Blog # 6

People often overestimate the conclusions other people will draw when interpreting meaning from their words, especially those words with pretty direct meanings. The purpose of their doing this is to protect the feelings of the group of whom they speak. But is it really protecting their feelings or is unnecessary political correctness? Whether you call your writing center a “lab” or a “center”, people will still come to get their papers fixed. Whether you call the people who come for help “students” or “writers” feelings of subordination and superiority will still exist. For this reason my center will be known as the Student Writing Center. It’s important to focus on what the center does rather than what it’s called. This center operates off of the idea that knowledge is socially constructed. The overall goal of the center is to make students feel comfortable and confident writing independently while providing encouragement and support on many levels. To reach that goal the center must do several things.

The center should provide resources. It should have a wide range of resources from magazines, newspapers, textbooks, encyclopedias, computers with internet access, televisions, etc. These resources will help students and tutors further explore the social world in order to share and construct knowledge. More important than having these resources though, the center must train its staff to effectively implement these resources into tutoring. A tutor should be able to recognize a student or paper that would benefit from watching MSNBC vs. reading the NY Post. Tutors should be well informed about various media sources.

There should be diversity and flexibility in tutoring technique. A mandatory training course will be required of all tutors. This training should help them in their tutoring and writing skills. They should be trained to support writers on every level. Training should also teach them how to cater to the different needs of a diverse student body. There will be no strict methodology of operation. Every experience is unique and tutoring technique is subjective to that student and his/her paper.

The Center should have a good relationship with the University. The center staff should be connected with teachers, administrators and students. Professors should speak to tutors regularly. Administration should check in on writing center operation regularly to make sure they are properly staffed and up to date on resources. Students should be well informed about the writing center’s goals and operation. There should be an introduction to the writing center during New Student Orientation.

There should be a requirement for the freshman population to have writing seminars in the center twice a week during college hour, a supplement to their freshman English course. This way the students get to familiarize themselves with the center and how it works; its purposes and goals. They should be asked what their (the students) expectations are of the center and the center should in-turn disclose its expectations of students. This way the students are aware when they enter the center for the rest of their college career what is in store.

The most important thing is that students feel comfortable enough to be able to write on their own. That isn’t to discourage them from seeking the centers help, but it is important that they feel confident enough in themselves as writers that if they did want to write a paper on their own, the center would have provided enough support so that they’d know how to do their paper independently. Because ultimately, when the student graduates and enters into a professional career he/she won’t have a writing lab for support. It is imperative that they be able to do it on their own.