Living Out Writing to Learn

That title sounds more promising than this post will likely be. To be honest, I left Tuesday night class without a strong sense of anything to write about. Even as I sit here now, alternatively taking bites of mushroom pizza and trying to push this sentence forward, I've got nothing.

So I'm here, writing to learn. I'm putting myself in a situation where I need to meander through my thoughts and, hopefully, stumble upon something worth saying about either writing across the curriculum or writing centers.

Actually, it kind of weirds me out that I have so little inspiration after this week. Why? Because I LOVE writing centers. I was a writing consultant for 2 1/2 years in ugrad and am about to start tutoring again in a faculty role for IUPUI this coming semester. Perhaps I wasn't provoked to deep thought by our discussion (or Hobson's discussion for that matter) because I already KNOW all of this stuff. I'm versed in the basics of writing center pedagogy. In fact, I'm more interested in discussing the tricker, wigglier bits of WC pedagogy, like what does a center do if it's interested in utilizing more technology but still wants to mantain its purist, Socratic tutorial methods? And can we talk about coping mechanisms for when a questions-please methodology falls on its face? Not all students can say something productive in response to a leading question. They just CAN'T. Especially basic writers. They don't have the vocabulary. They don't have the experience. They'll never be able to tell you what's up in a sentence where grammar and syntax are screwy--they might recognize it's confusing, but they, again, don't have the vocabulary or the innate understanding to tell you WHY it's wrong. I think many kids just don't read enough, and thus haven't been able to absorb "naturally" more complex structures. Gosh, the grammar/syntax that non-reading kids are exposed to regularly is probably coming out of the mouths of others who don't know what's going on either....

Reflecting on above...I see I have stumbled and seized upon an oft-debated (within myself) issue: if one believes that not all students are capable of articulating what might be going wrong with their writing, what is a tutor to do? What is the tutor's role, and proximity, to the tutorial? I researched this a bit last semester (Spring 08) for W509, concluding that, based on what I had read, I was dissatisfied with academic considerations on how tutors are to cope with the evolving writing center. I like the hands-off approach as much as the next guy--it more readily supports the idea that tutorials are for making better writers, not better papers--but something has to give. I'm NOT going to play "guess what I'm thinking" about what's wrong with this paragraph. How does a tutor's role change in the face of...using online tutorial means (OWL, for example)...working with a basic or EAP writer...etc. We all tutor toward the idea that there is an ultimate "correctness" to be achieved...how does that idea stand up in the face of embracing multiculturalism and the idea of Englishes--more than one acceptable way of writing?

Maybe I'm so out of the loop that my "wonders" are irrelevant. I admit, my last tutorial was in May 2005. I'm anxious to get back to the WC and see what's going on. And I'll keep using the tools of WAC--writing to learn--to think about it.