PeerCentered

Michele Eodice gave the keynote address at this past weekend's Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference hosted by Weber State University. Her address was entitled "Everyday Landscapes." It focussed on space and place of a writing center and our idea of what a writing center should/could/can be. I had the opportunity to record the speech on video, which I have placed in the podcast (q.v.)

Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference Day 2 , originally uploaded by Student Writing Center . The second day of the conference is devoted to peer writing tutoring with the presentations being conducted by peer tutors.

Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference Day 2 , originally uploaded by Student Writing Center . Even our fake plant made it into the picture.

Our first director's group shot , originally uploaded by Student Writing Center .

I've just arrived home from Day 1 of the Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference. Today's sessions were geared for directors but peer tutors also had some informal activities to take part in. We had presentations from Dan Emery and Glenn Newman from the University of Utah on ESL and the Space Between Disciplines. Sylvia Newman from Weber discussed template theories. Julie Simon from Southern Utah University explored the sticky issue of grammar and the Center. I then led a discussion with Michele Eodice (our keynote speaker) about _Everyday Writing Center_ from USU press. _EWC_ was co-authored by Anne Ellen Geller, Frankie Condon, Beth Boquet, Meg Carol, and Michele. I video taped that discussion, but I'm not quite certain how it turned out. If it turned out ok, I will probably put it on PeerCentered vlog ( http://bessie.englab.slcc.edu/pc ). Claire Hughes of Weber State University has done a great job with the conference. I am really looking forward to tomorrow wh...

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 ...

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 T he Rocky Mountain Peer Tutoring Conference at Weber State University on March 2-3, so I hope to have a chance to discuss the ...

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.

Despite the rather contentious title of the article, it seems that Wikipedia founders agree that the online, community-drive encyclopedia is not the be-all and end-all of research: "Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources. Additionally, it is generally good research practice to cite an original source when writing a paper, or completing an exam. It’s usually not advisable, particularly at the university level, to cite an encyclopedia." ( Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education - Inside Higher Ed :: A Stand Against Wikipedia) Ultimately, this statement represents the consensus of academic researchers. Student writers should look beyond encyclopedias for their research. This includes all encylopedias, even the most authoritative ones. It is important to help student writers under...

I have posted a poll in the IWCA forums: IWCA Forum: Peer Tutor => What do we call ourselves: the poll! It is a part of an earlier discussion that kind of petered out about the titles used for writing center workers. Please take a moment and vote! If you don't have an account on the forum, you can register for one by clicking on the "Register" link (next to the rocket icon in the top-right of the page.) Don't forget to state your institutional affiliation when you request and account. (That's how the IWCA Forum keeps out spam accounts.)

Episode 1.4 is in the can! It is a recording made at NCPTW 2006 and is "A Defense of Minimalist Tutoring." Thanks to Harvey Kail, Shannon Dohar, Hannah Lauterback, Emily Morrissette, and Rosalie Sullivan for allowing me to record it. I have refrained for apologizing for the poor audio quality simply because there is not much I can do to make it better. Click on the podcast link on the right to go to the podcast page.

Todays' Oskosk (Wisconsin) Northwestern profiles a cool educational concept for students at Emmeline Elementary school: "'In the writing center you can write a letter or make a story for your mom and dad,' said Destinee Stevens. While Stevens was working with her peers in the writing center, other classmates were listening to books on tape, silently reading, working on math games or practicing piecing poetry together." ( Oshkosh Northwestern - Emmeline Cook focuses on literacy ) Collaborative learning in such settings is encouraging and bodes well for the future of things such as peer tutoring in the future.

PeerCentered friend and IWCA Vice President Michele Eodice received the 2006 Ron Maxwell Award for Distinguised Leadership at last weekend's National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing (NCPTW). The award is given to a professional in the organization who has contributed with distinction to undergraduate student development through promoting collaborative learning among peer tutors in writing. Such leadership may be demonstrated in a variety of ways, including but not limited to: the individual's record in bringing peer tutors to present at the Conference service to the organization through hosting the Conference, serving as program chair, leading in the search for future sites, etc. aiding students in the assumption of increasing responsibility for their learning fostering leadership skills among peer tutors showing evidence of leadership in collaborative learning on one's home campus developi...

Nancy Grimm gave a provocative keynote address at the just-passed NCPTW in Ann Arbor. I recorded it and with her permission I have put it out in the PeerCentered podcast . This is the first in a series of podcasts based out of presentations from NCPTW.

I feel like I'm running a mile-a-minute getting ready for NCPTW this weekend. I've got a bunch of meetings this afternoon and important things to attend to in the Student Writing Center before I head out. I also need to get some stuff done for IWCA as well as preparing my equipment for recording interviews and hopefully sessions for the podcast at NCPTW. We'll see how that goes. Anyway if you are going to Ann Arbor, see you there! If not, stay tuned to the podcast where I am going to present (I hope) a small conference experience.

If you have an RSS feed you probably have already seen the newest episode of the podcast pop up in your favorite podcast listening software. If not, take a gander at this page . This episode, I fear, is showing my dearth of material right now. Actually I am excited about heading out to Ann Arbor and attending NCPTW, and I wanted to give listeners a sense of what I will be doing at NCPTW in regards to the podcast (recording, interviewing, etc.) Again I want to get more folks involved in the podcast project. If you are interested, let me know at the above email address.

Jane Smith, Director of Winthrop University's Writing Center, has been awarded with Winthrop's Margaret M. Bryant Professorship: Smith is a scholar in composition, rhetoric and poetry who has taught at Winthrop for 19 years and created the course that trains the Writing Center's tutors. She is the third recipient of the Bryant award.

Peer writing consultants Derek Davidson and Kanaka Sathasivan offer some sound advice to readers of The Daily Texan ( Keeping it short - Opinion) : It's important to write reader-friendly prose. Tight, clear sentences get ideas across better than long, complicated ones. Readers are impatient and fussy. They don't want to dig through unnecessary words to get to your point. I've been noticing a few peer-authored articles popping up in various campus newspapers. Such articles seem like a fine way of sharing writing center work and getting people aware of the writing center. Such articles, written by peers, do not suffer the "stuffed shirt" or "I'm an expert do what I say!" syndrome.

As I am going to heavily advertise PeerCentered at the upcoming NCPTW conference in Ann Arbor the weekend after next, I figure it is time for a pruning of participants who aren't participating in PeerCentered any longer. If you are a member of the blog and don't want to be pruned, either comment here or drop me an email by Friday, 3 November 2006.

In the latest issue of The Writing Lab Newsletter Melinda Baer writes about using blogs in the center and kindly mentions PeerCentered. The Writing Center at Northern Illinois University where Baer works has been using a private, in-house blog for a while now. Consultants post twice a week and use those posts as fodder for later discussion in staff meetings. I am curious how other places are using blogs. Perhaps I should whip up a survey?

A St. John's University student who will be moving on to study archaeology at Kings College Cambridge has kind words about his experience working in a writing center: Calling his senior-year role as tutor for the Writing Center “my other truly formative experience at St. John’s,” Van Hoy recalls the impact it had on his academic growth. "The time I spent in the Writing Center was invaluable. It became my home away from home,” he recalls. “It allowed me to improve my own writing skills and realize that knowledge is useless without the ability to express it in a coherent and compelling manner.” The Cambridge scholar then reflects on his one-on-one work with the many St. John’s students whose primary language was not English. “The University prides itself on an amazingly diverse enrollment, so it felt good to help these [ethnic] students in a meaningful way,” he says. ( St. John's University -- Academics & Schools -- St. John’s Graduate Takes on Archaeological Challenges...

Utah State University Writing Center newsletter Write Now! is aimed at student writers from across their campus: "Hi. Welcome to the Writing Center!” This is hopefully one of the first comments you will hear as you begin your session at the USU Writing Center. Nervous? Don’t be. The Writing Center is a friendly and inviting place full of people that want to help you.

This entry is not exactly about peer writing tutoring in that I am in attendance at the TYCA-West conference in Park City, Utah. My colleague Tiffany Rousculp (of the Salt Lake Community College Community Writing Center) and I will be conducting a roundtable discussion tomorrow about writing center and writing center work. I want to emphasize the importance of having peer writing tutors work in a community college. There are difficulties that peer tutoring staffs present to community college writing center directors, but the benefits far outweigh the deficiences. For example, some might argue that the high turnover rate of peer tutors at community college writing centers is a problem. I used to worry about the turn over rate myself, but have since come to a seperate peace with it. I prefer now to see the turn over rate as invigorating in that many new students get involved in the center over time and I have the opportunity to conduct a continual staff education program. One trou...

PeerCentered friend Harry Denny from St. John's University gets a mention on the St. John's web site: St. John's University -- Campus Life -- St. John’s University’s Staten Island Campus Celebrates 35th Anniversary : "Most recently, an exciting new Staten Island Writing Center was constructed as part of St. John’s Institute for Writing Studies initiative. This latest advance in the University’s pursuit of academic excellence is intended to “instill and improve students’ critical thinking skills and broaden their writing proficiency,” said Upton. The writing center, directed by Harry Denny, Ph.D., former Director of the Writing Center, Program in Writing and Rhetoric at SUNY Stony Brook, is located in Mahoney Hall on the Staten Island Campus." Another new writing center! That's always great news.

The (Cincinati) Enquirer ("Ryle footballers help out") has a nice piece about a peer tutoring program at Ryle Highschool in Cincinnati: "Scott, a tailback and safety, is in his first year in Ryle's peer tutoring program. Vince, a fullback and linebacker, is in his second year. 'Everybody thinks football players are big meatheads who just like to go out and hit people, but we're not like that at all,' said Scott." and further Deb Janowiecki runs the peer tutoring program and said the tutors also learn how similar they are to the kids they're helping. "They learn that they like the same kind of social things, have the same emotions, go through the same stages and want the same things out of life," said Janowiecki. Jennifer's father, Mark Staggs, said his daughter feels a strong bond with Scott and Vince and that they've helped her feel more connected to the school. There is usually a great deal of focus when discussing peer tuto...

Well the first PeerCentered podcast is officially in the can. It is all about the upcoming National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing 2006 (NCPTW) . You can find the page link at http://bessie.englab.slcc.edu/pc/podcast/ . If you click on the podcast you will find a page that will either let you listen to the individual podcast on your computer or you can subscribe via RSS with iTunes or your favorite podcasting software. I'm hoping I can get the RSS feed to work properly. Please spread the podcast around, as well. It is completely under a Creative Commons license. The phone interview was interesting--it is not the best sound quality, but I have to live with the best that Radio Shack and the U.S. phone system can provide. It would be great to have some podcast episodes that come from NCPTW 2006. If you can do better, please put something together and contact me at the email address above.

Today I had the opportunity to talk to Tien-Huei Tsu and George Cooper from the Sweetland Writing Center at the University of Michigan about the upcoming National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing (NCPTW). I recorded the conversation and it will become, within the next couple of days, our first official PeerCentered podcast. Now, of course, this brings to mind the original idea of PeerCentered all the way back when (1995?) which was to get as many peer writing tutors invovled in a conversation about peer writing tutoring. I certainly hope the podcast will spur some interest and that there will be folks who want to produce "episodes." Once again, if you are interested in participating in the podcast, contact me at the above email address. You won't need to host the podcast files, and I can do final production on the stuff.