Tuesday, September 28

Stephen North's essay.

"The Idea of a Writing Center" has long been a defining work for writing centers. In some ways, it was our declaration of identity, and I don't know about other writing center workers, but for me it felt good to have so many of the frustrations arising from how WCs were represented (by "others") put into clear, compelling language. Even if it is on the idealistic side, it is an important point of departure for considering what WCs are and what they do.

According to North's original essay, WCs are student centered, about writing process, and neutral places driven by participant-observation. What is more, WCs have their own purpose and agendas, as he puts it "we are not here to serve, suppolement, back up, complement, reinforce or otherwise be defined by any external curriculum." What is more, in addition to functioning as places where motivated writers work (with interest and excitement) on their writing, WCs are also centers for teaching and research.

"The Writing Center Revisited" backs off on some of these original declarations, and acknowledges the romanticism of the original piece.

Connections between Ideas and Actions.

The second part of class was devoted to thinking about how assumptions or ideas about what a writing center is and what it does shape what the practical, real-world writing center is and does.

Everyday practices and relationships that might be shaped by these underlying assumptions include:

• the WC's administrative structure and policies;
• training programs for staff;
• behaviors for interacting with writers;
• language choices and activities that "stand for" the center in PR materials & events;
• the focus of research projects (or whether a WC includes research);
• and relationships to other departments and units within the institution.

Writing Center Philosophies.

After a rather idealistic discussion of practices and relationships arising from the "ideas" in North's original writing center, I asked you to do some thinking about where you stood in terms of the ideas that you would use to guide the administration of a WC, if you were a director. You then did some thinking with your feet to consider where you "stood" on issues including:

• coaching strategies (minimalist => therapist)
• policy "enforcement" & control of staff + center activities ( fixed rules => contextual consideration)
• definition of writing (product => process)
• ideological commitment (institution-centered=> student-centered)
• administrative structure (hierarchical => collaborative)

Although we engaged in this exercise as if these choices were "either/or" - that may not always be the best way to think about the different positions you, as the director, will need to take. I organized this exercise to highlight the conflicts - and so you could watch yourself move from side to side (or not) along a scale roughly associated with clarity and control. So that was your introduction to thinking about a "writing center philosophy." I confess that running through the ideas and all the decisions WC directors make based on those ideas still feels like a real puzzle to me. What I think is "best" ideally does not always match up with the way it turns out in the real world - and vice versa. There is a lot to think about here.

For Thursday:

Blog 7: What writing center philosophy (list of assumptions) do you think Bouquet supports? North 1? North 2?

By WC philosophy I mean ideas (along the lines of the bullet points under the WC philosophies heading) that shape the policies, structures & behaviors within a writing center. I know you don't have a lot to go on in Bouquet, and I know we talked about North - so in some sense this post is both too easy and too hard - do what you can. The point is to tease out these writer's assumptions as a way to get practice that will help you identify your own assumptions.

Read: Guide, Bruffee, 206; Brooks, 219. (Hint: you will know much more about minimalist tutoring & coaching as conversation after you read these two essays).

On Thursday, we will do some in-class modeling" for each of these approaches - conversational v minimalist. Model sessions will focus on your coaching philosophy paper. Do some thinking about which "style" you would like to model. Be prepared to switch-up your delivery.

Good class today!