PeerCentered

Like mentioned in the previous blog, establishing and maintaining community within a writing center can be difficult regardless of size. But depending on how these centers are structured and how they function, meaningful relationships can be created and long-lived. Possibly the most important reason for these interactions is to serve as resources for consultants. I’ve learned a lot in the past year and a half, and everything I have learned is because of the way the Texas A&M writing center operates. In   February   of last year, a colleague and I presented “ Be a Tool: How to Utilize Your Coworkers As a Valuable Resource” at the SCWCA conference in Houston. The main focus was to discuss several mechanisms that help create collaboration and interaction among coworkers, which in turn facilitates increased knowledge and productivity.    In a way, this is an extension of some of the procedures we touched on at the conference. The conference went well and evoked the ...

Writing centers are responsible for fostering a sense of community, and we call ourselves consultants because of the type of interaction we have with students. After all, sometimes a consultation shows more symptoms of a therapeutic session than a paper revision. But as easy as it is to share a sense of community with our student population, it’s difficult to establish that same environment within the center itself. And there are several aspects to blame, such as center size, scheduling differences and high turnover rates. I don’t want to be misunderstood—I’m not saying that we should be like family, because that is an overused, inaccurate comparison. But as coworkers, we should at least be familiar with one another. Sadly, after working at the center for more than a year, I still (from time to time) exchange the “do I know you?” look with other consultants as if they were strangers. Yet in all seriousness, I have introduced myself to new-hires more than 6 weeks after having worked tog...

[Updated 1/24/2012] The program for the online talk-time conference Writing Centers in the 2-Year College is set!  For more information about conference attendance, please visit http://bit.ly/wbIto3 .  The information isn’t up yet, but should be shortly.  I’ll be sure to update you all when it is up.  It is going to be an excellent conference!  I am particularly pleased by the number of sessions being lead by community college peer tutors.   It will be an excellent way to kick of International Writing Centers Week 2012 (Feb 12-18). Here is the unedited schedule [with links to the online conference rooms] to whet your appetites: Note: Rooms will be open for admission 30 minutes before each session. Monday, 2/6/12: A Wide Angle View of the 2-Year College Writing Center 1:00-2:00 pm EST “Two Year College Writing Centers ‘By the Numbers’” Jill Reglin, Lansing Community College 3:00-4:00 pm EST “What We Do, What ...

At the 2011 National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing held in Miami, Florida, Jon Olson shared a video clip of the late Ron Maxwell's advice to peer tutors.  Jon kindly sent the video clip to PeerCentered:

Hi All, As the end of the fall semester approaches, I plan to meet with writing tutors individually to discuss how the semester went (e.g., strengths they feel they exhibited, target areas for improvement, challenges they faced, questions/concerns they have, etc.). Have you found any questions/approaches to be particularly useful when having such conversations with tutors/consultants? And, more generally, I am interested in effective strategies for generating a reflective practice in the writing center. In other words, what have you done to get tutors/consultants to discuss not only issues that come up in their work with students on writing but to reflect on their own tutoring/consulting practices and engage in dialogue about their practices? Thanks! A Reflective Practitioner

Cassandra and Yecca talk about their poster session on working with bloggers at the Fashion Institute of Technology's Writing Studio .

Hey guys, I am relatively new to peer tutoring (just started getting some "practice" consulting hours in my university's writing center as part of a Peer Tutoring class I am taking), but it's something that I am really passionate about. Right now, I am trying to learn more about online writing labs and what kinds of different kinds of online writing consultations different schools and universities have available to them. Are there any tutors on this blog who have had experience working as an online writing tutor and would like to answer a couple of questions? Basically, I am working to find out how online writing consultations can foster the same learning experience as a one-on-one, face-to-face consultation in a writing center. If anyone out there has experience with this and would be interested in participating, please let me know by commenting. Thank you!

As I've been tutoring for the past year, I keep coming across an issue that I haven't heard talked about a whole lot--I'd really appreciate feedback on how everyone handles this situation, and (if it applies) what your thoughts are on how it might be handled better. Pointers to any literature on the subject would be awesome too. The enclosed link is just an article from The Wall Street Journal that I thought was interesting--it got me thinking again about the question I've been wanting to pose to other tutors since this summer. Love to hear what your perspective is on the article too, but let me get on with my question. Our writing center sees students from every major and I tutor every undergrad class level. The more I tutor, the more I notice that grammar and punctuation are very rhetorical: in many ways professors' perspectives of  "what is correct" are all different--many times dependent upon their field. For instance, Engineering professors (in my...

This just in from Zuzana Tomas: Dear tutors/consultants, I am working on a study that examines your experience with and beliefs about writing from sources and plagiarism. I would greatly appreciate it if you could participate in the study by completing an online survey. The survey is completely anonymous and should not take longer than 15 minutes to complete. Here is the link to the survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PBMQCRM If you would like more information about the study, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you so much for your help! Zuzana Tomas ( ztomas@emich.edu ) Eastern Michigan University

On WCENTER, Risa Gorelick posted some handy tips that the WPA email list sends out that might help first-time NCPTW attendees (edited with peer tutors in mind): General First Time Conference Attendees: wear comfortable shoes! network with EVERYONE.  Meet new people.  Stay hydrated.  Conference hotels are dry and you'll talk a lot. Bring snacks (Powerbars, candies, etc.) in case you're in a session during lunch. Go to the parties (don't sit in your hotel room...).  Try to  go to a session on something you don't know much about rather than go to all the sessions on [subjects you know something about].  You'll meet new people and learn something to boot. Try not to go up to some big name and say, "wow, you're so-and-so" (s/he will know that already).  Instead, introduce yourself and start a conversation.  [Don't be afraid to talk to people, in other words!] It's OK to go up t...

NCPTW 2011 Preview: Daniel Sanford Daniel Sanford from the University of New Mexico talks about his upcoming presentation at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing: "Writing Tutoring and Language Rights: Spanish and Navajo Writing Tutoring at the University of New Mexico."

PeerCentered Flash Mob 2.0 in Baltimore Come join PeerCentered colleagues attending the upcoming NCPTW conference in Miami in a flash mob & get an official PeerCentered sticker for your name badge! The plan is to meet up at the Pizza Reception/Poster Session on Friday at 5:00. You can dance if you want to, but if you don't dance and if they don't dance, well they're still friends of PeerCentered. As at the last PeerCentered FlashMob [TM] we will be trading erstwhile mascots. Bring your stuffed animals/tin Elvises/whatever to trade with other PCFlashMobbers. Last year, for example, the SLCC Student Writing Center traded its fake Pepe Le Peu plush animal for a rather fetching tin angel Elvis. This is the third PeerCentered flash mob. Our first was held at the 2008 Las Vegas NCPTW/IWCA joint conference. The second was in November 2010 in again at the IWCA/NCPTW Joined Conference. This is our first with just an NCPTW mob!

Here we are at the start of another school year. Here is an idea to get your PeerCentered juices flowing: post a comment to this post about something you would like to improve on in your tutoring writing.

I encourage everyone to check out and submit to my project.

This just in from the editors of Praxis: Praxis, the writing center journal at The University of Texas at Austin is happy to announce the publication of its Fall 2011 issue, From Triage to Outreach: Raising the Institutional Profile of Writing-Center Work. Please find our latest issue online at the Praxis website: http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/ . Beginning this spring, Praxis will be published as a peer-reviewed journal. Our Spring 2011 issue is the second in a series about the institutional profile of writing centers and writing center practice. Please see our Call for Papers at http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/364 . Our guidelines for submissions have changed. Those interested in submitting aritcles for peer review, column essays, and book or conference reviews can find our new guidelines for submission at http://projects.uwc.utexas.edu/praxis/?q=node/14 . The deadline for submissions is August 20, 2011.

Hey Friends~ My name is Angie, I'm a English Writing Major at Montana State University, where I also tutor in our Writing Center. I'm new to the tutoring community, but I've fallen in love with it already and am trying to get more familiar with writing center research, culture, jargon, conferences--ya know, everything! This blog has been really helpful for me just to hear the kinds of conversations peer tutors in other places are having. Thanks! My last day of tutoring for the semester made me think about things I'm not sure I've thought this deeply about before. Like how easy it is to profile a writer by the appearance of their paper and how this can jade our opinions of the paper and the writer before we even read, causing us to miss out on powerful teaching/learning moments. And also how there are many ways we can connect with a writer; some of them so obvious that I, for one, didn't even see them until my interaction with this student opened my eyes. Like...

Working with adults returning to school for either their bachelor’s or graduate degrees has helped me develop my skills as a consultant and peer tutor. Consultations with adult students have a different atmosphere about them than do traditional, young students; they are usually able to better articulate their problems and explain their concerns. When the age difference is significant enough, challenges can inhibit the client gaining trust in the tutor. To overcome them, we have to look at different ways of thinking about what being a peer tutor means. The broadest definition of “peer” is someone who belongs in the same group as you, and most commonly this refers to age. Peers can just as easily be people with similar abilities, qualifications, and other statuses, but age is the first impression. Most of the consultants at our Writing Center and the students who come in are undergraduates and graduate students within the same age range. Before any words are exchanged, this automatically...

The National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing will take place November 4-6 in Florida International University's Biscayne Bay campus. Since the deadline is right around the corner (April 25), I wanted to know if anyone is planning on attending. If so, what are you thinking about presenting?

At the 2011 Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conferece hosted by Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Joe McCormick, Writing Advisor at the Salt Lake Community College Student Writing Center, presented his work on incorporating Facebook as a writing center platform, including standard information and writing-related resources as well as online tutoring.

After a couple of years of on-again, off-again quest for a new server home, the PeerCentered Podcast is back!  There are some "episodes" from the last couple of years that were placed in other venues and represented here in the PeerCentered blog. If you are interested in doing a podcast episode, contact me (Clint Gardner.)

It started as any other consultation with a graduate student. I met the student, Kevin, and discovered that he wanted help with his journal article. He had been to the University Writing Center (UWC) once before a few months ago, so he had an idea of the kind of work we do. His concerns centered mostly on article use and the structure of sentences. I was also able to identify comma use errors and some capitalization issues when naming proper nouns. Overall, Kevin was eager to learn. It seemed more important to him to really understand the underlying concepts we discussed rather than just covering as much ground as possible. This was my first hint that perhaps this client could benefit from a more long-term consultative relationship. As we neared the end of the session, Kevin mentioned that he was very happy with the feedback I was giving him and wanted to know if he could meet with me again. I was about to give him the normal line about how everyone is just as qualified – which they ab...

So lately I've had a question on my mind and want to share it with all of you to see the responses I get. I know there have was a presentation or two on the subject during the IWCA-NCPTW conference,but here goes: What happens to the identity of a tutor when they are no longer a tutor? Many times, tutors have an identity that they have developed while tutoring. What happens when the tutor is no longer a tutor, but just a student? How do they adapt, per say? I find myself asking this question more since I tutored as an undergraduate, but do not have the time to tutor as a graduate student. Your responses who be helpful for an article I am writing.

A few years back, the PeerCentered podcast took a video recorder to the Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference at Weber State University.  One of the projects was to ask attendees what their job was called (given that there seems to be a lot of contention about how writing center work and workers should be labeled.)

The server that the PeerCentered podcast was on crashed and is unlikely to return.  I'm looking into options for the podcast and whether or not to continue it at all.  If you are interested in developing podcast episodes for PeerCentered, let me know.

Recently at the 2010 National Council of Teachers of English Convention International Writing Centers Special Interest group Denise Calix, PeerCentered blogger won a giant gummy bear: Congratulations, Denise!

Having a writing center tutor read your work can be as stressful for a client as having an instructor read it for a grade. Even though a tutor is not grading the work, the client is worried about being critiqued. He will likely be worried that the errors will be so numerous that the tutor might not verbalize it, but will think about what a terrible writer he is. Even I have had these fears almost every time I have had someone look over a paper which I have written. The client may even fear that the tutor will think that he is the worst writer the tutor has ever seen, or read. Since the tutor's role is not to grade the writings but rather to hep the client become a better writer, easing the client's fears is a particular challenge for the writing center tutor. This is especially important since helping the client to become a better writer means, in part, helping him to become a more comfortable, confident writer. Putting the client at ease begins at the very onset of the sess...

Writing is a very personal undertaking to the extent that most writers would pass the chance to attend a tutoring session, unless it is absolutely necessary.   The challenge for tutors in this environment is to find a balance between reinforcing the writer’s self-esteem while ensuring that the essential issues are addressed. If you read a bad paper, how could you bring the writer to understand this without making him/her feel terrible about the whole tutoring concept? It is a real challenge to deliver bad news; personally it is even harder and I am sure most of you would agree. To overcome this rather uncomfortable situation, I often commend my writers for a good paper and use personal writing challenges as a basis to underscore the troubling spots in their paper. Mind you, commendations are sometimes ineffective because writers know when they have done less than perfect work.   So while it is necessary, it must be aimed at honestly evaluating the writer for a fair attempt. I ...

Recently, I found out that I have an intense fear of sharing my writing with a large audience. I realized this when I started to write this blog post for PeerCentered. As I began writing, I felt a sense of fear, which I managed to trace back to the fact that I was writing something that I knew would be presented to a large audience over the internet. This blog post, which I feel has yielded some good results, actually started as a breakdown of the reasons why I was so uncomfortable writing a blog entry that would be read by people I didn't know. Only after writing for awhile did I realize that what I had been writing had a larger application than letting me know what I was scared of. The reasons that I dislike sharing my writing at times are the same as some of the reasons that others may feel some trepidation over presenting their work. I decided to adapt my own personal breakdown into something that I feel can help consultants in the writing center crack people who don...