The Writing Center as a Collaborative Endeavor

We read three articles (North, Lunsford, and Bruffee) on Writing Centers and their theoretical approach to the tutoring that goes on in these centers. While each of these writers had different approaches to this, their purpose seemed to be the same: writing is a social act and therefore writing centers need to treat the tutoring session as a social act. They argue against the paradigms that treat writers and writing as the broken that need fixing or as the stubborn who just need to get knowledge coaxed out of them. Rather, they argue for the social epistemic shift that parallels what is happening in composition. The problems sound so similar to what compositionists have been struggling with--which is not surprising--that I understand it all too well. The truth is--and what North has the hardest time with--that people just don't understand what we do in Writing Centers.

I guess it made me feel a little better knowing that what's going on in my little WC is the same as elsewhere. For example, I held interviews for next year's tutors about a month ago, just before the end of the semester. One of the questions I asked in the interviews was, "Why do you think you'd like to work in the WC?" Without exception, every student said, "Because I love to correct people's papers and find their errors and stuff. I'm really good at it." So I responded to all of them, "And how would you feel about the job if you found out that you will never get to correct a single paper? Because that isn't what we do here." The ones who responded with enthusiasm went into the "possible" pile. Those who looked completely lost or dismayed went into the "not too likely" pile.

Considering labels of these approaches, I see problems with many of the labels, especially the "collaborative" label. In addition to the problems that Lunsford specifies, I see others that could arise as well. One that comes to mind is that those that come in to be tutored, I believe, feel a need to have ownership of their papers. If they thought of their tutor as someone who was not just helping them or coaching them (choose your term), but rather someone who was writing with them, they may resent this. The idea of collaborative writing is pretty foreign to most students and they may resist the idea that their writing is, after a tutoring session, no longer just their own. However, if we have tutors alone adapt this ideal it might work. I'm thinking of it being the way we teach tutors to approach the sessions but not really advertise it this way so that tutees don't get the wrong idea. I think I like the idea of students realizing that they are coming in to have someone write with them, while the writing still is their own. I'll have to think through this "collaborative" writing terminology a little more.

The idea of these sessions being part of a conversation is a good one, too. As all writing is part of a conversation, seeing these tutoring sessions as merely an active part of that conversation makes sense. It's a bit more difficult of a metaphor, however, to use when explaining to tutors or students what their role is. I'm thinking about the workshops I do with my students at the beginning of each year and how I would shape them according to the social epistemic model. Although I have pretty much followed this because of what I know about composition, it seems a bit different coming from the teaching-others-how-to-tutor perspective. When I do my project, (which I'm thinking will be creating these workshops), then I'll have to keep this as a theoretical framework for what we do.