—speaking as well as listening.

After the peer review session is finished, and the students have left the classroom, I speak with the instructor briefly about how the session went and about her class in general. She voices her concern that most of the kids in the class simply are not trying to commu-nicate with her: not visiting during of-fice hours, not speaking to her after class. “I think that they were just showing off for you, trying to put their best foot forward,” she says. This may be true, but the more we try to get stu-dents to put their best foot forward the better. The more we, as peer tutors, visit classrooms the better. Visits bring fresh faces and new perspectives into the classroom, for students and for in-structors. These visits may provide just the right amount of material we need to build bridges to closer communication.

Calendar for Writing Centers Associations

October 5, 2002: Michigan Writing Centers Association, in Conference Web site: <www.uncc.edu/writing/ East Lansing, MI wrcindex.html>. Contact: Janet Swenson, jswenson@pilot.msu.edu. Conference Web site: http://writing.msu.edu/mwca March 27-29, 2003: East Central Writing Centers

Association, in Marietta, OH

October 25-27, 2002: Midwest Writing Centers Association, Contact: Tim Catalano (catalant@marietta.edu) in Lawrence, KS Director of the Campus Writing Center, 215 Fifth Contact: Michele Eodice (michele@ku.edu) or Cinda Street, Marietta College, Marietta, OH 45750 Coggins (CCoggins66@aol.com ). Conference Web site: <Catalant@marietta.edu>. Conference Web site: < http://www.writing.ku.edu/ncptw-mwca>. <http://www.marietta.edu/~mcwrite/

eastcentral.html>.

February 13-15, 2003: Southeastern Writing Center Associa-tion, in Charlotte, SC October 23-25, 2003: International Writing Centers Contact: Deanna Rogers, Writing Resources Center, 220 Conference and National Conference on Peer Fretwell, 9201 University City Blvd., UNC Charlotte, Tutoring in Writing, in Hershey, PA Charlotte, NC 28223-0001. Phone: (704) 687-4226; fax: Contact: Ben Rafoth, brafoth@iup.edu. Conference

(704) 687 6988; e-mail: drrogers@email.uncc.edu. Web site: <www.wc.iup.edu/2003conference>.

Writing center hours of operation: What

influences them?

Like the local diner that stays open to serve customers, writing centers are open, too, to serve students. And just as the neon “Open” sign that hangs in the diner’s window is unplugged at the end of the closing shift, so are the overhead lights switched off in writing centers. But how is the time between that first neon glow and the final switch of darkness accounted for in terms of days, evenings, and weekends? Let’s find out.

Based on responses from writing centers, representing two-year and four-year colleges across the country*, here are some interesting weekly stats regarding hours of operation.

Total Writing Centers= 74 Total Weekly Hours = 3,651 Total Weekly Average = 50at least two tutors on duty at the same time for their safety.

Also, some directors report that evening hours were eliminated because the number of users didn’t justify the expense. Such low usage might be a result of a third influence on evening hours: the type of service that the center offers. For example, some centers only offer tutoring services whereas other centers also function as open computer labs.

A major influence on weekend hours seems to be the type of institution or, more importantly, the type of student. For example, writing centers at larger institutions with more traditional resi-dent students report low usage on weekends, beginning with a Friday af-ternoon drop off, whereas smaller in-said to be the most popular and busiest, and there are quite a few centers that stay open until 10 p.m., 11 p.m., and even midnight. The same reason is given: that’s when students write.

If the above is true, e.g., that students typically write late at night and on weekends, should writing centers make an effort to stay open during those times? While the ideal answer is “yes,” it is tempered by the very real influences of staffing, budget, and usage.

Rachel B. Perkes

Del Mar College

Corpus Christi, TX

* Responses posted primarily on WCenter Listserv; some off list.

Daytime Hours			Evening Hours	Weekend Hours	Total Hours
Subtotal HoursPercentage of Hours Average Hours		2,802 77% 38	657 18% 9	192 5% 3	= = =	3,651 100% 50
Key:	Daytime = 8 a.m. to 5:59 p.m. Evening = 6 p.m. to midnight Weekend = Saturday and Sunday

From the above data, it’s obvious that the majority of writing centers operate during the day. So, what are some of the influences on writing center hours of operation?

From the online discussion, it appears that budget and security are two primary influences, particularly on evening hours. For example, many center directors say they don’t have the budget to hire evening staff, plus they insist on stitutions with nontraditional commuter students report higher usage during weekends and evenings. Another influence on weekend hours seems to be the availability of OWLs (online writing labs). Those centers that offer an OWL seem to feel that it takes care of students’ weekend needs.

The query did yield some surprising results. There are a number of centers that are open on Sundays, which are

Learning Disabilities Association of America

For resources anda listing of conferences, both national and state conferences, see the following Web site:

<www.LDAamerica.org>.

Viewing writing centers through Brian

Cambourne’s model of learning

Little has been written on the connec-tion between writing centers and whole language theory. This is a curious fact, as the two have so much in common. In Reading Process and Practice, Constance Weaver dispels some of the misconceptions surrounding whole lan-guage. In misconception number five, she discusses why whole language should not be confined to the elemen-tary classroom: “whole language is fun-damentally a set of principles about learning and teaching. These principles are based on a constructivist, transac-tional model of learning that is relevant to teaching at all levels” (349). I was surprised as well when I looked into Brian Cambourne’s ideas on whole lan-guage that a model designed for young children could be so useful for students of all ages, and especially in our work in writing centers.

The beginnings of the approach to teaching composition associated with writing centers date back to the early 1900’s with the laboratory method (Carino 105). Some scholars feel the short-lived and controversial Dalton Plan of the 1920’s, a model of indi-vidual instruction in composition, to be a forerunner of writing center practice (Pemberton, Holt). While these ap-proaches involved individual instruction and peer-group work, the forebearers of today’s writing centers got their own space in the 1930’s when the University of Minnesota and the State University of Iowa set up writing laboratories that were separate from classrooms, with a focus on individual work (Carino 106). The writing center model is now en-trenched and generally accepted as a crucial part of any composition pro-gram: “writing instruction without a writing center is only a partial program, lacking essential activities students need in order to grow and mature as writers” (Harris 42).

The whole language approach has al-ways been implicitly involved in writ-ing center pedagogy, although I could find only one essay that explicitly dealt with the connection. Sallyanne Fitzgerald, in her essay “Collaborative Learning and Whole Language Theory” in Intersections: Theory-Prac-tice in the Writing Center, explained that although many writing centers have decided to follow a collaborative model, “The reason for using collabo-ration . . . lies in a broader theoretical base than simply group work or con-ferences: the whole language theory underpins the collaborative learning framework” (12). Fitzgerald goes on to say that by its very nature, writing cen-ter work involves whole language. For instance, in the writing conference it-self, all four skills are used simulta-neously: reading, writing, listening, and speaking: “In the writing center, using whole language means combin-ing all the language arts while working on a written product” (13). Also, Fitzgerald states that reading aloud in the conference is more effective than reading silently, as more skills are in-volved: Reading, listening, and speak-ing. When we add writing, the students are, according to Fitzgerald, simulta-neously assimilating and creating meaning: “Processing language using all the language arts is more likely to benefit students in using one of them” (14). And, a collaborative approach to tutoring is more likely to involve all the language arts. A directive, or tutor-centered conference may only involve passive listening. To illustrate this fact, she mentions a research study in which those students who engaged in collabo-rative conferences showed improve-ment, while those subjected to direc-tive conferences did not (17).

The directive or teacher-centered conference seems to be the technique used in what is sometimes called the writing lab, as opposed to the writing center. The lab resembles the phonics or basal classroom in that bits of knowledge are fragmented and taught as isolated skills rather than a cohesive whole (Wallace 83-84). As Brian Cambourne and others have stated, the acts of reading and writing are so inter-twined and interdependent that it is not too far afield to compare the models of their pedagogies.

Writing center people have been in-fluenced by theories of social construc-tion of knowledge. Ken Bruffee writes that “learning is a social process, not an individual one” (Bruffee 11). We believe that texts are written to be read, and that the writer needs to talk to someone at different points in the com-posing process (Harris). This is one way Cambourne’s learning model ties in with writing center processes and practices. Brian Cambourne’s model of whole language education as discussed in The Whole Story provides an inter-esting lens through which to examine our writing center practice.

The first and most important parallel between Cambourne’s model and the writing center model is that reading, writing, listening, and speaking are en-gaged in as real attempts to communi-cate. Language is authentic and used in an authentic way. As mentioned above, language isn’t fragmented or fractured into its component parts for study. Language is used as a whole, and as a tool for communication.

I would like to compare what we do in the writing center to Brian Cambourne’s model of learning as de-scribed in The Whole Story (Cambourne) and Reading Process and Practice (Weaver). Cambourne’s first step is immersion: “Learners need to be immersed in text of all kinds” (33). In the writing center at the University of Texas Brownsville/Texas Southmost College Learning Assistance Center, we immerse readers in text—their own texts—by making these texts the focus of our tutorials. We don’t engage in isolated skills drill. We display infor-mative and entertaining quotes and posters on the walls, and maintain an adequate library consisting of novels, poetry, and drama, as well as criticism, class texts, reference works, and books on writing, teaching, and tutoring.

Cambourne’s second step is demon-stration: “Learners need to receive many demonstrations of how texts are constructed and used” (Cambourne 33). We call these demonstrations modeling. For instance, a student may need to brainstorm but not know how. We demonstrate the use of different strategies such as mapping, clustering, listing, or creating a matrix; however, we as tutors are careful not to force our favorite prewriting process on others. Another demonstration we could per-haps engage in is revising for mechan-ics or style. If the writer has made an error, rather than correct it for the stu-dent, we can compose a similar sen-tence and show how we would correct it, preferably giving multiple options for correction. An example of this would be showing the writer how to correct a comma splice by using either a semicolon, a period, or a conjunction.

Cambourne’s third item is expecta-tion. “Expectations of those to whom we are bonded are powerful coercers of behavior” (33). Bonding is an inter-esting concept. We can easily think of the motherly elementary teacher nur-turing and bonding with her students. This bonding is a little bit more diffi-cult to imagine between the studious professor and the carefree freshman. In fact, many students are intimidated or afraid to visit their professor’s office for a chat about their writing (Harris 35-36). This is why the bonding that Cambourne mentions may take place in the writing center.

The peer tutor is in a position to be able to form such a relationship with the student. This is a unique situation where the writer looks on the tutor as a peer, and therefore regards her as non-threatening; but there is also a manner of respect, as the tutor’s behavior as a good student has enabled her to achieve this position. Therefore, the tu-tor is in the ideal situation to have ex-pectations of the writers she works with. We as tutors sometimes see the same student semester after semester. These relationships develop over time, and the tutor begins to understand the writer’s capabilities (Healy 1-2). Noth-ing but the best effort will do. Of course we hold different expectations for different writers, as we see every-one from beginning ESL learners to graduate students. The peer tutor/writer relationship holds wonderful opportu-nities for this type of bonding and ex-pectations.

The next item in Cambourne’s model is responsibility: “Learners need to make their own decisions about when, how and what ‘bits’ to learn in any learning task. Learners who lose the ability to make decisions are ‘depowered’” (33). The writing center is the ideal place for this kind of deci-sion-making to happen. Most students who come to us do so voluntarily. We have a very small number of stu-dents—seven to be exact—who are re-quired to attend tutorials because they haven’t passed the written section of a standardized test required of all enter-ing freshmen. Otherwise, all writers are voluntary attendants. This is won-derful, because any time someone comes in to work on a paper, they’ve done it of their own volition. That’s the first step in taking responsibility for learning.

The second step is the negotiation of the task. Some writing centers are so student-centered that they work on whatever the student asks to do with no negotiation. While this would be fea-sible and positive in a place where writers had language to talk about their writing, if we conducted such a prac-tice most of our tutorials would in-volve “checking for grammar.” As Muriel Harris notes, “[the students] normally do not have the metaknowledge or the necessary metalanguage to ask the tutor” (36). So instead, we negotiate with the student. Our first priority is to check to see that the paper meets the assignment. The negotiation process sometimes in-volves the tutor asking to see the as-signment sheet, while the tutee asks her to “check for grammar.” I had a student the other day who insisted I check his paper for grammar while I insisted we look at the assignment. While I see the responsibility that this type of negotiation takes away from the student, I know most of them do not have concepts of focus, develop-ment, and coherence. Part of the tutor’s job, and this goes back to the demon-stration, is to teach the writer some-thing about the words we use when we talk about our writing, and how we go through the process. Many of our writ-ers’ processes seem to be write one draft, check for grammar. With the re-sponsibility needs to come awareness of what the choices are and their mean-ings. If we are not careful in this nego-tiation, we may fall into a pattern that Paulo Friere warns us about in Peda-gogy of the Oppressed:

[Professionals] are almost unshakably convinced that it is their mission to ‘give’ the [people] their knowledge and techniques. . . . Their programs of action. . . include their own objectives, their own convictions, and their own preoccupations. . . . To these professionals it seems absurd to consider the necessity of respect-ing the ‘view of the world’ held by the people. . . . They regard as equally absurd the affirmation that one must necessarily consult the people when organizing the program content of educational action. (153-154)

In our position as tutors we must not disregard the wants of the student by assuming that we “know better” because of our position. Ultimately, the one who knows what’s best for the student is the student.

Once writers have taken responsibility for their learning and have made good choices, Cambourne’s next step is use: “Learners need time and opportunity to use, employ, and practice their developing control in functional, realistic, non-artifi-cial ways” (33). While much of this will depend on the teacher, in the writing cen-ter we give ample space and time for writ-ers to practice their art on their own, and in their own time. We also help writers engage in real writing for real communi-cation, such as scholarship application let-ters, letters to a child’s principal, and business letters. But the practice of writ-ing depends on the individual. The student must take the time. And, we have no con-trol over the class assignments. Some-times these are not realistic or functional. In that case we need to do our best to show students that sometimes in the real world we need to write because we are told to by a figure of authority, and re-wards and consequences will come of it. Ken Bruffee mentions just such a situation in his essay “Peer Tutoring and the Con-versation of Mankind”:

Certainly some writing in everyday working life is done purely as performance, for instance, to please superiors in the corporate hierarchy. So it may be that learning to write to someone who is not a member of one’s own status and knowledge community, that is, to a teacher, has some practical everyday value; but the value of writing of this type is hardly proportionate to the amount of time students usually spend on it. Ultimately the choice rests in the writer: how will he or she choose to handle the situation? (15)

The next item in Cambourne’s model is approximation: “Learners must be free to approximate the desired model—’mis-takes’ are essential for learning to occur” (33). One of the hardest things about be-ing a tutor is learning to ignore errors as one reads a paper. Although the teachers may not be amenable to approximations, we attempt to meet writers where they are, rather than where we think they ought to be. As mentioned before, we try to work with writers using a hierarchy of concerns, the first of which is appropri-ateness to the assignment. The other concerns, in order of descending prior-ity, are: organization, focus, develop-ment, mechanics, and style (Capossela 12). Therefore we must overlook ap-proximations in spelling, grammar, and style when we are working with a writer on the overall organization of a paper. Also, we realize that the paper is not ours, it’s the writer’s; so if a paper is not perfect, that’s OK; it’s not our fault. This realization goes a long way for us, but not for all the professors.

The last and most important item on Cambourne’s list is response: “Learn-ers must receive ‘feedback’ from ex-changes with more knowledgeable ‘others.’ Response must be relevant, appropriate, timely, readily available, non-threatening, with no strings at-tached” (33). Of all the items in Cambourne’s agenda, this last one is most germane to our writing center work. The first six steps could all take place in the classroom, reserving this last step for the writing center. Writing centers exist now from the elementary through the college level, so this could be a real option for all educators.

When it comes to the various types of feedback Cambourne advises, the writing center can do them all. Re-sponse that is relevant addresses the writer’s immediate needs and con-cerns. As I mentioned above, we are struggling to make our responses even more relevant by adhering to the writer’s wishes in guiding the direction the conference will take.

Knowing what the appropriate re-sponse might be involves getting to know the writer as a person. When we work one-to-one with a writer, we get to know his needs and talents. What might be good work for one student might be poor work for another. Often the appropriate response for writers means being there to encourage them and to cheer them on (Harris 34-36).

Timely response is another area for which the writing center can provide. Working on a drop-in basis, we are there any time a writer is ready for feedback. The only time we are not available is weekends. This is an area that needs to be improved upon. Many writing centers conduct tutorials on Sunday evening, and these are very popular and well at-tended.

Being readily available relates directly to being timely. Our Writing Center is located in the Learning Assistance Cen-ter in a building where students have many of their classes. We are there should they choose to come down. We also have tutoring available by email, making it readily available, even off-campus. While not an official function of the writing center, I have also been known to answer the telephone queries that come in from time to time.

The peer-tutoring model by its very nature is non-threatening. We don’t give grades or evaluate papers. We try to be-have in ways that are non-hierarchical, non-authoritarian, and non-directive. The models of tutoring we follow are student-centered or collaborative, de-pending on the writer and the situation. The tutor is not in a position of power or superiority. The tutoring session is held between equals, with the common goal of talking about the writer’s process. There is no pressure.

It’s important to Cambourne that the feedback have no strings attached. In the writing center we do have students sign in, but that is the only “string.” The stu-dents all pay a student activities fee that supports the Learning Assistance Center. Therefore, if any one student does not use the service, he may be missing out. The tutoring is free, and the tutors ask nothing in return. Some grateful tutees buy us lunch or bring us dessert, but this is a rarity. Most students come in, talk to a tutor and leave, with truly no strings attached.

Studying Cambourne’s model and seeing how it relates to our writing center practice has opened my eyes in many ways. The writing center cannot be everything to everybody. Some parts of the learning model are better conducted in the classroom. “We need several types of knowledge, some more easily gained in the classroom and others more appropriately acquired in the one-to-one setting of the tutorial” (Harris 40). And, we’re not perfect. We need to work on the way we give writers responsibility. We may only be paying lip service to student ownership of texts if we impose our priorities and notions of hierarchy of error. It’s a paradox that the writing center can see itself as non-hierarchical, yet subscribe to a hierar-chy of error. Examining the writing center from the perspective of Cambourne’s model of learning is a valuable and productive undertaking.

Rebecca Day Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA

Works Cited Bruffee, Ken. “Peer Tutoring and the Conversation of Mankind.”

Writing Centers: Theory and Administration. Ed. Gary A. Olson. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1984. 3-15.

Cambourne, Brian. The Whole Story. New York: Ashton Scholastic, 1988.

Capossela, Toni-Lee. The Harcourt Brace Guide to Peer Tutoring. Fort Worth: Harcourt, 1998.

Carino, Peter. “Early Writing Centers: Toward a History.” Writing Center Journal 15.2 (1995): 103-115.

Fitzgerald, Sallyanne. “Collaborative Learning and Whole Language Theory.” Intersections: Theory-Practice in the Writing Center. Ed. Joan A. Mullin and Ray Wallace. Urbana: NCTE, 1994. 11-19.

Friere, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Op-pressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972.

Harris, Muriel. “Talking in the Middle: Why Writers Need Writing Tutors.” College English 57.1 (1995): 27-42.

Healy, Dave. “Countering the Myth of (In)dependence: Developing Life-Long Clients.” Writing Lab Newslet-ter 18.9 (1994): 1-3.

Holt, Maria. “Dewey and the ‘Cult of Ef-ficiency’: Competing Ideologies in Collaborative Pedagogies of the 1920s.” Journal of Advanced Compo-sition 14.1 (1994): 73-92.

Pemberton, Michael. “Keynote Address.” National Conference on Peer Tutor-ing in Writing, Merrimack College, Andover, MA. 14 Oct. 2000.

Wallace, Ray. “Sharing the Benefits and the Expense of Expansion: Develop-ing a Cross-Curricular Cash Flow for a Cross-Curricular Writing Center.” The Writing Center: New Directions. Ed. Ray Wallace and Jean Simpson. New York: Garland, 1991. 82-91.

Weaver, Constance. Reading Process and Practice. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.

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