PeerCentered

Inspired by Clint and the Writing Center listserv, I realized how much folks are (or were, or do every year) for events like International Writing Center Week. I've been working as a tutor now for a couple of years and I have to admit that the Writing Center of which I've been a part has not been involved in that capacity. In fact, aside from the dreaded (by me) classroom visits we do throughout the semester, there aren't any other ways in which we manage to become more visible to the campus community. Our having begun using WCOnline as of last summer has made it easier for students to make appointments (and cut down significantly on the number of phone calls we've been getting), and while I haven't heard any statistics on a potential increase of sessions, I would like to make us more visible, promote our services, or at least present ourselves and a nifty place to get help. We have such a large student population that I know we couldn't handle becoming inundat…

The folks visiting the Student Writing Center at Salt Lake Community College have crafted several add-a-line poems this week. Basically one person writes one line and then another person adds a new line. Here are some of them:

1.

She reads Popular Mechanics
He reads Cosmo Girl!
But neither understands
The implications of their wild radical ways.

2.

The morning comes with a chance of snow
Then...nothing, so we wait.
The roads are crazy don't cha know?
Ack! The coffee shop is closed!
So I put the pedal to the metal
Stabucks, my corporate God, thank you
For your everlasting constant availability.

3.

Wanted: One thesis statment
Found: Two statements from Thebes
Reward: one lost cat, owner Schrodinger
does not know if animal is alive or dead

4.

What can you say about
Tucson in the Fall?
I'll tell you this
Its nothing like an English Ball
Aristocracy and finery has
No place
In the dry dessert season
Society, an extinct race

5.

The words flowed like hard candy
Clink
Clink
Clink
Into the candy bin
Su…

We've made a flickr account here at the Salt Lake Community College Student Writing Center and have been posting both old and new pictures. The old ones have made me quite nostalgic. If your Center or you get a flickr account (or have one) let us all know in a comment with your URL.

I have more posts about our activities, and perhaps the activities of others (if I can find any) later.

Tomorrow (12 February) is the start of International Writing Centers Week 2007. It will run until the 18th. Here's what I wrote to WCENTER last night:

Given that it is a super-busy time of the semester, it seems like it has come at an opportune time. In between sessions, we are busily making stuff to give out to folks and plan on doing some "instant poetry" boards (just a big piece of paper in the corner where folks can write out whatever they want) and hope to barrage our campuses with information about the Student Writing Center (SWC). The campus TV folks came by and are going to put together a video about the SWC that will be shown on the video system at our 5 main campuses and I'm re-editing a video I made for IWCW2006). Although I've never been much on this sort of thing, the folks I work with are excited and have come up with some good ideas, so it should be interesting. We all decided to take on a project (which has been a tough row to hoe given how bu…

I just received a copy of Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice from Utah State Press and can't wait to get into it. I suspect that Anne Ellen Geller, Michele Eodice, Frankie Condon, Meg Carroll, and Elizabeth Boquet have put together something that will have a great deal of influence on the future of writing center practice and theory. Harvey Kail summarizes what intrigues me most about the text:

What impresses me most about their argument is not that writing centers need to stop being so rigid and time-bound and apolitical, but that writing centers occupy a unique space in the academy that might encourage authentic communities of learners, writers, peer tutors, faculty, and staff. The Everyday Writing Center provides a way to think about this ambition. (ibid.)
I hope to have a review here later. Michele Eodice will also be the keynote The Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference at Weber State University on March 2-3, so I hope to have a chance to discuss the book w…

To celebrate International Writing Centers Week 2007, Columbia State University has put together a
CSU Writing Center Poetry Slam on February 16. They are also using a blog to spread the word about it.