Connecting the Readings from Last Week

I'm disappointed to have missed class, and there's a great possibility that what I say here may have already been discussed, but I'm going to touch on some of what I felt were the most compelling readings for the past week.

We have been reading about three things: What WCs can do besides tutor, WAC/WID, and WC administration. In light of the first focus area, I have been more than interested to read about some of these ideas, about putting WCs in the position of researchers and advocates for change. This can only improve the marginal status we now hold. I especially was fond of the portfolio research. Of course I don't think I would do things exactly the same way, but the idea of collecting these writings and using them to determine the needs of the institution--especially at a smaller one like mine--seems like an invaluable task that would not just help the WC or English majors but all students. It's a wonderful blend of a research project and a WAC project.

At a school where students' writing is constantly a topic of discussion--often a very heated topic--I know that so much of what people complain about is due to a misunderstanding of what WCs--and composition courses, for that matter--are all about. The article about reading our own rhetoric was important, because it reveals what we do to ourselves, how we shape what we are, and how others may read what we write. So this comes right back to this idea of shaping ourselves as something more than editors--and a project like the portfolios (and many others--we wouldn't want to stop there) would help others see that we are not the periphery but the hub of writing on campus. Or at least that is what we would like to be.

Owens' article again addresses this very topic, and says that "The perennial struggle that Writing Center staff face...is how we might better convey the pedagogical role of the Writing Center to students, faulty, and adminisitrators" (155). His idea of a "cultural center" is less appealing to me as I think it takes too much emphasis off of writing, but the idea that we need to be less service-oriented is an excellent way to approach the struggle he discusses.

I was not too keep either on the idea of the WC being committed to "civic engagement" as Wilkey and Dreese imagined. While I think there is some merit to the idea, again, it can make the WC lose it focus on writing. Too, the idea that a tutor and student--the collaborators--would be equally invested in the writing they were working on because it had purpose beyond both of them is just too idealistic to be practical. We all know that the majority of writing that goes on in the academy is for the teacher, is meant to be a performance, and is not an end but a means. I just don't see the faculty all suddenly finding ways to make writing assignments authentic. It's been a struggle for the course of composition's history, and I don't see this being the resolution.

If we take some of the lists from Jennifer Beech's article and make an ideal for our particular circumstance, I can imagine this wonderful place where people come to hang out and work on writing, sometimes for help, sometimes as collaborators, sometimes as part of a writing group, where documents and texts from every discipline and every genre were available for people to look up and work together on, where all students and faculty know and trust is THE place to go to work on yourself as a writer. There would be editing workshops so that this concern would be covered, and technology workshops as well. Here are my favorites from Beech:
"Alternative to misguided classroom practices" (201)
"Voluntary refuge from classroom evaluation" (201)
"Engaged in intellectual labor" (201)
Students as "Writers/authors/producers of meaningful texts" (202)
Directors as "Secured or Tenure-track specialists in the field" (203)
Directors as "Peer/professor/professional worthy of respect/Campus leader (203)
I think Beech dropped the ball, though, by not creating a list of how tutors could be re-visioned, so to this I would add:
Tutors not as editors but as collaborators, mentors, and fellow writers
Tutors not as writing experts but as trained readers, listeners, and guides

Putting these three topics together--WAC/WID, WCs as more than a service, and the roles of WC administrators--I can envision the WC administrator who one day is seen as a colleague for the important role they serve on campus, as an academic, a researcher, a teacher, an as a service to the college. Much as librarians often fight for this recognition--and have at least achieved it in part--WC administrators I believe have hope that their role in the academy will continue to push at its boundaries and WCs all over will come to be seen as so much more than a place to get your comma splices fixed. And it is going to involve WCAs being more and doing more than tutoring in their writing centers. It is going to involve writing in all fields. It is going to involve research projects and publications and conferences and doing the work of the field. But if, in the long run, our students and faculty can see WCs as the one place where writing and writers are made, it would be all worth it.

Leading a Session (Words of Affirmation)

On Wednesday I worked with a young lady whom had a 12:00 appointment however her consultant was no where to be found, I offered to assist her. I sometimes feel like customer service should be something expressed in writing center management-this is off topic but at times when observing the front desk-many students who come into the writing center seem puzzled by who they need to greet to make it aware that they have an appointment, sometimes the front desk is congested with consultants, other times it’s as if the consultant at the front desk is in another world. I have seen too many times students standing at the front desk waiting to be serviced for long periods of time-wondering around trying to make eye contact with someone, anyone who recognizes their puzzlement. I though the online scheduling would be great in that it would provide us as a WC more chances to appear to be welcoming to students whom come in????

So in this case, which has happened more then once the student was waiting for help while the front desk person’s eyes were looking down at a written document and I noticed she was getting irritated (given her body language) so I walked up to her and offered to work with her. I want to know what we can do as consultants to make those who enter our center feel welcome. I think that we should talk about how we perform and greet when working at the front desk? Where do we stand in service to our clients? Perhaps even a student survey to examine how students feel we are doing in this area.

This client was working on multiple written pieces: a short response paper for an investment class, a personal statement for med school and an application for funding so that she could take the MCAT. At best I would argue that the client took the lead when negotiating how much time we would spend on each of them. We working through her response paper first as “It was due at 5pm today”, and because I had spend 1.5 years working at a insurance company processing and studying investments and financial portfolios I knew I was able to help her-she begin the session as if I she assumed I knew nothing about what she was writing or the terms being used in her response to choices a investment product and advise why you choice it? , but I assured her that I had indeed worked at an insurance company and knew what she meant by “risk taking”, “caps” and different investment terminology. We basically worked on sentence level errors and word choice. I did indeed “give away” terms I though would help her see a new way of seeing and saying throughout her paper, her response when I would say, hey what about using “this” to say “that” would be a simple silence, then she would re-read the sentence inserting mine and then her own new word. After finishing she asked: Does this sound like a good paper? Is this paper ok? From my understanding I said, so it seems you have answered all the questions your instructor has asked (woooohhh-way to get outta that questions) It was as If I was positioned to examine the paper's worth, a very uncomfortable position-but why?

When we got to the application for financial assistance to take the MCAT she got very sad and had a defeatist mentality, she would ask me, if you saw this paper would you give me the money? Or this just sounds so stupid to me? Before we could even get to the paper I felt like she needed words of encouragement? So I gave it to her, I became her writer cheerleader!
I told her about the ways in which attitude shapes our writing ‘if you think it’s crap before you even get started-then that doesn’t help the revision process’ I when on the tell her she needed to develop confidence in herself and her writing and that it took time and practice. “Well that’s why I’m here” was her rebuttal (We both laughed) Our session reminded me of Corcoran's article where she talks about the WC being a site of "remediation, a space in which students were to make up fo rthe short-comings of their earlier literacy education" (29). But roles to be as consultants take when opted to save students from their previous literacies? I believe that the client can to realize that her literacy short-coming was in fact the purpose of her visit to the WC.

After ending the session I told her I would be at the WC until 3pm working on a project for ESL convos and that if she needed any additional help that I wasn’t booked-and wanted to help her, she came back at 2:33pm walked up to me and politely asked if I had time to go over revisions with her, I didn’t mind-near the end of the session she asked me the same questions that she asked me prior in which I felt were calls of recognition and affirmation…I'm not sure this helped-and don't know why I said it but I told her about the notion of knowing one's own writing identity-in this case knowing where you are and were you want to go or become as a writer helps build confidence in that you know what you have already-so it's not a matter of Is this paper worthless? It's a matter of why do you think this paper is worthless?
Why do you need so much affirmation when it comes to this particular writing assignment? How can I help you build affirmation?