Decentering the History of the Writing Center: A Case for the Mesopotamian Edubba as an Early Writing Center

Abstract

This paper tells the story of the edubba, the Mesopotamian scribal school. First, the edubba’s pedagogy demonstrates that the first formalized center for teaching writing was more akin to the modern writing center than to the composition classroom. Second, unlike many modern writing centers, the edubba was multilingual. It is easy to look at the past and congratulate ourselves on how much better we’ve made the future, but the edubba has something to teach us beyond the fact that it preceded the composition classroom. A circle has no beginning, and both the writing center and the writing classroom are part of one circle—equally important to the students they serve.