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Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words
Global Voices on Writing Centers and Beyond
Max Orsini, Loren Kleinman, Max Orsini, Loren Kleinman
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eBook - ePub
Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words
Global Voices on Writing Centers and Beyond
Max Orsini, Loren Kleinman, Max Orsini, Loren Kleinman
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About This Book
Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words collects personal narratives from writing tutors around the world, providing tutors, faculty, and writing center professionals with a diverse and experience-based understanding of the writing support process.
Filling a major gap in the research on writing center theory, first-year writing pedagogy, and higher education academic support resources, this book provides narrative evidence of students' own experiences with learning assistance discourse communities. It features a variety of voices that address how academic support resources such as writing centers have served as the nucleus for students' (i.e., both tutors and their clients) sense of community and self, ultimately providing a space for freedom of discourse and expression. It includes narratives from writing tutors supporting students in unconventional spaces such as prisons, tutors offering support in war-torn countries, and students in international centers facing challenges of distance learning, access, and language barriers. The essays in this collection reveal pedagogical takeaways and insights about both student and tutor collaborative experiences in writing center spaces.
These essays are a valuable resource for student writing tutors and anyone involved with them, including composition instructors and scholars, writing center professionals, and any faculty or administrators involved with academic support programs.
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PART I How We Help
DOI: 10.4324/9781003263203-2
Dominique Duque, a writing tutor at the University of California, Davis, writes in her essay âAll Students Are Welcome: A Writing Center Journeyâ that [when] thoughts are too difficult or too confusing to say out loud, we can retire to writingâa safe space where we have the ability to carefully organize our thoughts until we feel comfortable enough to share them with the world.â Her essay blends lived experiences of both student and tutor, sharing with readers the importance of both the writing center and the writing process itself as a space of personal and academic growth, where the development of authority over oneâs own writing is born.
Her essay is one example from the opening part âHow We Helpâ of how tutors and tutees (some faculty and students) reflect on topics of rhetorical, academic, and institutional access. At one point in her essay, Duque reflects on the writing center as a refuge and notes itâs a space where âall students are welcome and diversity in thoughts and experiences is celebrated.â Her text invites the reader to consider that university writing centers may indeed be very vital to the cultivation of the whole person and reminds novice writers (and their helpers too) that working in this writing space is also about acknowledging how we can help without diminishing oneâs authority, experience, or trauma.
While Duqueâs essay speaks to the importance of the writing center as both a space for personal and rhetorical growth, professor, visual artist, and tutor Liana F. Piehler notes in her personal essay âNavigating Writing Centersâ Collaborative Spacesâ that as educators our job is not only to help but also to listen and reflect on voice and vulnerability.
Both Duque and Piehler, along with the duration of essays in this part, tap into the vastness of being human and how this humanness coexists with the practice of tutoring in support of the whole writer. Their essays add to the many conversations in this part of the text which support and address issues of accessibility, disability, difference, and marginality and the ways that challenges associated with such issues potentially obstruct and inhibit the needs and goals of students and tutors alike.
Liana F. Piehler earned her Ph.D. in English Literature from Drew Universityâs Caspersen School of Graduate Studies and teaches in the Arts and Letters program and Theological School. Her courses focus on Writing, Literature, the Visual Arts, and cross sections between the Humanities. With a background including Writing Center directorship and consulting, she mentors doctoral candidates in the dissertation stage. In this essay, Piehler highlights the value of and importance of exchange in that â[just] as the client hopes to take away insights from a session, the consultant continually learns through listening and reflecting on these interactions.â It is through listening and reflecting that both tutor and client can enter a space both vulnerable and revelatory.
Navigating Writing Centersâ Collaborative Spaces: Listening at the Edges of Consultations
Liana F. Piehler
A quiet, curving stairway or a winding, ever-variable route through the libraryâs stacks leads me to the Writing Center each day I go to work, first as a Ph.D. candidate in the 1990s serving as a consultant and then as Director for several years in the early 2000s. The Rose Room in Drew Universityâs library resides in the corner of the older portion of the building: a small, compact, hidden space behind a heavy door with a circular window, like a porthole granting a vision into a curious domain. This space provides a collaborative room of oneâs own, shared by many within our community. Inside, large windows line two of the high-ceiled cornered walls, letting natural light stream in above the network of partitioned desks arranged in the small alcove. Upon entering, one sees a large circular table dominating the room, surrounded by chairs, a basket of hard candies at its center, cubbies flank its two sides, as well as a table against the windowed wall for computer stations. This compressed space contained abundant activity within its walls. These consultation arrangements ensure little privacy in the interaction and just a modicum of acoustic balance, especially when each station is occupied with the consultant and client. Yet, there exists less confidentiality with less people; the more occupants in the compressed room, the more conversations are cloaked in privacy. The main desk, set into a similar cubby, is at the right of the entrance: the station for making appointments, answering the phone, consulting the appointment calendar, and so on. Artifacts from across the globeâ South Korea, London, Israel, Paris, Lebanonâadorn its shelves; tokens from students, often from their home country or their travels, given in appreciation for consultantsâ assistance. While the Center is outfitted in office furniture, the room harkens to past use within the building: a classic hearth and mantle, and three inwardly curved alcoves set into the wall, each a vestige of original aesthetics not serving an exact purpose, yet lending dignity and grace to this modest office. Reference books line the shelves; inspirational posters, signs, and cartoons pertaining to the writing process decorate the walls and cubby spaces, sparking inspiration at every turn. The space itself exists as a little haven amid the libraryâs quiet industriousness. Routinely, students get lost finding it, sometimes led there by a willing librarian. Yet, once they navigate their way to our door, they know they have found a valuable, nurturing instructive resource.
These descriptive travels are a recollection, a past memory, as this space no longer houses the Writing Center; though it does remain within the library, on the first floor, in a more spacious setting for its multiple activities combined with the Center for Academic Excellence (the CAE). Yet, Iâm drawn back to these earlier images and the spirit its environment encouraged.1 Sometimes, I feel that our hidden-away place symbolizes the activity in which we are involved within its walls: guiding students in the sometimes-elusive aspects of the writing process as we actively listen to their needs and concerns as well as what each piece of writing voices. Our Writing Center served then, and continues to serve, three diverse student populations within the University: College of Liberal Arts, Graduate, and Theological School students. This triumvirate suggests a wide range of subjects, skills, attitudes, concerns, and relationships to writing based on age, experience, interests, and goals. Still, an essential element resides at their intersection: the need for the consultant to listen intently to clients and their evolving writing, while always remaining cognizant of the person behind the writing; the personal layered upon the page.
Over the last year and a half, I have rejoined the Writing Center/CAE community, as a Graduate School faculty member, serving as a writing consultant to Graduate and Theological students, focusing both on their dissertations and coursework. My return to consulting coincided1 with the sudden, unsettling onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early March 2020. Within only a span of days, our campusâlike so many others in the United Statesâswitched completely to virtual learning, presenting an array of challenges and some hidden opportunities. Though I had been prepared to provide either in-person or online consultation sessions, all my interactions have continued, via an online platform, typically individual Zoom meetings. The space of our sessions now exists on a screen: side-by-side boxes reflecting our personal worlds, be it kitchen or office, outdoor deck or living room couch. My own working space is no longer defined by careful choices of design or pedagogy; instead, the same pale-yellow walls in the corner of my kitchen serve as an office and a meeting place. Though extraneous soundsâvoices of family members, insistent pets, inconveniently timed neighborhood landscapers, ringing phonesâmay intrude on the quiet of the session, a different kind of privacy and intimacy emerges in these one-on-one screen sessions, prompting even closer listening between consultant and clientâa mingling of ear buds, headphones, and direct eye contact. The random sidebar conversations that occur when meeting in person may be lost via online interactions, unless the consultant is invested in the interaction, nudging more expansive thoughts in these directions.
During such uncertain and disconnected times, these consulting sessions often become a chance for human (and humane) connection; an opportunity to see another face; to hear another voice; to be in a responsive interaction; to discuss a writing assignment and progress in a structured, comforting setting. At an elemental level, the sessions break some of these students out of a version of isolation, particularly in the already individualized writing world of an ongoing dissertation. Even in the most familiar or ideal circumstances, that all-encompassing writing process can feel isolating without various contacts, whether through participation in writing groups, co-writing partnerships, or Writing Center/CAE connections.2 The pandemic escalates and exaggerates these feelings eliciting a range of responses. While for some students, the isolation suppresses progress (i.e., drained motivation, depression, reduced access to research materials, studies put on hold, and experiences of writerâs block), others grasp at the chance to work intensely with a new-found discipline due to enforced time at home. Several of my clients return for repeat appointments, which encourages those efforts; having the date on the calendar provides an anticipated interaction, fostering their goals, focus, and preparedness. Our online Writing Center sessions provide a space to give voice to this spectrum of emotional and intellectual perspectives about writing in these unusual circumstances.
As I work with recurring students, often our conversations begin with inquiries into each otherâs wellnessâexpressions so common in this period. Releasing anxieties about COVID-19, its ensuing isolation, scheduling of vaccinations and worries about wellness, wavering motivation, and academic concerns clear the way for better focus on the project at hand for the session. Students voice these vulnerabilities out loud in a way not typical in previous sessions.
More than in past times, students acknowledge the impediments of distractions, disruptions, and anxieties that, in turn, affect their writing process and ability to complete goals. For instance, the blending of work and domestic arrangements during quarantine often complicates or eliminates private writing spacesâthe room, desk, or quiet area established to promote organized, purposeful writing periodsâthwarting a clear mindset and resulting progress.
Other significant concerns voiced by graduate students include returning to rigorous academic engagement after years away from these experiences and expectations; anxiety about fulfilling assignments according to a professorâs demands; time management issues; developing stronger communication skills in class discussions; the pressure of defending oneâs dissertation argument; and development of a consistent, authentic voice. In addition, students attempt to establish a balance of confident writing skills across a spectrum of styles: from pre-writing techniques to concise posts to collaborative teamwork-driven projects to fully developed and synthesized writing directed by an argument with evidence-supported claims. Personal commentsâan accounting for oneâs state of mind and spiritânaturally give way to the specific assignment or intended focus of our time togetherâa concrete effort toward confronting and overcoming those limitations. Giving voice to these anxieties and perceived inadequacies is not easy. Yet, these thoughts emerge in a safe setting with a consultant as a receptive, active listener; this connection gives way to forging new relationships with oneâs writing as well as concrete progress.
During sessions, some of my graduate studentsâ voiced anxieties about their academic abilities and performance, as if they feel they are âimposters,â struggling to figure out their scholarly position. Most often these individuals are already highly experienced and well versed in their disciplineâpossessing both academic and professional expertise in their subject area. Yet, they simultaneously feel unqualified, unconfident, to write authoritatively. As one individual attests, she regards herself as an imposter unable to own her scholarly voice, despite the credentials and experiences that say otherwise.3 Again, this disclosure is not an easy one; in fact, it is complexly intertwined with scholarly identity issues, the awareness of what writers bring to their analysis, to their aims, questions, and contributions. Dissertation writers often must consider the ways they are âthe oneâ to write about this specific subject at their chosen time; what is it that they alone can contribute? What lived and earned perspectives are they granting to their audience? Again, within the context of a consultant-client conversation, such complexities come to light, most often with a supporting documentâthe draft or outline in questionâas the means through which in tandem we explore these issues, address them, and (ideally) dispel them. Self-questioning finds a supportive foundation through an awareness of strengths, accomplishments, and supportive claims and perspectives. These lenses and practices originating in a consultation session may take root for writers, encouraging returns to their next attempts.
Just as the client hopes to take away insights from a session, the consultant continually learns through listening and reflecting on these interactions. Writers need readers, but they also need listeners. Knowing that the consultant is deeply listening encourages disclosure and dialogue as well as more focused attention to the evolving draft. As consultants create checklists or notes about the contents of the sessionâa typical practice to record an overview of what was addressed and/or recommendations for next stepsâtheir own mental checklist may include some of the more abstract or personal concerns that arise, such as those about establishing scholarly voice amidst self-doubt. These experiences develop a sensitivity for recognizing the person behind the text, the relationship linking writer, reader, and written product. This awareness transfers from one session to the next, not only with the same client; rather, these reflectionsâfrom past, present, and unexpected situationsâsensitize consultants to listen for the words these writers may find hard to say. This value lasts beyond the allotted hour, instilling renewed ways of thinking about oneself as a writer and that intimate relationship with readers. This exchangeâfrom both sides of the table or screenâinvolves risk, vulnerability, and trust, considering words not easy to utter, yet in need of deep reception for growth to happen. This relevance extends beyond the page: listening professionally, as in these consulting relationships, these collaborative rooms, benefit us in our lives as mentors, as we become more attentive, attuned, and aware.
Dr. Daneiah Nasser is a professional tutor at the Cerullo Learning Assistance Center (CLAC) at Bergen Community College and an adjunct professor of history there as well as an Arabic Language adjunct professor at the County College of Morris. She attributes her time in the Center as one that enriched her academic career and built her confidence as an educator.
The Golden Door That Influenced My Career
Daneiah Nasser
I had recently graduated from Montclair State University with a masterâs degree and completed the requirements to become a certified teacher in the state of New Jersey. I knew that I wanted a career in education, and more specifically, one in post-secondary education. Upon entering the so-called real world, I saw the writing center at Bergen Community College (BCC) as my golden ticket to get my foot into the door of higher education. I began my role at the writing center in the winter of 2014 and day by day I grew more comfortable in my role as a tutor and within the writing centerâs atmosphere among my colleagues. My role as a tutor has provided me with an environment that made me more confident and more passionate in my role as an educator.
The writing center at BCC taught me so much, not only about myself but also about students, and directed me in the right direction on my career path as I continuously learned various strategies and grasped the best methods to use with my tutees. Seeing a diversity of students led me to gain a better understanding as to how students learn based on a wide spectrum. I realized that some students come right into a tutoring session or a course with a specific goal in mind, while other students seem to have less of a structure about the subject matter. As a result, I learned how to treat each student I crossed paths with and use the best teaching and tutoring methodologies to help with student success. The Cerullo Learning Assistance Center at BCC provides all tutors with training that allow us to grow in our positions as we tutor different students with varying needs. These pieces of training have often helped me from one tutoring session to the next and have allowed me to better understand and learn more about what tactics work with students and which do not. The strategies that I have come to use and be comfortable with have not only benefited me in the one-on-one setting but also in the small group setting when I have had to instruct a small group of students for the placement exams or when acting as a tutor in the classroom and working alongside the professors. Such strategies have included dealing with difficult behaviors, active listening, and setting goals on a basic level. To branch out a step further, the greatest effect on my professional life was the training I received through the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA) tutor training offered by the CLAC. The strategies I learned through this program helped me become not only a more skilled tutor but also a professor who can easily transition to accommodate all types of students whether they are traditional students or returning students, such as veterans. These opportunities were eye-opening for me and put my goals into a clearer perspective.
Two years after becoming a tutor, I decided to take the first big step into my ultimate career choice and apply to become an adjunct professor of history at BCC. I felt that I had already gained a good idea about the needs and academic goals of the diverse student body. My knowledge had also expanded as a tutor through the exposure to networking opportunities at different school functions and working with professors and liaisons to the tutoring center. Now, I too wanted to take on that leadership role of being in front of the classroom and empowering a future generation. Upon getting an interview to teach, I was not only ecstatic and ...