3 research outputs found
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Staking Institutional and Theoretical Claims for the Writing Center
“What just happened?” I asked myself repeatedly as I embarked upon the hour-long drive back to my campus after my first paid speaking engagement. I was invited by a small liberal arts college in a nearby community to address a group of thirty faculty members from across the curriculum to share my knowledge of writing centers. In response to an email inquiry regarding the purpose of my visit, their contact person (a chemistry professor) replied as follows: “In terms of the content of your presentation, our main goal is to educate (or at least begin to educate) ourselves about writing centers in general and to build support for creating a WC at our college in the near future, so I’ll rely on your experience and expertise to give us the information you think is most relevant at this stage in the process.”University Writing Cente
Democratic Relationships: An Institutional Way of Life with/in the Writing Center
In this dissertation, I build upon the notion that for writing centers to thrive in the twenty-first century, they must reposition themselves not as marginal but as central to alliance building within the institution (Brannon and North). I tell the story of establishing one writing center’s mission that thrives on building democratic relationships within the institution and dissolving traditional academic hierarchies. At the core of our mission is the dialogical exchange that allows for student writers to be heard. The true work of establishing and preserving the integrity of the open forum we have created for student writers involves making democracy an institutional way of life not only within consultations but also with each other as writing center professionals, with the faculty, and with administration. The main goal of this dissertation is to help my fellow colleagues in writing centers and composition conceive of the various forces within an institution not as potential problems to avoid, but as institutional relationships to develop and foster. Relying throughout on Dewey’s notion of democracy, I share representative anecdotes from our writing center to illustrate the process of relationship building and provide conceptual tools to put them into a useful context for readers: dialogue (Freire); rhetorical listening (Ratcliffe); critical colleagueship (Lord); institutional critique (Porter et al); and critical administration (Lee; Shor and Freire). Throughout, I argue for the writing center’s capacity to democratize various forms of institutional communication and effect meaningful change. This project also answers calls from Elizabeth Boquet and Nancy Maloney Grimm to move writing center scholarship from the familiar declaration of independence brand of manifestos to work that conveys the intellectual and pedagogical value of writing centers. Overall, this dissertation offers for writing center directors and other educators interested in promoting democracy a form of institutional literacy (Gallagher) that provides an alternate way to read the role of the writing center within the institution. Adviser: Chris W. Gallaghe
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Praxis, Volume 08, No. 02: From Triage to Outreach: Raising the Institutional Profile of Writing Center Work
Contents: Bolstering Writerly Instincts: Using Role-Play to Help Tutors Address Later-Order Concerns / by Kate Warrington -- Book Review: "ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors" / reviewed by Edward Quintana -- Bridging the Great Divide: Creating Partnerships between Writing Centers and Student Affairs / by Mckinlaye Harkavy -- Framing Versatility as a Positive: Building Institutional Validity at The University of Colorado at Boulder's Writing Center / by Alaina Feltenberger and Allison Carr -- Mad Man in the Writing Center: Why Don Draper and I have a lot in common / by Mark Thomas -- Money Doesn't Matter / by Molly McHarg -- Negotiating Authority: Perceptions of Age in the Writing Center / by Courtney L. Werner -- Staking Institutional and Theoretical Claims for the Writing Center / by Katie Stahlnecker -- Sustaining Argument: Centralizing the Role of the Writing Center in Program Assessment / by M.S. Jewell -- Writing in Context: Redefining the Writing Center as the Multidisciplinary Hub for Writing in the New
Millennium / by Paulette GoldenUniversity Writing Cente