PeerCentered

I woke up this morning to the linked story and wrote immediately to WCENTER : I was just looking through Google news (news.google.com) and a disturbing story out of Texas A&M popped up ( link ). In a nutshell a candidate for student body president is proposing doing away with fees paid to services such as their Writing Center since it is "not used by all students" and "could be changed to being paid for based on usage instead of a blanket fee for all students." When I went to the A&N WC web site, I discovered that students fees for the service for everyone is $8.00 per semester. So all undergraduate students are paying $16.00 per year to pay to keep the Writing Center open. Now granted this person has not won election and (as we all know) student body officers cannot necessarily make such sweeping decisions on their own (but I'm not familar at all with how it works at A&M), but it does sound an alarm to me that attitudes like this can affect the ...

In collaboration with their library, Sam Houston State Writing Center has created a program to bring librarians into the Writing Center. The program combines both writing center work with developing writing and the librarians research expertise. As an outreach program, this effort goes both ways: the library can reach out to make folks aware of their services to help people learn about research and the Writing Center can make contact with colleagues across the campus: "This outreach program (Librarians on Location) is one of the most visible ways our librarians demonstrate their commitment to providing access to information resources to SHSU students," said Ann Holder, director of library services. "We have sent librarians to a number of locations this past year and the Writing Center has proven to be our most successful venue; it is an obvious pairing and we encourage library use while demonstrating that the Newton Gresham Library, its resources, and librarians, a...

Neal Lerner over at Friends of the Writing Center Journal (q.v.) gave me a great idea that they have been using over there since they started: guest bloggers. Basically what would happen is that PeerCentered would be "turned over" to a writing center for a week for them to do what they will. I've had one bite so far, and hopefully we can generate some more interest. Guest-star blogging might just do the trick. Hey it worked for Johnny Carson for years, didn't it?

I think I might go on one more recruiting spree to see if anyone else is really interested in writing on PeerCentered. I don't mind blogging about writing-center- or peer-tutoring-related things I find on the internet, but it does seem to be a little distant from the idea of sharing ideas/experience that we originally were working from. Hmm.

The folks at the University of Connecticut Writing Center have found a pretty cool way to advertise their center: an interactive magnetic poetry display . The display takes poems from famous authors in magnetic poetry form and then let's passers-by make any changes they want. As Laurie Cella, co-director of the UConn Writing Center says "The biggest goal...is publicizing the Writing Center..." (5).

Friends of the Writing Center Journal have been posting some pictures of CCCC in San Francisco . They take a while to load, but go give them a look.

While on the plane I searched through the PDF version of the CCCC I downloaded previously. There are quite a few sessions devoted to writing center work this year. I can’t say it with any kind of statistical confidence, but the number of writing-center-related sessions seems to be up from previous CCCC. I suppose I could dig through old programs, but that seems quite a lot of work for very little pay off. Then again someone might find the statistics interest or useful. (Put that in the side-project pile.) There are fewer presentations devoted to peer tutoring, but after removing “peer” and “ing” from my search of the program, I did locate more.

I'll be at CCCC in San Francisco for the rest of the week. I'll make note of any peer-tutoring-related presentations if I can get access.

The buzz at semester-based instituations is that writing centers are busy and truly useful places: The Daily at the University of Washington The Pacer at the University of Tennessee at Martin Rollins College's The Sandspur

Stanford University Writing Center has an interesting way to get involved in their University's annual Parents' Weekend: “The students speak in their own voices and you get a real feel for their interests and concerns,” [Writing Center Assistant Director Wendy] Goldberg said. “You get a real cross-section of students and interests.” The "Celebration of Writing" sounds like a great way for a writing center to reach out to its community.

There is something about how this article about writing fellows at the University of Wisconsin--Madison starts: They are a rare breed who love the complex process of thesis development, the endless variety of sentence structure and the art of the perfect transition. Their majors range anywhere from psychology to women's studies. They feel no student should conquer writer's block alone, and their lust for writing has put drive and passion back in UW students' pens. They are the writing fellows.

Austin Peay State University has started up a new writing center staffed exclusively by peer tutors.

In the latest Writing Lab Newsletter "Tutor's Column" (February, 2005; Volume 29, Number 6), Paula Braun, Courtney Patterson, and Sarah Abst of the University of Toledo write about their experience "post-processing" a session they lead at the last NCPTW/IWCA conference entitled "Talking back to Training Manuals: Real Tutoring in a Post-Process Writing Cetner." The trio's main question of concern was "'How do you determine the line between directivenes and non-directiveness? When do you cross it'" (10)? The answers participants in the workshop provide are frank and explore the problems that non-directive theory can present in a writing center setting. Braun, Patterson, and Abst in presenting the explorations from their workshop hope that it sparks "as lively an exploration in your setting" (10). In a bonus "Tutor's Column," Kelly Wisecup of the College of the Ozarks reports on an interesting experiment in w...

NBC 25 out of Hagerstown, Maryland (USA) has an oblique success-story reference to a writing center in a recent news report aimed at high school student preparing for college: College sophomore Sammy Magzoub spends a couple of hours a week in the writing help lab at his university. Before he got to college, Sammy didn’t realize that English isn’t the only class where a good paper can mean the difference between passing and failing. (Sinclair, Carla. "The Write Stuff", 2) and then Back in the college writing lab, Sammy says it wasn’t too difficult to improve his writing. Magzoub said, "it didn’t take me long to realize that if you even change a word in your sentence, it could make a huge difference, or if you even change the order of the words, it makes a huge difference." (12-13)

I've been thinking a bit about PeerCentered since the exchange below about why it is not working, and have decided that it might be a good thing to expand on the mission by making it not just a response/reflection kind of journal but also a "regulation" blog that links to (and perhaps comments on) news or other just items found on the Internet that relate directly to peer tutoring specifically and writing centers in general. That is the reason behind the post about Chaffey College's difficulties. Over the next while I will also be paring down the contributers list to those who actually post items. I know this will change over time, so I'm arbitrarily assigning a six month rule: if a contributer doesn't post in a six month time span, they may be deleted from the role. I feel a bit silly making such pronouncements since PeerCentered is so stagnant, but I am going to start advertising on WCENTER again the opportunity that we have to share our ideas with other...

The Chaffey Breeze of Chaffey College in Cucamonga, California reports a potentially disturbing action (free registration required to access story) by their state's funding agencies: The state recently cut all funding starting next semester for the hours that students were spending in the Success Centers on campus. According to the Vice President of Instruction, Dr. Linda Howdyshell, the cut came because the state was questioning the idea that students were getting "something for nothing" from the success centers and labs. (Cangialosi, Mark. "State Cuts May Doom Campus Success Centers", 3-4) Apparantly the Success Centers include writing centers on campus as the story later offers a quotation by Robert Rundquist, Writing Center Instructional Specialist: "'The college is very committed to the centers....I have no concern about it'" (20). Students at Chaffey, however, don't seem to share Rundquist's optimism.

Our friends at Writing Center Journal have started a blog: http://writingcenterjournal.blogspot.com/

There hasn't been a scrap of action on Peer Centered since last Spring. I didn't advertise it that much, so I assume that is part of the problem. I'm kind of rethinking where this is going and whether peer tutors are interested in participating in something like this. In any case, I've changed the design to pep it up, and have instituted blogger.com's commenting system. Perhaps it would be best to turn PeerCentered into a regulation blog, with commentary/references to other places that reference peer tutoring?

It is the week before finals week at MSU, and that means it's wrap up time for the semester for the university and the writing center as well. That doesn't mean that there won't be summer classes, and we won't still provide consulting during the summer. But, it has a different, more relaxed feeling and I'm curious about what consulting will be like in the summer. I'm sure that traffic will be slower, but will consulting be different? Do any of you have experience with "slower traffic seasons" in the writing center? If so, please share.

I've been thinking a lot about Mary's last post. Ultimately I have to disagree with her because I have and rank advancement though the Writing Center. It is my carreer and my schools seems dedicated to making the position viable. I suppose some schools are not committed to that. Ultimately this is the argument that WC director's posistions should always be faculty positions. I should think, however, that such a person should be hired as WC specialists and be treated fairly in tenure reviews. I know that has not happened in the past for some folks, despite their publishing record etc. I've never seen the WC as a safe haven. On the other had I see it as a somewhat radical place where new ideas about education can be bandied about.

>While I was reading this I suddenly had the (I would say sad) thought that despite all of any WC director's work, people who work there are probably not going to have the commitment level that she or he has since, ultimately, many folks don't work in writing centers as a carreer. It is for them, perhaps, just a weigh station. It is something to do before you get you finish up your work and move on to the real job. I'm new to PeerCentered, so I thought I'd begin by responding to this post. My title is English Instructional Skills Specialist for the English Learning Center at Palo Alto College, a position I've held for five years. Yes, that's right, five years. Awfully long time to pause at a "weigh station," don't you think? I honestly didn't come into this job on my way to something else. I came into this job on my way OUT of something else. I taught high school for three years before I came to the community college. At the en...

We had a great training session yesterday. My impression of involvement is assuaged I think.

I made a vow awhile back to not write about the lack of participation here from peer writing tutors despite my efforts to draw folks in. I have to break that now because I've been bothered recently by, for want of better terms, the dedication to WC work by folks who work in writing centers. I guess these thoughts started when I was reading WCENTER and a conversation about methods to get peer tutors to fill out appropriate (and I would argue essential) report forms. It would seem that some peer tutors were "too busy" with their own school work to take the time to fill out the forms that notify instructors of what went on in an individual session. The WCENTER conversation then turned towards general commitment levels of WC folks (and in particular graduate students). Chris LeCluyse from UT Austin writes The thornier issue is how graduate students see themselves in the center, and how they relate the work they do there to their own studies and professional goals....

I was in San Antonio for CCCC last week. There were quite a few sessions on the uses of blogs in teaching composition, as well as sessions on, for want of better terms, "blog theory." Quite enjoyable. It is the harvest of various problems in the WC. I'm having to deal with conflicts all over the place. That seems to happen in the Spring.

We're reaching a fever pitch here again. We are a week before spring break and many papers are coming due. I sense the frustration of those who try to walk in and find that there are no appointments, but all one can do is try to come back later. I know how Beth Young at the University of Central Florida feels .

It is nice to see some action here--even though we haven't inspired much commenting. Comment, folks. Its not that hard!

Have I taken a risk during a session lately? That is an intriguing question to consider, and as I started to think about risk-taking, in writing and in consulting, I had to think about what that means. To me, it's stepping out of comfortable territory. I think of it this way, because I was trying to recall if I felt I had taken a risk recently. And I have. This is my first semester consulting and I can see myself developing a staid routine. In my mind I follow the same steps, ask similar questions, and make similar comments. Of course each session is individual, and wrapped up in the relationship we as consultants develop with a client, their writing, etc. Despite this, I could see myself getting into a rut. And the problem this has with consulting, is that since all sessions are individual, they should be treated individually. For example, all students have different learning styles, and should be catered to individually. So, I challenged myself. During my last session...

In response to Clint's proposed question: I don't know that I am the most risk-taking consultant in the history of the world. Maybe it's just because I am still pretty new at the whole consulting thing, but I guess overall I wonder how much I dare to do risky things. I can think of one solid example, however: Tuesday I had a session with a client who wanted to brainstorm ideas for her argumentative paper. All the prompt said was "find a topic related to women and then make an argument." Not even kidding--it was so vague. We begain brainstorming and the more we started talking, the more information I found myself adding from my personal background. (Necessary background info: I am an English Major and one of my cognates (I like to think of them as mini-minors) is Women's Studies.) I shared some information, statistics, trends, etc. that I've been taught in my classes, and not only did my client appreciate it, I think it really helped her brainst...

I was challenged by Clint's question in regards to the last time a session was a risk for me and/or "really really fun." I honestly cannot recall the last time I took a risk in a session. There are lots of reasons for my non-extreme sport approach to consulting: students associate our help with grades; regardless of whether we consider ourselves experts or not, students certainly expect a certain level of expertise; I worry about my own accountability. I guess I'm wondering how to define risk...what would a consultant's risk look like? The good news is that I can easily recall a time when I had a really really fun session. I had one just today! I worked with 3 lively guys who were all in the throes of personal statement agony. By some circular route we reached a point where we were contrasting personal *statements* with personal *ads.* While it may sound frivolous, we were able to draw some really great comparisons and we are all laughing (lol!) at the end of t...