WAC and Writing Centers

Many interesting posts to go along with a lively presentation by Kim and Keva. Let's start with WAC or WID or WTL (writing to learn)--whatever acronym suits you. Jake's memory of not having much writing in other content areas and Davinia's memory of having lots of it are both accurate. Some K-12 schools and some universities have made writing in all areas a major goal and done lots of good professional development to help teachers enact writing as a way to learn and a way to communicate learning. You will find, however, that implementation is uneven. I think pre-service teacher education needs to emphasize writing in all disciplines, and the mentoring of new teachers should do the same. Every K-12 school and every university should have WRITING and READING across all areas as a key goal and should assess their progress in these areas continually. (That's not to say that speaking, performing, art, and other ways of learning should not also be emphasized. The sad fact is, most classes engage students in such a limited range of activities that it's a wonder anyone learns anything in school.)

The National Writing Project, by the way, mentioned in the WAC article, is indeed one of the best ways for teachers and schools to learn more about writing. That's because NWP emphasizes that teachers themselves must write (and be active learners), and NWP does professional development the right way: lots of hands-on learning, teachers teaching teachers, best practices demonstrated, not just presented, and making PD (and learning) FUN! Perhaps that's where some writing-across-the-curriculum efforts fall short. Writing in formulaic, limited ways that simply reinforces students' dislike of writing is about as bad as multiple-choice and true-false tests.

Now, to Writing Centers. Those who have worked in Writing Centers testify to their glory. (Thus you see Jackie, Keva, Dane, Davinia, and Paula speaking from first-hand experience, and noting the diversity of ways that writing centers and peer tutoring centers work, and even questioning some Writing Center principles as we move into new frontiers of learning and literacy.) I too worked in the Writing Center, in my case as a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I loved that work! For one thing, it was better than an additional class as a TA--no papers to grade, no classes to prepare. But that's a side benefit. The work itself is so enriching. To work with students of all levels, from first-year to graduate school, and on writing in all disciplines and genres, taught me so much about the range of writing in a university. I had to learn how to ask good questions: what is the assignment? what is your purpose as a writer? who are your readers? where are you in the process? what are you struggling with now? Also, I learned to take good notes for a writer--perhaps outlining the writer's revision plan, or jotting down the writer's spoken brainstorming for new ideas or for a thesis. There is no way to be purely Socratic, to never offer a suggestion or give an "answer," but it is a fine line to dance on. "Hand me that draft, give me an hour, and I'll return a nicely organized, well-edited paper that should at least get you a B+." That's not how it works. No fix-it shop, indeed. But sometimes to help someone become a better writer, you have to demonstrate a move.

Some of you have read Mike Rose's Lives on the Boundary, in which he talks about a college professor who demonstrated for him well-constructed, thoughtful sentences. We can learn by imitation. So it's not good to do the writing for a student, but occasionally an example, a possibility, can be helpful. It might be wise at first to offer an example on a different topic than the student's paper. That way, you are truly teaching, not doing the work for the student.

So go for it, people! Talk to Tere Molinder Hogue about taking a Writing Center tutoring course and if it works well for you, you may end up working in our UWC. And keep learning about WAC so that you may be able to help faculty in all disciplines learn about the joys of writing as a way of learning. Seriously: there are good opportunities out there, K-university, for smart people who can teach writing, direct writing centers, and/or do professional development in the area of writing. And don't forget the National Writing Project along the way.

Writing Center Pedagogy: A Pragmatic Process Theory

Ah, Writing Center Pedagogy – this is where I’ve come to feel most at home this semester, owing to my participation in the Writing Center Seminar. As Hobson points out and Keva reiterated in her presentation, there are likely as many methods of enacting Writing Center Pedagogy as there are Writing Centers throughout the country, and it is rare for professors whose students make use of this resource to understand either its activities or purposes. They often believe it is a “fix-it shop,” a place where students can get help to “clean up” their grammar and mechanics, but this is in reality generally one of its lowest priorities. In fact, within its literature, these concerns are often defined as “lower-order concerns” or LOCs. What most Writing Centers endeavor to do is to help students with the organization and development of their ideas, termed “higher-order concerns” (HOCs).

James Moffett puts forth a process-oriented enactment of writing center pedagogy in the chapter entitled “Learning to Write by Writing” in his 1968 Teaching the Universe of Discourse where he also explicates the importance of students interacting with other students: one “may write off the comments of a teacher … but when his fellow human beings misread him, he has to accommodate the feedback” (195). His theory follows that of language acquisition, based on the same principles of feedback and trial-and-error that is our most natural mode of learning. “Ideally,” he says, a student’s “writing would be read and discussed by the audience, who would also be the coaches. Their response would be candid and specific. Adjustments in language, form, and content would come as the writer’s response to his audience’s response” (193).

But where does the teacher fit into this pedagogy? Doesn’t having students review each others’ papers invite incorrect revision? Like Keva said in her presentation, the teacher should guide students not to correct each others’ papers, but respond to them. Students are more than qualified to point out lack of clarity and frequently can identify problem areas but not know how to fix them. This is where the expert comes in. What is most valuable about this method is that students seek out the teacher’s knowledge out of need; it comes as a solicited response to a direct, personally motivated question. Moffett explains: “the teacher … helps students to interpret their initially vague responses and to translate them into the technical features of the paper that gives rise to them…. This amounts to sharpening response while keeping it paramount” (196). By aligning in-class activities with both natural feedback and trial-and-error processes, writing center pedagogy can be a highly pragmatic method to enact otherwise nebulous process theory.