Writing Centers have it right. Classrooms have it wrong?

“To think about writing center pedagogy as a monolith ignores the cultural situatedness of particular centers, the extent to which each center is defined by local context (institutional, philosophical, educational, physical, communal” (169).

Writing Centers have it right. One-on-one instruction is by far the most effective way to improve writers, their attitudes toward writing, and the writing they produce. Tutorial style teaching allows teachers to pinpoint students’ weaknesses, reinforce strengths, and tailor their teaching style to what works for each particular student. I think most teachers can agree that students learn in different ways and respond positively and negatively to certain kinds of feedback. Working one-on-one with a student allows teachers to cater to these differences.

While a classroom teacher can take on some of the aspects of a writing center, I do not think the classroom can ever truly take on the full benefits and “atmosphere” of a writing center because the writing center is free of one of the major pressures of a classroom: grades. When working with overachievers, I’ve noticed that many of them do not like to ask for help. Teachers can be overly nice, overly reassuring, and nonchalantly invite a student to come talk to them in their office about writing; but for the most part, these students have learned that they must impress their teachers, and this pressure they feel seems to increase as they get older. In my experience, my ninth grade honors students are much more likely to come in to ask for help than my junior AP students are. While I understand there may be a number of factors behind this general trend, I cannot help but think that part of this is the pressure to “perform” for their teachers. Juniors are overly-aware of college admissions, recommendations, and appearances. To impress their teachers (in hopes of a good recommendation), students want to appear to “have it together,” even if they are struggling in their writing. While this is true for some high-achieving students, it is not true for all. Like every other generalization, there are exceptional students who understand that asking for help will only improve their writing and, in the long run, their recommendation.

Students can forget, or at least temporarily ignore, these stresses in a Writing Center, allowing them to view their writing in a different context, a different space, a different “cultural situatedness” of the pressures of a classroom.