...FROM THE EDITOR...

Several articles in this issue of the Writing Lab Newsletter indicate the heightened interest in topics that have long been part of our professional dis-cussion: working with ESL writers and writers who face competency tests. As the ESL population in institutions of higher education increases, writing centers naturally find the numbers of their ESL users increasing. Beatrice Mendez-Newman discusses the ratio-nale for adding another ESL popula-tion that is overlooked—ESL faculty, and Sayanti Ganguly, a tutor, explores her experiences with tutoring ESL stu-dents. Another area of interest to writ-ing centers, born of the increasing call for accountability, is tutoring students who are preparing for required compe-tency tests, and Carol-Ann Farkas dis-cusses the challenges of doing so. For those interested in more tutor training opportunities, Jessica Jansyn describes the three tutor training courses offered at her institution.

This month’s issue also includes a number of announcements and calls for proposals for writing center and peer tutoring conferences and an announce-ment of the 2003 International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) Outstand-ing Scholarship Awards. Congratula-tions to the winners of these awards whose scholarship enlightens our field.

• Muriel Harris, editor

...INSIDE...

When the ESL Writer Is a Faculty Member: Should We Work with Faculty Clients?

• Beatrice MendezNewman 1

Writing Back to the Writing Exam: Can Writing Centers Teach and Test Without Trauma?

• Carol-Ann Farkas 6

Tutors’ Column:

“Learning Through Trial and Error: Working with ESL Students at the Writing Center”

• Sayanti Ganguly 10

Conference Calendar 12

Beyond Training: The Hands-on Classes Available for Tutors at Centenary College

• Jessica Jansyn 13

The Writing Lab Newsletter, published inten monthly issues from September toJune by the Department of English,Purdue University, is a publication of theInternational Writing Centers Association,an NCTE Assembly, and is a member ofthe NCTE Information ExchangeAgreement. ISSN 1040-3779. All Rightsand Title reserved unless permission isgranted by Purdue University. Materialwill not be reproduced in any formwithout express written permission. How-ever, up to 50 copies of an article may bereproduced under fair use policy for edu-cational, non-commercial use in classes orcourse packets. As always, properacknowledgment of title, author, andoriginal publication date in the WritingLab Newsletter, Purdue University,should be included for each article.

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Maintaining the integrity of the center

There is no dispute that writing cen-ters first and foremost exist for our stu-dents. However, our collective beliefs about the writing center’s place in the institutional environment permit explo-ration of possibilities for responding to faculty writers as well. “When there is a new clientele to serve, whether they be returning women, Asian immi-grants, technical writers, or deaf stu-dents,” writes Thom Hawkins, “writing centers not only face new instructional challenges, but also are in a superb po-sition to make discoveries about lan-guage development and composition” (xiv). Joan Mullin, describing writing centers as “resources for resolving problems facing the discipline and the academy,” (Mullin and Wallace, viii), echoes the notion that writing centers stand at the cutting edge of institu-tional response to composition prob-lems and questions. Faculty members are not traditional students, but they are nonetheless learners: faculty mem-bers from foreign countries whose in-stitutional experiences have been lim-ited to completing graduate school in an American university and those who have degrees from foreign institutions are frequently unfamiliar with conven-tions of institutional discourse, aca-demic documents, and professional writing, and they need guidance in learning how to write in an academic environment as professionals rather than as students. Institutions hire non-resident faculty but frequently fail to provide institutional support for help-ing them perform writing tasks effec-tively in the institutional environment. In some ways, they are an overlooked institutional constituency with limited access to full membership in the insti-tutional community because of linguis-tic and cultural factors. While it is not the responsibility of the writing center to mentor non-native faculty on their quest toward tenure, there is little to be lost and much to be gained by working with such faculty within carefully es-tablished boundaries.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), of the 1,027,830 faculty at all institutions of higher learning (public four-year through private two-year), 9,155 are classified as “non-resident alien” (U.S. Department of Education). Unfortu-nately, no statistics are available on the number of foreign faculty who need assistance in preparing institutional and professional documents in English. Anecdotal evidence, however, indi-cates that they do have language needs that can be addressed by writing center staffs without detracting from services and tutorial hours designated for students.

Writing center theory and the faculty client

While foreign faculty are on profes-sional career tracks, they demonstrate many of the same characteristics that writing center workers recognize in special-needs populations of writing center clients and that writing center theorists and practitioners have helped us learn to serve effectively. Nancy Grimm, for example, has shown us how to recognize difference as an im-portant aspect of the institutional envi-ronment. Grimm’s student examples offer strategies for helping students from non-traditional backgrounds find a voice in the institution without com-promising their individuality, blurring their diversity, or exposing their lim-ited command of mainstream English (32). Anne DiPardo has shown us that working effectively with students from other cultures sometimes requires that we revise our established approaches to working with writing center clients. DiPardo’s work with “Fanny” and my own work with Hispanic students sug-gest that non-directive tutoring may not be the best approach for tutoring students whose culturally-based behav-iors pose barriers to non-directive tu-toring, that sometimes the tutor must first be a listener in order to ultimately be a collaborator in literacy instruction (DiPardo, 364-365; Newman, 58-59). Relying on Stephen Krashen’s lan-guage acquisition theory, John Edlund explains how ESL theory can inform our approach to non-native writers in the center (206-209), an expertise that even a professional editor is not likely to possess but which many writing center tutors recognize as vital in working with non-native English speakers. Muriel Harris has discussed how a tutor’s individualized attention is vital in working with students “whose social and cultural values, pre-dilections, and habits lead them to cre-ate discourse that does not look like ac-cepted academic prose in American universities” (97). Thus, because we, as writing center workers, already em-brace these insights about working ef-fectively with special-needs clients, we are excellently positioned to work with another special-needs population: fac-ulty members who recognize their lack of familiarity with conventions of writ-ten English and who need assistance in fulfilling the writing responsibilities of the academic community.

How the center can help

Based on my work with foreign fac-ulty I categorize the types of assistance they need into three broad classes: (1) introduction to the conventions of stan-dard documents, such as formal e-mail messages, memos, letters, and re-sumes; (2) assistance in producing re-quired institutional documents, such as annual review and tenure/promotion dossiers, committee reports, internal forms, etc.; and (3) editorial assistance in completing professional documents, such as presentation proposals, ab-stracts, articles, research grant propos-als, etc. Each of these categories re-quires specialized genre knowledge that is usually not included in tutor training, so whenever I worked with a faculty member, I invited a tutor to ob-serve me. Eventually, I was able to designate several tutors who could work with faculty members when I was unavailable.

The first category—specialized documents—is the simplest; fre-quently, all that is needed is to show the faculty member templates such as those available in Microsoft Word to ensure that the document is formatted appropriately. However, I also help the faculty member understand the com-munication conventions and audience expectations aligned with documents such as e-mail messages, memos, let-ters, and curriculum vitae. For ex-ample, I tell my faculty clients that memos must be concise, that chatti-ness, extended explanations, and de-tailed examples are not appropriate for the typical memo. E-mail, I point out, can be somewhat personal if the recipi-ent is known to the sender, but like memos, e-mail messages should be to the point. I also explain that the writer of e-mail messages must be careful not to sound inadvertently terse or inappro-priately humorous, both extremes in tone that can negatively impact the recipient’s reaction to the message. I also remind them of the caveats most of us observe regarding e-mail: do not put anything in writing for which you do not want to be held accountable, and if the e-mail is in anyway confron-tational, allow a cooling off period be-fore sending the message. Curriculum vitae, I explain, should clearly and suc-cinctly reflect the faculty member’s education, teaching experience, profes-sional accomplishments, and publica-tions; I tell my faculty clients that spe-cific dates, specific page numbers, and complete titles are vital to a well-writ-ten curriculum vitae. I also show them how to use typographical devices such as boldfacing, italics, underscoring, and even color to enhance a document’s readability.

The next category—institutional documents—requires some specialized knowledge on the part of the writing center staff person, but with a bit of guidance, a student tutor can effec-tively help a faculty member who must produce, for example, a committee re-port. With committee reports, I start by asking for any guidelines that may have been established by the adminis-trator who oversees the committee; in the absence of those, I tell the faculty member to be concise and to remember that the report must clearly reflect the extent to which the committee has ful-filled the task it was assigned. I point out obvious things such as including dates when committee tasks were com-pleted, noting the date of the report in a header or footer, attaching relevant documents as appendices, including a bibliography of materials consulted, if appropriate. With annual evaluation folders and tenure and promotion documents, I urge the faculty member to seek out a trusted colleague for help in formatting the document, but I also make my own annual evaluation and promotion documents available to them as examples. In writing centers where there is no direct connection be-tween the center and an academic de-partment (for example, if the director and other staff members are not affili-ated with the English Department), it is probably best to restrict assistance on such documents to surface, linguistic elements. Still, we should remind the faculty member that self-effacement, a recognized virtue in many cultures, has no place in the production of evalua-tion or tenure documents. All accom-plishments, I explain, must clearly re-flect and explicitly explain the faculty member’s contribution to the institu-tion or to the discipline.

Should we work with faculty clients?

I do have to admit that the first time a faculty client walked into our center, we were surprised; perhaps that’s why no one said, “We don’t work with fac-ulty.” Instead, I took her in my office and said, “Let’s see if I can help you; I may not be familiar enough with your discipline to really help you.” As it turned out, like the student writer who has one recurrent grammatical problem that he/she can’t master, this faculty writer was already aware of her prob-lems, but she needed some help in fig-uring out when certain constructions are appropriate in English and when they are not. She kept coming back for help with committee reports, with re-search proposals, with formal e-mail messages, and with various other aca-demic documents not because she be-came dependent on us, but because we explained the source of her problems and gave her strategies for managing the problems on her own. After work-ing with her for several months, I told her that she had so adeptly dealt with her language interference problems that her writing no longer marked her as an ESL writer. She modestly beamed at the compliment.

In the end it comes down to a ques-tion: What responsibility do writing centers have to faculty clients, whether they be ESL writers or native users of English? The easy answer is none. Re-sponding “no responsibility” should make us uncomfortable. Writing cen-ters are the most visible places on our campuses for turning writing into an opportunity for self-growth, for in-creased understanding of academic dis-course, for experiencing the confidence that comes with the knowledge that a writing task has been completed appro-priately and effectively. The subject I am discussing here, as far as I know, has not been openly addressed in lit-erature and discussions on writing cen-ter theory and practice. But, I find it hard to believe that my institution’s writing center is the only one in the country that attracts faculty clients.

Should we work with faculty clients? I argue that the answer should be a qualified “yes.” No one is in a better position than well-trained writing cen-ter tutors to explain the nuances of En-glish constructions, whether it be those pesky articles that plague so many non-native speakers of English, the way placement of an adverb changes meaning, or the misuse of a word that appears to be a cognate but is really quite different in meaning. Profes-sional editors work with the writing it-self and are generally indifferent to the client’s understanding of the rationale behind the correct construction. Writ-ing center tutors, on the other hand, work with the writer and guide him/her toward self-confidence and indepen-dence as a writer, and we foster these attitudes while respecting the writer’s need for confidentiality and recogniz-ing the importance of the writing task. Writing centers can be an important milestone in helping the non-native faculty member assimilate into the American academic culture. My institution’s writing center has wel-comed faculty writers into our commu-nity of writers, but we do not know if this is an accepted or respected prac-tice at other institutions. Perhaps it’s time to open a conversation about the place of faculty clients in the writing center.

Edlund, John R. “Working with Non-Native and Dialect Speakers in the Writing Center.” Writing in the Center. 3rd ed. By Irene Clark. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt, 1998. 203-234.

Friedlander, Alexander. “Meeting the Needs of Foreign Students in the Writing Center.” Writing Centers: Theory and Administration. Ed. Gary A. Olson. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1984. 206-214.

Grimm, Nancy Maloney. Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for Postmodern Times. Ports-mouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999.

Harris, Muriel. “Individualized Instruction in Writing Centers: Attending to Cross-Cultural Differences.” Intersections: Theory and Practice in the Writing Center. Ed. Joan A. Mullin and Ray Wallace. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1994. 96-110.

Hawkins, Thom. Introduction. Writing Centers: Theory and Administra-

Mullin, Joan A. “Introduction: The Theory Behind the Center.” Intersections: Theory and Practice in the Writing Center. Ed. Joan A. Mullin and Ray Wallace. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1994. vii-xiii.

Newman, Beatrice Mendez. “Centering in the Borderlands: Lessons from Hispanic Student Writers.” Writing Center Journal 23.2(Spring/ Summer 2003): 43-62.

U.S. Department of Education. Na-tional Center for Education Statis-tics, Integrated Post Secondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Table 224. Employees in degree-granting institutions by race/ ethnicity, primary occupation, em-ployment status, sex, and type and control of institution. Fall 1999. 19 January 2004. <http:// nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d02/ tables/XLS/Tab224.xls>.

2003 IWCA Outstanding Scholarship Awards

Congratulations to the winners of the 2003 International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) Out-standing Scholarship Awards: Michael Pemberton, Joyce Kinkead, and Neal Lerner. The following awards will be presented at the Watson Conference, October 7-9:

Best Book: Pemberton, Michael A., and Joyce Kinkead, eds. The Center Will Hold. Logan: Utah State UP, 2003.

Best Article: Lerner, Neal. “Writing Center Assessment: Searching for the ‘Proof’ of Our Effec-tiveness.” The Center Will Hold. Ed. Michael A. Pemberton and Joyce Kinkead. Logan: Utah State UP, 2003. 58-73.

Many thanks to the Book Award Committee (Shevaun Watson, Chair; Penny Bird; Meg Carroll; and Craig Crist-Evans) and the Article Award Committee (Carol Haviland, Chair; Brad Hughes; Roberta Kjesrud; and Barbara Lutz).

I am an instructor in literature and writing at a college of pharmacy and health sciences—a school that includes liberal arts as a core part of the curricu-lum but which is overwhelmingly “professional” in nature. Since the 1970s, our student population has been increasingly diverse, including more and more first-generation college stu-dents, especially from recent immi-grant groups. With this trend, there has been a matching change in faculty per-ception that communication skills, both oral and written, have been declining. As Neal Lerner has pointed out in his history of writing instruction in our college, this perception has actually existed for as long as the college has (“A History of WAC” 8); nevertheless, whether it is a new problem or not, we definitely have many students with communication skills that are weak— that is, not adequate for the kinds of communication tasks they need to per-form in their professions.

To deal with this problem, our Arts and Sciences faculty initiated a Writing Proficiency Exam (WPE) in 1991. The stated goal of this exam is to identify those students, especially transfers who do not go through our course of fresh-man English, who need help with their writing. Two weeks before the exam date, students are given a packet of readings; they are instructed to identify the issue in the articles and to prepare to write a persuasive argument in re-sponse, which will employ the read-ings as sources. Students are allowed to take the test only once; if they fail, they have to take a one-semester, three-credit composition course. Stu-dents dread and resent this test, be-cause they dread and resent the conse-quences of failing. Those who fail ar-gue injustice because they have either passed freshman composition at our in-stitution here, or have credit for it at other institutions; they believe, with some justification, that their writing skills have already been assessed and approved. Students also complain, again with some justification, that they cannot afford the time out of their very densely packed curriculums to take three credits of writing.

This is where a marketing success becomes a marketing monster. As I noted, in the two weeks leading up to the exam, our business has become in-creasingly dedicated to the WPE, to the extent that other students, with equally pressing writing needs, cannot get writing appointments. We turned away at least 27 students in the last WPE pe-riod. Students are not getting the help they need, and—although one does not like to live and die by PR—it is really unhelpful to create the perception that “it’s hard to get in at the Writing Cen-ter,” or “I went there and they told me they couldn’t help me.” Another, more disturbing, problem of the last few years has been this: we have been giv-ing students regular appointments for the WPE, and students have re-sponded—understandably—by taking advantage of the full 50 minutes. They are preparing for an exam where they should be tested on their ability to plan and then write a well-developed argu-ment, using their own abilities, in a time-limited situation—yet many stu-dents will try to write complete papers in advance, and get as much feedback on them as they would for regular, non-timed assignment.

What this means is that our consult-ants have been finding themselves giv-ing more advice than students being tested should have—because it is hard not to treat a student writer as a writer, to treat her instead like an examinee. And students misinterpret the role of the consultant in this process; they seem to think that the consultants are agents of the exam, who can tell them if they are going to pass or fail. If they do fail, they hold the Center respon-sible: “I went to the Writing Center and they told me that if I made this change and that change I would be OK.” As consultant Katie McCormick notes—and students have said as much to me as well—students come to feel that they are owed a passing grade be-cause they have gone to the Center, and if they fail, it was because the con-sultants were hiding an exam solution. In fact, the consultants do not tell the students that they “will be OK,” and they try not to give any more than gen-eral advice; but it is hard for them to be completely non-committal, to give advice without in some way conveying encouragement or even approval—that, after all, is their job, in dealing with “normal” writing situations. The con-nection between this writing exam and the Writing Center seems, in theory, a natural one, but is, in fact, a problem.

So, how do we talk back to this mis-identification? How can our Center free itself from this problematic and in-vidious role, where we are being drawn further and further away from our phi-losophy?—especially when we have to be pragmatic and acknowledge that we need the business the WPE presents. We have been talking about this a lot lately in the Writing Center, and have started to come up with some solu-tions. What we would like is to see the WPE dismantled and replaced by a means of assessment that supports a student-centered, process-oriented ap-proach to writing, like portfolios. Given that that is currently only a gleam in the coordinator’s eye, we are trying to find ways to distance our-selves from the perception of the Cen-ter as an enforcer of exam standards.

First of all, we have come up with the idea of an additional grade for the exam. Instead of consigning even the borderline students to an F, and hence to the much dreaded, punitive, writing course, we have worked with the fac-ulty grading committee (of which I am the chair—I will not even get into the vexed nature of my role in all this) to create a grade of “W,” or “workshop.” Students whose exams are flawed but not disastrous, are assigned to a four-week workshop in the Center where they study their particular problem area—argumentation, organization, use of sources, mechanics—and revise their exam paper. Students who get a W see this as a gift compared to an F and are content to do the extra work— and, whether they consciously realize it or not, we are able to teach them that writing is not a do or die situation, that it is indeed a process, a collaboration, an experience in thinking. I wish we could give many more of the failing students this option (although I have to point out that many of the students who fail really do need not just one more semester of writing instruction, but four or five).

Carol-Ann Farkas Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Boston, MA

60.

October, 2003.

78.

Project Excel Writing Center Director University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

CU-Colorado Springs announces an opening application, curriculum vitae, one-page statement of philoso-for the position of Director of the Writing Center. phy regarding writing center pedagogy, an academic tran-Masters required, Ph.D. strongly preferred, in script, and three letters of recommendation to: Barbara Rhetoric and Composition, Writing Across the Gaddis, Search Committee Chair, CU-Colorado Springs, P.O. Curriculum, Writing Center Administration, or a Box 7150, Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150. The University related field. Duties include all aspects of Center of Colorado is an equal opportunity, affirmative action em-administration and instruction of one course each ployer and encourages a diversity of applicants. Receipt of semester in English or a related discipline. Experi-materials will be acknowledged by letter. Review of applicants ence in a college writing center, academic support will begin in early November, 2004, and will continue until center, or peer tutoring program and teaching at position is filled. For full job description and application re-the college level is required. Salary is commensu-quirements, visit our Web site at: <http://web.uccs.edu/affirm/ rate with experience and education. Send letter of fac.html>.

Learning through trial and error: Working with ESL students at the writing center

Tony Silva gives very succinct ex-amples of the ways in which students from different cultures write. For ex-ample, he says, “Japanese-speaking subjects used more mixed arguments (arguing for both and against) and ar-gument alterations (between arguing for and arguing against) and more of-ten ended their arguments in directions that differed from the beginning posi-tions” (212). This can be very difficult for students who are now required to analyze one side of an argument. Yet double-sided arguments are unaccept-able in most cases since this prevents the students from making an argument and reaching a conclusion. Thus, they must be taught, through simple ways, how to choose one side of the argu-ment and pursue it to the end.

Visual tools, I have found, work extremely well with ESL students. When their thoughts are down on paper, they are able to analyze them better. But their ideas cannot be randomly written on paper since that can confuse them. However, if their ideas are organized in a proper manner on the page in front of them, they are often able to think more clearly.

“Mind-mapping” is an exercise that works very well with ESL students be-cause it helps them clarify their thoughts about their topics and their positions in relation to the question. It also helps them put the topic/issue they are dealing with in perspective, so that they have a clear idea of what their own opinion is. This further helps them form their own argument and take a position. In mind-mapping students be-gin by writing the main idea of the is-sue in the middle of a sheet of paper. On one side of the paper, they then write down all the reasons that support the issue. The other side of the paper will have all the reasons that oppose it. In this manner, they have, on the page, the central topic flanked on either side by the arguments that they have been making for and against. The pattern they have created should give students an overview of both sides of the argu-ment. This, I have noticed, is compara-tively easy for them to do since they tend to make mixed arguments any-way. The final part of this exercise consists in deciding which of the two positions resemble their opinions most. When the student and the tutor discuss both sides of the issue, and the tutor asks the student insightful questions, it often helps the student pick a side.

Muriel Harris and Tony Silva write that “adult ESL writers plan less, write with more difficulty (primarily due to a lack of lexical resources), reread what they have written less, and exhibit less facility in revising by ear, that is, in an intuitive manner—on the basis of what “sounds” right, than their NES peers” (“Tutoring” 529). If mind-mapping is one of the ways to help the students plan more, then making them articulate their thoughts is another way of ensur-ing they reread what they have written. This entails making the students read what they have written again and again until they are better able to see what the problem with their writing is. After they have read what they have written a couple of times, they usually have a clearer idea of what they are trying to say, even though it is not clear on pa-per. Then the tutor asks the student to expand the sentence and re-write it un-til the idea is clearer. It is to the tutor’s advantage that ESL students are usu-ally so motivated and committed to their learning that they will continue to struggle with individual sentences as long as it takes them to write clearer, more lucid sentences.

Often the tutor has to re-consider his/ her role when tutoring an ESL student because ESL students see tutors as writing professionals who will have a solution for all their problems. NES students, however, will view the tutor more as a collaborator. Judith K. Pow-ers says, “the principle difference in the two conferencing situations ap-pears to be the increased emphasis on our role as informant (rather than col-laborator) in the second language con-ference” (101). But the role of the in-formant means the tutor has to be particularly careful that he/she does not end up doing most of the work for ESL students because they will not learn anything. While the ESL student may consider such a session successful be-cause the paper has been improved upon, from the tutor’s point of view such a session is a failure because the student has left the writing center with a better piece of writing, but not as a better writer.

It is not realistic to hope that one ses-sion will allow the tutor to address all the concerns a student has about his/ her paper. And it is not necessary for the tutor to do so. Because the aim of a writing center is not to help students produce better pieces of writing but to produce better writers, it is much more important that the tutors address one or two specific issues during one tutorial session. During her interviews with ESL students, Muriel Harris noticed that ESL students view “the tutor as the appropriate person to bring their problems to and as the person who deals with specifics, that is, with indi-vidual examples of larger principles explained by the teacher” (“Cultural” 223). This view ESL students have with regard to the tutor ensures that they do not offer resistance if the tutor wants to focus on specifics in the paper rather than on all the errors.

Tutors may want to focus on global issues like organization or transitions during one session, and on local issues like comma splices and subject-verbagreement during another tutorial session. If tutors were to deal with too many issues during one session, ESL students who are not comfortable with the language will be overwhelmed, and will not be able to learn anything at all. It will also discourage students because they will realize that they still have a long way to go before mastery over the language is achieved. But addressing one or two specific issues during a ses-sion also means that the ESL student should be encouraged to come to the writing center not only when a paper is due, but also when a paper is not due. They should be encouraged to come in with the same paper, or new papers, re-peatedly so that the tutors can address different issues each time.

Handouts may not serve ESL stu-dents as much as they would serve NES writers. NES writers have a bet-ter knowledge of the language than ESL students do, and handouts require the user to have some basic idea of the language. Thus, for NES speakers who have had experience in writing, read-ing, and speaking English, the hand-outs are likely to be much more help-ful. For the ESL student, one-to-one conferences will be much more benefi-cial. Not only can the tutor explain ele-ments of writing in much greater de-tail, the student can also ask questions if he or she is confused.

The writing center, then, can cater to ESL students because this is the only place where they can get the special care and attention they need from a group of dedicated individuals who are committed to helping the ESL writer. My appointments with ESL students have enabled me to see that ESL stu-dents are motivated and are willing to work hard at their essays. They do present difficulties for the tutor, but these are difficulties that can be over-come by the joint efforts of the tutor and the student. When I first started working with ESL students, I was not very successful. But repeated appoint-ments with them made me better at tu-toring students whose native language is not English. The efforts that ESL writers make have encouraged me to help them to the best of my ability. And I have been rewarded by the re-peated appointments that some ESL students have made with me.

Johnson, Donna M. and Duane H. Roen, eds. Richness in Writing: Empowering ESL Students. NY: Longman, 1989.

Mangelsdorf, Kate. “Parallels between Speaking and Writing in Second Language Acquisition.” Johnson

McKay, Sandra Lee. “Topic Development and Written Discourse Accent.” Johnson and Roen 253

Powers, Judith. “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, 1995. 96-103.

Severino, Carol, et al. Writing in Multicultural Settings. NY: The Modern Language Association, 1997.

Silva, Tony. “Differences in English and Native-English-Speaking Writing: The Research and Its Implications.” Severino 209-19.

Calendar for Writing Centers Associations

October 16, 2004: Michigan Writing Centers Associa-March 4-5, 2005: Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring tion, in Lansing, MI Conference, in Orem, UT

Contact: Jill Pennington, e-mail: penninj@lcc.edu, ^{Contact: Lisa Eastmond Bell, Utah Valley State} _{phone: 517-483-1298. Conference Web site:} College, MC-176, 800 West University Parkway, _{<miwritingcenters.org>.} Orem, UT 84058-5999. Phone: 801- 863-8099;

November 4-6, 2004: Midwest Writing Centers Associa-^{e-mail: lisa.bell@uvsc.edu.} _{tion, in St. Cloud, MN} April 1-2, 2005: East Central Writing Centers

Contact: Frankie Condon, Department of English, ^{Association, in Adrian, MI}

720 Fourth Avenue South, St. Cloud, MN 56301-^{Contact: April Mason-Irelan, Siena Heights} _{4498. Web site: <http://www.ku.edu/}University, 1247 East Siena Heights Drive, _~mwca/>. Adrian, Michigan 49221. Phone: 517-264-7638;

February 10-12, 2005. Southeastern Writing Center ^{e-mail: amason@sienahts.edu. Web site: <http://}

Association Conference, in Charleston, SC ^{www.sienahts.edu/~eng/ECWCA/ecwca.htm>.}
_{Contact: Trixie Smith, Middle Tennessee State} April 16-17, 2005: New England Writing Centers

University, Department of English, P.O. Box 70, ^{Association, in Brooklyn, NY}
_{Murfreesboro, TN 37132. E-mail:} Contact: Patricia Stephens, English Department,

_{tgsmith@mtsu.edu; Web site: <www.swca.us>.} Humanities Building, Fourth Floor, Long Island

March 3-5, 2005: South Central Writing Centers Asso-^{University, Brooklyn Campus, One University} _{ciation, in Baton Rouge, LA} Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Phone: 718-488

Contact: Judy Caprio, B-18 Coates Hall, Louisiana ^{1096; e-mail: patricia.stephens@liu.edu.}
_{State University, Baton Rouge, LA: 70803. Phone:} October 19-23, 2005: International Writing Centers

225-578-4438, e-mail: jcaprio@lsu.edu. ^{Association, in Minneapolis, MN.}

The editorial board of The WAC Journal seeks WAC-related articles from across the country. Our national review board welcomes 5-15 page double-spaced manuscripts on all WAC-related topics, including WAC and writing centers. Send inquiries, proposals, or manuscripts anytime to the editor, Roy Andrews, via e-mail: roya@plymouth.edu..

Beyond training: The hands-on classes available for tutors at Centenary

College

After only four complete semesters of tutoring at Centenary College, it is surprising how much I have seen the Writing Center grow. One aspect of this is the classes that are run through the Center. These are not classes for writing skills or composition; they are classes for tutors only. Centenary College’s Writing Center is largely in-volved with the course selection at the college. Not one, but three courses are offered for credit for tutors. We have a training class, Writing Tutor Training, a second semester writing tutor course, Writing Tutor Practicum, and a leader-ship course called Leadership Seminar. These classes fit into the English ma-jor, core-required classes for all ma-jors, or can be used as elective credit for the student writing tutors enrolled in them. Our Writing Tutor Training class is straightforward and mostly tra-ditional. What is not traditional about it is the fact that we include mentors, who are experienced tutors, in the run-ning of the class. These mentors are enrolled in the Leadership Seminar. Those two classes work closely to-gether, while our third class works with the college community outside the Center. The Writing Tutor Practicum is a group of tutors called writing asso-ciates. These tutors work with a writ-ing intensive class and a professor to improve the writing ability of the stu-dents in that class.

The Writing Tutor Training class is required of any Centenary student wishing to be a writing tutor. It is one semester long and is held both fall and spring semesters. The fifteen-week class includes readings, presentations, and discussions in class and online through our course manager system. Our Writing Center director teaches the class with the help of experienced tutors, called mentors. New tutors are almost always nervous and worried about taking this class, and tutoring in general. This is only to be expected, and our training program is shaped around a significant amount of discus-sion to help ease the fears of new tu-tors. We have also found that the men-tors help new tutors minimize fears, since they have a peer to work with and learn from.

These mentors are Centenary writing tutors who have at least one semester of tutoring under their belts and feel comfortable with tutoring. After get-ting permission, these tutors register for the Leadership Seminar. This class is one of Centenary’s core required classes of all students. Over the years, several departments have created their own section of the class to direct stu-dents to discipline-specific aspects of leadership. Our director was able to define a section of the Leadership Seminar to be only open to writing tu-tors. Instead of reading about leader-ship and learning how to write a re-sume, the tutors practice their leadership skills hands-on, in the class-room with new tutors in our writing tu-tor training class. The mentors attend all the classes, and they are given a group of about five new tutors whom they monitor and support throughout the semester. The mentors help their group specifically, but they also work with all the students by running classes and helping the new tutors as they work in the Writing Center.

These mentors have become a great asset to our training program. They help new tutors get over tutoring fears by demonstrating that you can survive Writing Tutor Training and that you can even learn to become comfortable tutoring. Although we have a support-ive Writing Center director, he is a professor. It is easier for the mentors to relate to the new tutors as peers than it is for our director to relate to the fears and concerns of new tutors. This combination of new tutors and experi-enced tutors in one classroom helps the training become more personalized, since the mentors pay close attention to their own group of new tutors and can give personal help when needed as well as adding a personal touch to the readings with their own Writing Center experiences. These mentors become the link between classroom theory and Writing Center practice as well as the link from new tutor to experienced tutor.

Some comments from our new tutors who have had mentors in their training class include:

“I am thankful for having a mentor who was more than just a mentor and fellow tutor, but also a friend of mine.”

“I felt more comfortable bringing up issues with the mentors because I felt they could relate better to me than the professor.”

“I hope that some time in the future I can become a mentor to a new tutor, giving them the same help, guidance, and reassurance that I received from my mentors.”

Our first group of mentors also had comments about being in the class-room with the new tutors. These tutors did not have mentors in their training class, since they were among the first group of students at Centenary to staff a Writing Center. Here is what they had to say about being mentors:

“I wanted to take the Leadership Seminar because I wanted to help out other future tutors who are faced with the same issues and difficulties as I was last semester.”

“It helped me to brush up on my own tutoring skills, and it rein-forced what I had learned in my training class . . . reminded me of the do’s and don’t’s in a tutoring session.”

“It created a great way for experi-enced tutors and new tutors to generate a Writing Center bond, which might not have been as strong if we only meet in the Writing Center, and I was pleas-antly surprised that the camarade-rie built up and spread so quickly. It helps when you are working in the Center because a team of writing tutors is much better than a group of them.”

These quotes are short examples of our own experience in the Center. Our mentors have helped with the comfort level, camaraderie, and proficiency in the Center.

The third class that has been created around the Writing Center is Writing Tutor Practicum. This class was cre-ated as a continuation of study for writ-ing tutors. It is convenient for writing tutors who are English majors, since it fits into the English major degree pro-gram. It also can be used as a liberal arts elective for tutors of any major. To be enrolled in the class, tutors must have taken Writing Tutor Training. The class does not meet, and instead, tutors work with a professor teaching a writing intensive class. This may in-clude Composition and Literature I and II or even classes like Introduction to Psychology, Sociology, Business, or any class that includes writing several papers over the course of the semester. The tutors are called writing associates and act as writing tutors specializing in the writing assignments of that class. Writing associates are expected to at-tend at least half the classes they are assigned to; usually tutors attend once a week. They may be asked to help in class, or even run class. They may hold writing workshops or group tutor-ing sessions for the students of their class. In addition, there are readings and online discussions for the writing associates, so they have a chance to ex-pand their tutoring abilities and com-municate with each other about fears or discoveries.

Writing associates not only encour-age students to come to the Center, but they also engage the professors in the dynamics of the Writing Center, are more prepared for their student’s tutor-ing sessions in the Center since they are familiar with the assignments and course material, and can gain the trust of the students from the class.

Sometimes it can be awkward for writing associates to be in a classroom setting and still avoid the “professor” connotation since they may be teaching the students in some aspects, but for the most part, these writing associates are comfortable working with the class. Often the writing associates gain the most rewarding experience from working with the students and the professor.

Some remarks from Centenary writing associates include:

“I formed a strong bond with the

professor I was working with, and

I looked forward to pre-class cof

fee meetings with her. My rela

tionship to the professor, com

bined with the class time, made

me feel better prepared to tutor the

students from the class.

“It was hard to handle switching between the role of student and the role of writing associate. Many students saw me as an authority figure, so it was more challenging to get the students to trust me as their peer.”

“I was able to see more of a progression with the students that I tutored because I saw them in class as well as seeing them one-on-one for tutoring.”

Our Writing Tutor Practicum class is spreading across the curriculum, and our professors feel that we are making an impact on the students in their classes. This program especially en-courages students to see their tutor re-peatedly so that dramatic improvement in writing proficiency can be seen by tutor and professor.

For being such a young Writing Cen-ter, we have grown both in our physi-cal aspect of room size and number of tutors, and we have also grown in our reach to the campus. The writing asso-ciate program has made more profes-sors feel like they are a part of our Center, and in turn, these professors encourage all their students to seek help with papers. While we are branching out, we are also growing more closely knit through our mentors in the tutor training classroom. The bonds and friendships exceed the Writ-ing Center walls, and it shows in the way we work together in the Center. Although programs such as our writing tutor mentors and writing associates could have been implemented without designing the courses to go with them, it has been advantageous for our writ-ing tutors to have these options open to them. Students are often limited on time in their schedules, and the way our courses fit into degree programs helps our writing tutors become more involved and also helps them complete their degree.

Jessica Jansyn Centenary College Hackettstown, NJ

Metro New York City area meeting

For all you directors, assistant directors, and in-E-mail me if you’d like to come. It’s NYC, so I

terested grad students who live in the Metro NYC have to supply a list to security. If you have any

area, please join us for another friendly meet-and-doubts, e-mail me anyway, and you’ll be on the list.

eat session of our organization. This semester,

we’ll gather at New York University on Friday, Here’s the link for directions to NYU and the park:

October 22 from 2:00 to 4:30 in 803 Kimmel, the <http://www.nyu.edu/travel.nyu>.

unmistakably new (and strange) building on the

south side of Washington Square Park. If you’ve Mary Wislocki

never attended one of our meetings, you should! Director of the Writing Center

We talk, exchange ideas, help solve problems, and 269 Mercer Street, Room 230

get to know colleagues in an informal setting. The New York, NY

New England Writing Centers Association 212-998-8863

(NEWCA) is coming to NYC in the spring—and mapedaan@worldnet.att.net

our own Harry Denny, NEWCA’s president, will

provide us with some advance information.

THEW RITING LAB

NEWSLETTER