Reflective Essay for Writing Center Theory and Practice

Jane J. Parkerton

Engl B5600 Writing Center Theory and Practice

December 15, 2010

Making Writing Center Theory Work in Practice

            In many ways this course has been the paramount course in my studies in the Language & Literacy program at CCNY. I make this statement because in Writing Center Theory and Practice I have had the unique opportunity to combine the study and discussion of theory with hands on practice, which has allowed me to actively engage with and try out various theories and methods. Simply, I have been able to put theory into practice.

A key example comes immediately to mind. One of the first articles we read, after the history of writing centers, was Jeff Brooks', "Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student do all the Work" (from our text, the Longman Guide to Writing Center Theory and Practice). Beginning with this article my classmates and I were exposed to the correct approach to tutoring or consulting in writing, i.e., hands off, don't-pick-up-a-pencil, let alone even entertain the idea of proofreading a student's text. As tutors we are to let the learner set the agenda for the session, and guide the discussion with pertinent open-ended questions. And through my experience as a writing tutor at the Center for Worker Education of the City University of New York I have incorporated these best methods into my own tutoring practices. This, I have discovered, is the way to enable the student to continue to own her text. This approach supports North's central tenet (in "Idea of a Writing Center") which is that our job as writing tutors is to help make better writers, not better papers.

Yet, I have also come to acknowledge that there are times when helping a student find the right word or phrase, and/or actively working with a student to revise a sentence or paragraph is the best way to support the writer in a particular moment. In the times when I felt led, even compelled, to become more actively involved in a student's writing process, I realized that this is one vital way I learned to write well -- through specific suggestions for revision offered by a peer or teacher. Sometimes learning is enabled when  a more knowledgeable other suggests a word or phrase that would not occur to the writer.

Thus, because I was working as a writing tutor while studying the theory I was able to submit theory to a reality check thereby providing a firm grounding to my own practice and making "real" the theories I read and discussed.

Essay of Field Study Report of Brooklyn College Learning Center - Final Paper

Collaborative Learning through Peer Tutoring:

A Field Study of the Brooklyn College Learning Center

The Brooklyn College Learning Center is the focus of my writing center field study. I chose the Brooklyn College Learning Center primarily because of its roots, which are traced back to Kenneth Bruffee. Bruffee created the first writing center at Brooklyn College where peer tutoring and collaborative learning defined the way that writing would be supported, i.e., in a social context. It was this writing center, forged in the fires of the 60’s and 70’s, which I sought when I came knocking on the doors of the Brooklyn College Learning Center.

To read the rest of my final essay field study report, click here:

Further postings from blog

5. jparkerton said... October 3, 2010 1:50 PM


Originally Posted on Sept 28 as "Juxtaposition of Clark, Professor Gibbons and Information Literacy"
After reading Clark's essay on Information Literacy and the Writing Center, I was particularly grateful for the opportunity to learn more about researching online. And thanks to last Wednesday's class with Prof. Gibbons in the Cohen Library I am now more literate in terms of online search techniques and ready to share this new literacy with the students who come to me in the Writing Center.
My perceived need to become more literate in researching academic data bases and journals online was motivated as much by Clark's essay as my own need for better research strategies. In this digital age Clark argues that writing centers "have the responsibility of teaching students to navigate the rapidly changing world of new information sources" (569). She says that students usually visit the writing center either early in the process when he/she is generating ideas and choosing a topic or later in the editing and revising stage of the process. Clark's article is about the space in between -- doing the research to build knowledge. She says "the decisions students make about what sort of information they might need, the strategies they use to locate and evaluate that information, and the methods they use to integrate that information and reshape the text--these are the steps the writing center usually doesn't see" (562). Perhaps this is because writing centers value the recursiveness and collaborative nature of the writing process and research is still considered a linear and solitary endeavor (562). Yet students, particularly incoming undergraduates, are often ill-equipped to conduct research and evaluate sources.
I must admit that initially I was taken aback by Clark's call to writing centers to actually teach research methods and strategies. Isn't this the bailiwick of composition teachers or librarians, I thought. As tutors in the writing center we have so little time with the students who come to us for assistance. And in fact up to this point I had not had a student ask for help with research. This was to change, and fortunately I was prepared thanks to Professor Gibbons.
I have been able to search for books within the CUNY system, put them on hold and pick them up from whichever branch seems closest. This function has worked well for me and I have been able to pass my knowledge on to the students that I tutor in the CWE Writing Center. But finding journal articles has been problematic. Even when I know the title of an article, it has proved difficult to find it ... and then to find a copy, PDF or Full text that I can print out. It was helpful to learn from Prof. Gibbons that EBSCO is the most useful for finding PDF or Full Text. I haven't used GALE for literary criticism but am glad he urged us to take notes so now I can remember it when I need it. And just yesterday I requested a copy of a journal article by Beth Daniell on ILL (Interlibrary Loan). I am curious to see if this works.
And then, only a day and half later, I was able to put my learning to use. Friday afternoon on the job in the CWE Writing Center one of the student writers scheduled to meet with me asked for assistance in finding a peer-reviewed journal article. I was delighted. So we sat down at the computer, the student holding the mouse and called up the CUNY library website. We spent our entire half hour searching articles and she learned how to email them to herself so she could print them at home. Very productive.

6. October 25, 2010 5:58 P Response to "Nothing improves student performance more than one-on-one human tutoring"

jparkerton said...


However, the only issue addressed in this article was to tout the value and usefulness of online education. No further mention of good teachers mattering more than class size and human one-on-one tutoring. Actually I found the article disturbing.
At one point Bill Gates is quoted as saying, “Innovation is your only hope. And the only new game in town is technology.” Innovation is your only hope? Perhaps Gates et. al. could throw a few million into the public school and university budgets to raise teacher salaries and give schools supplies and resources to support the teachers we already have in the classroom. And I fail to see how reading and writing online can "facilitate student teacher collaboration." The difference between online technology and face-to-face exchange in the classroom is the human element.
I believe learning is done in relationship by which I mean human contact. I am not against digital media and technologies. But I am against building distance between teachers and students. Although the article says Gates and co. do not wish to replace teachers, it sounds inevitable. And if this happens, we will all be the losers.

7. jparkerton said... December 2, 2010 9:25 PM Responding to: Teachers' Views on Technology in the Classroom





Hi all, well the digital age dinosaur is going to chime in with her two cents. (It's late, very late, and I should be working on one of the two papers I have due but ... Holly's link to videos much more interesting.)
With all the talk and demonstration of using digital technology in the classroom, I was struck by Mark Coleman's video. He talked rather passionately about the "great divide" ... only this divide is not oral culture vs literate culture but between those who have access to digital technology and thus can become digitally literate and those who don't.
Coleman is a teacher in Booker T Washington HS in Montgomery, AL. He interestingly enough didn't demonstrate classroom teaching practices using digital technologies but he considers himself a techy and evidently uses web based platforms for his classes: posts lessons online, students respond, stay current with him and assignments, comments, etc through Twitter, Facebook, wikis, etc. The technology needed to perform in his classes is low budget, he says, requiring only access to a computer and the web. And his students are mostly middle class but are all "wired", have access to computer and the web. Except, and here comes the divide -- he says, there are usually one or two in each class that aren't and although he spends time helping these students work out ways to gain access. Coleman is troubled. He poses a compelling question: "does the digital divide create an information underclass?" In other words, will lack of access to computers and other digital media and technology become the 21st century version of illiteracy?
Smartphones, Ipads,webcams, Skype -- this is not low budget things we are talking about. Schools with big budgets and families with money can afford to provide plenty of digital tools and exposure. But what happens to the kids of families and schools that can't provide the tools needed for digital literacy?

8. jparkerton said... November 24, 2010 2:08 PM

Responding to "Avoiding Appropriation by Carol Severino
As writing tutors we tred a fine line between helping our students become better writers and appropriating their texts. Carol Severino addresses this concern in her article, "Avoiding Appropriation."
At the heart of this discussion is the issue of control: who controls the text, the student writer or the tutor? To avoid appropriation Severino offers a "ten-step program" for tutors:
1. address expressed needs
2. ask writers to participate in reformulation decisions
3. avoid misrepresenting the student's language level on the page
4. accord the ESL writer authority
5. work on higher-order concerns before lower-order concerns
6. select particular passages to work on
7. use speaking-into-writing strategies
8. explain the recommended changes
9. try to assess language learning
10. conside the type of writing.

I want to touch on two of the ten steps. Number 1 is "address expressed needs." The first question we are trained to ask the student writer is what do you want to work on today? And I, as her tutor, will continue to gently rephrase and ask the question if she shrugs shoulders, produces a long draft, and/or waves a hand in the general direction and says, "fix my grammar." At this point I will probably say, let's pick a paragraph or section of your paper and work on that (which happens to be step #6). If it is a grammar fix she is looking for, I will say, we will do it together. So, yes I agree if we hang close to the student's expressed need, there is little opportunity to appropriate her text, especially if we follow step #2 and insist the student participate in the process.
The step that most grabbed my attention is #7, "use speaking-into-writing strategies." Here "tell me more" questions are good to use. It helps the student clarify meaning and her intention when she is asked to talk about her writing to an attentive and caring peer.
I like Severino's suggestions and writing and wish I could take a paper or two to her to work on together!

9. November 24, 2010 7:21 AM

Responding to: "Reading an ESL Writer's Text" by Paul Matsuda & Michelle Cox

jparkerton said...


In "Reading an ESL Writers Text" Matsuda and Cox make the point that if writing consultants (or tutors) can "suspend judgements, focus on meaning, and be aware of their own preferences and biases" (49), they can then hopefully be able to hear and see more effectively what the writer is saying, or trying to say.
Suspending judgement is perhaps the most important task for me when I work with basic skills or ELL students. I try to read not expecting errors (as Mina Shaughnessy would urge us)but for meaning and intent.
A recent example happened in the GED classroom where I currently work as a student intern. My assignment for them was to write a business letter to a character in the book we are reading. When the letters came back to me last week, on the same day that I participated in a discussion of Mina Shaughnessy's legacy, I was stumped. I saw many errors in spelling, grammar and sentence structure. However, something else hovered into view; I noticed that the writers were demonstrating better organization than in the last assignment, and more development of arguments. Suddenly I knew what I wanted to do. I would not mark the errors; I would read past the errors for meaning and intent. And what I discovered is that they "got" the idea of a business letter and they showed an improved sense of academic or formal writing.
On the suggestion of Serge Shea, the lead teacher, I marked words, sentences and sometimes entire paragraphs that were on target. "nice word" -- "great use of formal language" "good point you make about ..." And then I bracketed words or lines that were too informal and asked for a rewrite. I also offered to work with any student that wanted help in the next Study Hall.

10. November 24, 2010 12:36 PM

further on Matsuda and Cox
jparkerton said...


As Vika discusses above, Matsuda and Cox view the way we as tutors and teachers read ELL texts as how we regard "difference." We either read to "correct difference," to "explain difference," and/or to "overlook difference." Like Severino [quoted and referred to in the essay], as a new tutor I am often "stunned" by the number of errors in my students' texts. Thus,it was with relief and pleasure that I made the decision to overlook errors in my GED students business letters and read for meaning and discovery. And along the way I discovered the errors were mostly local and didn't affect the meaning.
But I did so with a guilty conscience because I too feel, as Mahla says, that it is my responsibility as a tutor or teacher to help prepare them to not only survive but succeed in school and out in the world. The dominant discourse community in the US is still Standard American English and as long as this remains true, I am not sure I have the right to be a maverick separationist.
Moreover, as a student teacher of GED students, I know I have an entire semester to build relationship and rapport and work with them on many levels. But as a tutor, I may have only one opportunity to work with a student. Yet, as the authors point out, Severino resisted the urge to correct a student's errors honoring her writing center's pedagogy to view his text as "an act of communication."

11. November 3, 2010 3:47 PM

jparkerton said... Responding to Walker's "Engaging Reluctant Writers"


I have engaged a reluctant writer, which should be good news except that my reluctant writer has rapidly become an overly dependent writer. Specifically, she expects me do the work. Just last week she confessed, “I don’t like writing. I only want to graduate and start working.” How did this situation develop?

The student, Valerie, we will call her, first came in at the beginning of the semester. Although she returned my greeting, flashed a quick smile and sat down next to me, her eyes were focused elsewhere. After digging around in her bag, she placed her paper on the table. I asked to see the assignment but questioning about it and her paper brought little more than brief smiles or shrugs. Eventually, I decided that Valerie is shy and insecure about writing. And so I set about to get her to relax and talk about her writing and its context -- her education class and the pre-school classroom she is observing this semester. Unfortunately, along the way I realize that I offered too much guidance, filled in too many gaps, and made too many suggestions. Perhaps it is an important milestone that she is confident enough in our relationship to tell me “I don’t like writing.” And perhaps this attitude originates in her insecurity about her writing. These are questions I do not want to speculate on anymore. Taking Walker’s advice, the next session I have with Valerie, I plan to offer some writerly nourishment. I will develop a variation of Vavra’s model (320); we will edit one paragraph together. Since Valerie’s sentences are primarily simple and often are missing verbs or subjects, I think we will have to begin there, at the beginning. But she will do the work.

Blackboard Postings of Substance for Fall 2010

1. Author: Jane Parkerton
Posted date: Sunday, September 19, 2010 5:53:53 PM EDT
Last modified date: Sunday, September 19, 2010 6:18:19 PM EDT
In this digital age Clark argues that writing centers "have the responsibility of teaching students to navigate the rapidly changing world of new information sources" (569). She says that students usually visit the writing center either early in the process when he/she is generating ideas and choosing a topic or later in the editing and revising stage of the process. Clark's article is about the space in between -- doing the research to build knowledge. She says "the decisions students make about what sort of information they might need, the strategies they use to locate and evaluate that information, and the methods they use to integrate that information and reshape the text--these are the steps the writing center usually doesn't see" (562). Perhaps this is because writing centers value the recursiveness and collaborative nature of the writing process and research is still considered a linear and solitary endeavor (562). Yet students, particularly incoming undergraduates, are often ill-equipped to conduct research and evaluate sources.
I must admit that initially I was taken aback by Clark's call to writing centers to actually teach research methods and strategies. Isn't this the bailiwick of composition teachers or librarians, I thought. As tutors in the writing center we have so little time with the students who come to us for assistance. And in fact I have not ever had a student who asked for help with research. (Perhaps this is because I am still relatively new to tutoring in a writing center.)
And how would this be done? The obvious answer is that we sit down together in front of a computer in the writing center, with the student at the keyboard and holding the mouse, and do reseach. Which brings me to the point of realizing that I feel ill-equipped to teach online research methods. I have been fighting for days to gain access to an article written by Patricia Bizzell on basic writers. Do I know enough to teach someone else? Perhaps our class visit to the Cohen Library to participate in Professor William Gibbons' workshop will address this need.

2. Author: Jane Parkerton

Posted date: Saturday, September 11, 2010 11:54:33 AM EDT
Last modified date: Saturday, September 11, 2010 12:00:45 PM EDT
Hi Mahla and Elham,
Some opening comments on Chapter 4, "Helping Writers Throughout the Writing Process."
Following the topics gives us the main ideas of this chapter: Prewriting, Writing, Revising and Editing, Using a Handbook, Coping with a Long Paper, and Exercises for Using Writing References.
It seems to me appropriate that Ryan and Zimmerelli devote the most space to discussing "Prewriting." Getting started, getting something, anything down on paper is always difficult for me, no matter how many papers I have written in my life. It is an angst filled period.
 Other than my own experience I have only the past summer semester of experience working as a "writing consultant" in CWE. Yet it seems to me that this is where the students that I have worked with thus far have the most difficulty -- how to get started, find and focus on a topic, research, and begin to write.
The authors offer three techniques: brainstorming/listing, freewriting and clustering. As they say, "what works with one writer ... may not be as successful with another" (41). So although I find listing and clustering useful, freewriting doesn't seem as helpful. I had a student this summer who brought in two pages of scribbled notes and ideas but was at a loss as to how to arrive at a topic. I suggested that we freewrite. She looked at me, rather coldly and said, "I've done that." Oops!

3. RE: Getting Started, Response to Mahla   Author: Jane Parkerton

Posted date: Monday, September 13, 2010 9:33:20 AM EDT
Last modified date: Monday, September 13, 2010 9:33:20 AM EDT
I agree- setting a time limit to free writing, such as 5-10 minutes can get the juices flowing. I had a student in the CWE writing center on Sat who probably could benefit from this. And I did suggest that he give it a try at home. He described himself as very concerned with structure, how to set up his paragraphs, etc. I suggested that in the beginning anyway this might be limiting if he is trying to generate ideas and places to go with his paper.
In our session we tried "clustering" which he liked and said he would use on his own. But this particular student seemed to benefit more from a guided discussion of the assignment, his initial ideas, his point of view and how he planned to back it up. We only have 30 minute sessions at CWE. We can offer more time if there is no student booked for the following session. However, in many cases, students have to run to class. They work during day, and arrive at CWE with just enough time to get to class usually. Blocking out time to arrive early for a tutoring session is not easy for many of them.
 Pre-writing -- getting started -- is often difficult and I have found all of the suggestions, clustering, free writing and outlining/brainstorming useful. But in the final analysis I think the best role we can play with our students is by bringing a caring, professional, listening/guiding ear to their struggles to write.

4. Author: Jane Parkerton
Subject: Writing, Revising and Editing

Posted date: Saturday, September 11, 2010 2:00:39 PM EDT
Last modified date: Saturday, September 11, 2010 2:00:39 PM EDT
"Have writers read their papers aloud. In doing so, they often make corrections as they go, for the ear frequently judges more accurately than the eye" (53).
I have found that when I read my own papers aloud, I catch errors, difficulties in transitions, etc that my eye doesn't see. And this has proved true with students that I work with. As they read aloud, I hear them automatically correct their writing but oftentimes I have to pause the flow, and point out the verbal correction he just made. If there is time we talk about it.
In addition, when a writer reads her paper aloud, she takes ownership. For tutors like myself who have to learn to step back and allow/encourage a writer to "own" their work, this is a good technique to get the session off to a good start.
Good you brought up this up! You are right to point out the diference between mistakes as opposed to errors. Unless a writer has an intuitive sense of how a language should sound, she is not going to hear mistakes, errors yes but not mistakes. I can hear if I use the wrong verb tense because a sentence just doesn't sound correct. An L2 English language learner probably won't. Which brings me to some reading I did in one of our other texts.

Matsuda and Cox in ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors take a different stance on reading a tutee's text aloud. For ELL writers the authors advocate that the tutor should read the text aloud because L2 learners have not developed an "intuitive sense of the English language" (46). By reading it aloud, the tutor allows the L2 writer to shift her attention from pronouncing English to hearing where a reader stumbles or pauses over some error in their writing. This seemed to me like a good idea for L2 writers until I read this statement. Matsuda and Cox say, "The interpretation of meaning that takes place in the process of reading aloud 'rhetorically with feeling and meaning' may also help the tutor identify where the writer's meaning is not clear to the tutor" (47).
Doesn't this sound like the tutor has taken over the student's paper, since it is the tutor who is now constructing the meaning? Or have I missed the point. I am curious to know what you guys think. I am not sure but I think English is another, second(?) language for you both, so you may not have developed that intuitive sense of the "rightness" of how English should sound?