Writing Center Practice Research Articles

A Case Study on the Uptake of Suggestions in Online Synchronous Writing Center Sessions

Despite suggestions being a common speech act used by writing center tutors, very limited research is available on the use of suggestions in online writing center practice. Drawing upon multiple sources of data including the chat transcript, screen recording of the session, and final revised version of the writer’s text, this case study explores the types and frequency of the suggestion strategies employed by a tutor and the degree of writer uptake of tutor suggestions in a synchronous online writing center session. The findings indicate that the tutor’s use of suggestions throughout the session only led to a partial revision of the writer’s text. While factors contributing to the partial revision include overuse of indirect suggestion linguistic realization strategies (SLRSs) and addressing multiple errors at the same time, using multiple and more direct SLRSs appeared to contribute to successful uptake. The observations of the study suggest that, in order to increase the degree of uptake, tutors might consider addressing one error at a time, utilizing multiple suggestion strategies per error and focusing on using more direct rather than indirect suggestion strategies in order to provide suggestions more effectively in online synchronous writing center sessions.

Faith, Secularism, and the Need for Interfaith Dialogue in Writing Center Work

This article argues that religious and secularist identities complement and intersect in political ways with race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality and that they inform writing center practice because belief exists along a spectrum that involves all writing center inhabitants and affects all writing-centered conversations. We suggest that this spectrum of faith is evocative of the spectrums that theorists of race, gender, and sexuality in particular have discussed, yet often faith has been overlooked in discussions of identity in writing center work (Denny, 2010). We propose that theories of race, gender, sexuality and other identities that have served as springboards for professional development in writing centers can help to facilitate the development of a greater literacy of faith and secularism as complicated and nuanced identities. Specifically, we believe theories involving intersectional social justice work and hybridity can help to facilitate self-reflective and productive interfaith dialogue or dialogue about faith and secularism. Thus, such theories can help writing center professionals dismantle stereotypes about believers and secularists and problematic notions of what faith, or a conversation about faith, is or should be.

The Multilingual Turn in a Tutor Education Course: Using Threshold Concepts and Reflective Portfolios

In this article, I reflect on efforts to revise the instruction and evaluation of an undergraduate writing consultant education course. The revisions are motivated by the desire to adopt practices that reflect the writing center’s commitment to social justice for multilingual/translingual students and by a commitment to provide an effective, flexible, and brave environment for writing consultants to continue their professional development. I argue that grounding understanding of multilingual writers in concepts that explicitly explore linguistic diversity and standardized 1 English ideologies as threshold concepts is essential to reconceptualize writing center practices. I also argue for the necessity of adopting a flexible system for reflection, engagement, and evaluation to support writing consultants’ learning and practice. I share prompts used in the course and some of the responses they generated. The responses suggest that although combining threshold concepts with a portfolio system is successful in supporting inclusive practices, there remains a need to expand more inclusive practices across the university.

Situating Our Rhetorical Practice

As the writing consultants and Assistant Director have demonstrated, kairos is a core concept that we can use productively to situate and reflect on our rhetorical practice. The idea of “right timing,” the “opportune moment,” and the “embodiment of carpe diem” will further help us push past the false dualism of either directive or nondirective tutoring (Hawhee 20) . As the reflections above show, enacting kairotic thinking in the writing center can move us beyond that either-or choice and perhaps move us towards a stronger both-and philosophy. Since consultants are creative individuals who make important decisions on the spot when working with complicated individuals, this core concept invites us to reflect on our practices and our principles. Hill describes kairos as a “habit of mind, one that expresses itself in a kind of time that is living and creative” (212). The creativity of writing consultants brings to life the possibilities explored in Geller’s discussion of “epochal time” and coheres with the call put forth by the authors of The Everyday Writing Center that “[a]t the very heart of what we five have come to understand as we’ve talked about time is our belief that writing centers should be most focused on time that is relational” (33). Tutoring with kairos in mind provides a way to conceptualize that relational model of writing center practice.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Writing Center Consultations on L2 Writers’ Essay Writing Skills

With the international growth of English-medium education, tertiary institutions are increasingly providing academic support services to L2 students, and thus, the number of writing centers working with L2 student writers has also increased. Writing center practices originated in L1 English educational contexts and their appropriateness for L2 English writers requires examination. This study investigated the effect of writing center consultations on the essay writing skills of L1 Arabic foundation level students at an English-medium university in the Gulf region. Analysis was based on quantitative measures of writing ability of two distinct groups of students: an experimental group who participated in tutoring sessions at the university’s writing center and a control group who did not. Findings indicated that students who participated in writing center consultations scored significantly higher in overall essay writing scores, as well as in two aspects of writing: task fulfilment (that is ideas) and text organization/coherence. These findings contribute to a limited bank of similar empirical studies on effectiveness of writing center sessions on students’ essay writing ability. They also support the case for the expansion of writing center work beyond the domains of predominantly L1 English academic communities.

Transfer of learning in the development of peer tutor competence

Many universities run Writing Centers to provide support for students wishing to improve their academic literacy. These centers are ideal venues for peer tutoring, which may benefit both student-tutors (through tutoring skills development), and those tutored (through opportunities to discuss writing with a supportive peer). In the context of a university in the GCC region, peer tutors, prior to working, must complete required Communication courses. The syllabuses reflect student-centered and collaborative post-process writing approaches, where scaffolding is emphasized over direction, and word-by-word instructor correction of student writing is de-emphasized. Peer tutors also undergo preparation aimed at equipping them with an understanding of the rationale for these approaches and the skills needed to adapt them to tutoring. Given these experiences, the researchers set out to determine whether tutors are able to articulate such understandings and apply them to tutoring. Interconnected interpretative methods were deployed, including tutoring observation, consultation-conversation analysis and semi-structured interviews with tutors. Results indicate that tutors have significant recent experience of non-directive writing classes and may be aware of the rationale and benefits of such approaches. However, in their tutoring, content appears to be transferred from their most recent experiences but their style relies on instruction predominated by telling, explaining, demonstrating and directing, reflecting formative experience at school. The relationship between tutors’ experience, preparation, articulation and practice is explored, and recommendations are made to enhance Writing Center practices, in line with the concept of a constructively-aligned instruction system where all components address the same agenda and support each other.

International Students at the University of California: The Impact on Writing Center Practice

International Students at the University of California: The Impact on Writing Center Practice

Navigating Conversational Turns: Grounding Difficult Discussions on Racism

This issue of Praxis focuses our attentions and intentions on “diversity in the writing center.” This focus seems inherently “good”: diversity is something everyone can, and should, support. We find, however, that this diversity work gets really exciting, unnerving, and potentially frustrating–but still good–when we think about how differences are more than just differences: they become unfair organizers of our lives, providing some of us with fewer opportunities, less insider knowledge, and limited access. Other articles in this issue take up gender, language, culture, physical ability, and learning style. In our piece, we invite you to consider how race intersects with these other differences, influencing “deeply embedded logics and patterns” of everyday writing center practice (Geller et al., 87). We also want you to consider with us what makes conversations about racism difficult and what we might do to sustain open, honest, and still difficult conversations with an aim toward dismantling the systematic racism that shapes our lives.

How to communicate politely and be a tutor, too: NS-NNS interaction and writing center practice

Conflicts between comprehensibility, politeness, and effective tutorial practice frequently create communicative impasses in interaction between university writing center tutors and their tutees, who are both native (NS) and non-native speakers (NNSs) of English. Conversational excerpts drawn from a study of 34 tutorials demonstrate that such impasses are more frequent in tutorials with NNS tutees. The primary context for these impasses is the offering of tutor evaluations and suggestions, although the interactional features of volubility and interruptions are also implicated in the analysis. I argue that the trade-offs tutors make between comprehensibility, politeness, and effectiveness are essential characteristics of NS-NNS tutorial interaction and that open acknowledgment of the conflicts between communicative aims is essential to principled tutorial practice in this institutional discourse context.

Formative Assessment and the Paradigms of Writing Center Practice

(1997). Formative Assessment and the Paradigms of Writing Center Practice. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas: Vol. 71, No. 2, pp. 106-108.

Networked Computers + Writing Centers = ? Thinking About Networked Computers in Writing Center Practice

Networked Computers + Writing Centers = ? Thinking About Networked Computers in Writing Center Practice