Session A: Thursday 5:30pm-6:45pm
A1. Administrative Challenges
Constructed Panel | Room: Club | AV Setup: Overhead
Moderator: Rachel Edidin
Title of Presentation: Our Search for a Writing Center Director
Presenter(s): Mark Thomas Institution(s): James Madison University
This program will involve recapitulating the important qualifications the search committee deems most significant and desirable in a successful candidate. The program participants will recount how those expectations were met, or perhaps disappointed, or perhaps exceeded by the continuing process of the search, which is just in its beginning stages.
Title of Presentation: Thrown From Eden: From Personnel Problems to Center Solutions
Presenter(s): Deborah Reese, Mary Anne B. Brock Institution(s): Armstrong Atlantic State University
How can Writing Center directors prevent problems such as rudeness, insubordination, and an inability to work harmoniously with others? This presentation highlights the personal qualities and training modules that promote solutions to these problems and best prepare our staffs to meet our clients' needs.
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A2. Tutor Talk and Tutor Identities: History and Practice
Constructed Panel | Room: South | AV Setup: Overhead
Moderator: Jerry Mwagbe
Title of Presentation: Picturing the Art of Conversation within the Rhetorical Tradition: Using Historical Research Methods to Craft New Writing Center Theories
Presenter(s): Beth Burmester Institution(s): Georgia State University
Weaving together rhetorical theories from dialogues, letters, literature, and oil paintings depicting conversation as an art, this presentation explores how research into comparative historical periods--from Ancient Greece, Renaissance Europe, and The Age of Conversation in England and America--gives writing center directors and tutors a fuller picture of why talk is essential for our tutorial models.
Title of Presentation: Writing Center Mavens Tell All: How Two Non-Academics Take the Plunge into Writing Center Tutoring and Survive to Tell the Tale
Presenter(s): Leslie Wolfe-Cundiff, Karen Wurl Institution(s): Kennesaw State University
This two-person presentation explores how professional writers become graduate students and faculty tutors at one large university. The presenters analyze journal entries to show how the personal and the professional intertwine when these tutors link their writing with their tutoring and their tutoring with their academic work.
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A3. Motivating Student Writers
Panel | Room: North | AV Setup: Overhead, LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen
Title of Presentation: Why ARE You Here?: Assessing and Encouraging What Motivates Writers and Tutors
Presenter(s): Joe Essid, Molly Bechert, Lynn Lavecchia, William Gray Long, Dave Roberts Institution(s): University of Richmond
The Associated Colleges of the South recently began requiring annual assessments for all departments. For our Writing Center, the requirement became an opportunity to examine data about why writers come in for conferences. Our panelists will discuss statistical and anecdotal findings about students at a liberal-arts university where writing assignments have increased and grading has become more rigorous.
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A4. Challenges to Collaboration
Constructed Panel | Room: Alumni | AV Setup: Overhead
Moderator: Rebecca Whitehead
Title of Presentation: The Shifting Power Dynamic: Advocacy, Empowerment, and Voice Reclamation
Presenter(s): Sarah Vanover Institution(s): Appalachian State University
This proposal focuses on the consultant/student power dynamic and how it shifts when the student brings in a text not assigned for a class. Recognizing this shift not only allows the consultant to become an advocate but also allows the student to regain power in a frequently unbalanced situation.
Title of Presentation: Making Eye Contact: How Do Potential Tutors View Collaboration?
Presenter(s): Jane Bowman Smith Institution(s): Winthrop University
What prompts good students - those who excel in typical classrooms - to enroll in tutoring classes? When collaboration is dismissed as "group work," they suggest perceptions of the tutorial: typical teacher-student interaction. Surveys conducted at Winthrop University suggest that directors may be more confident of the benefits of collaboration than students are.
Title of Presentation: Gathering Evidence from Students and Classrooms: Supporting the Philosophy of Writing Centers
Presenter(s): Gwendolyn N. Hale Institution(s): Fisk University
With a new generation of tutors and instructors seeking to educate students in an egalitarian and a non-hierarchical manner, this discussion seeks to research the ways in which such an approach, particularly in the classroom, catapults some students while hindering others.
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A5. Tutoring Variables
Panel | Room: Phillips Annex Second Floor | AV Setup: Overhead
Title of Presentation: Key Variables Affecting Effective Tutor/Tutee Interaction
Presenter(s): Kyle Knight, Eric Weinstein, Cathy Fisher Institution(s): Duke University
A panel of undergraduate tutors will present findings from their final research projects in their tutor-training course. Each project deals with a specific and significant variable that can adversely affect the effectiveness of a particular tutor/tutee relationship. The three topics are dealing with potentially offensive topics, helping students transition from high school to college academic writing, and determining the right balance between minimalist and directive tutoring in any particular individual session.
Cathy Fisher: This presentation explores the often problematic transition from high school to college composition in order to develop strategies writing tutors can employ to address these difficulties effectively. Using scholarly writings, professor opinions, and a survey of undergraduates, Cathy analyzes the struggles particular to first-year writers.
Kyle Knight: This research surveys possible methods by which peer tutors can ethically confront controversial topics in student writing. Kyle draws on theory, the experience of professionals, and empirical stories to throw into relief the ethical role of the tutor. Due to the difficulty in remaining objective during a tutoring session, tutors need to use appropriate methods to challenge rather than censor students' ideas.
Eric Weinstein: This presentation outlines the history of and bias against directive tutoring in writing center pedagogy and explores various methods for integrating a broader range of tutor-models into current theory. By analyzing the prevailing minimalist philosophy, current literature, and personal experience combined, Eric will demonstrate the need for more comprehensive tutor training.
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B1. Writing Centers Contending with Disciplinary Conventions Across Campus
Constructed Panel | Room: Club | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Deb Signorile
Title of Presentation: Style Manual Alphabet Soup: Research Implications for Tutoring Across the Disciplines
Presenter(s): Karen Gardiner Institution(s): University of Alabama
Style manuals across the disciplines reveal potential problems for writing centers, including acquiring resource materials, budgeting, selecting generalist or specialist tutors, training those tutors, making clear writing expectations across the disciplines, dealing with documentation and plagiarism, and choosing the location of the writing center itself.
Title of Presentation: Separating the Ore from the Lore
Presenter(s): Caroline (Kate) Chanock Institution(s): La Trobe University
Title of Presentation: Researching Tutors' Role as Interpreters of Assignments
Presenter(s): Corinne Kopcik, Sampada Chavan Institution(s): Georgia State University
Focusing on tutor-student interaction, we conducted a study of ethnographic research into student writer experiences where students encounter difficulties in understanding ambiguities in teacher expectation and unfamiliarity with academic conventions. Our goal was to draw awareness toward this issue and propose possible strategies for addressing it.
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B2. ASL and Dialect
Constructed Panel | Room: South | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Jane Bowman Smith
Title of Presentation: What Group They Go In?: Classifying Second Dialect Learners in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Sean Barnette Institution(s): Lander University
Clients whose first languages are nonstandard dialects of English are difficult to classify; they are both like and unlike ESL writers. This study compares professors? and writing assistants' responses to second dialect writing in order to understand and better meet the needs of second dialect writers.
Title of Presentation: How to Achieve
Successful Collaboration between a Hearing Consultant and a Deaf Client
in the Writing Lab
Presenter(s):Sarah Cameron Institution(s): College of Charleston
I am a graduate student at the College of Charleston, and I work as a consultant in the Writing Lab. I conducted my research under the supervision of Dr. Bonnie Devet while I was a student in her Writing Labs Theory and Practice graduate course.
Title of Presentation: When Hands Do the Talking: Converting a Visual Language to Paper
Presenter(s): Brittany Cecil Institution(s): Winthrop University
Tutoring Deaf and hard of hearing students who primarily use ASL to communicate presents unique difficulties for writing centers. Adaptations are needed to better address the needs of these students. Through research and interviews, I will identify potential problems and explain how they can be addressed in writing centers.
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B3. Gender and Learning Styles
Panel | Room: North | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Satisfaction with Writing Center Conferences: Gender, Learning Styles, and Tutoring Strategies
Presenter(s): Isabelle Thompson, Kirsten Miller, Abby Whigham, Milla Chappell, Richarde Barnes, Alyson Whyte Institution(s): Auburn University
We will report the results of a large-scale research project conducted in Auburn University's English Center. The project investigates the effects of gender and learning styles on students' and consultants' satisfaction with conferences and will describe the tutoring strategies associated with scaffolding, modeling, and coaching. Three types of surveys--a learning style inventory and two post-conference surveys, one for consultants and one for students--are being administered, and conferences are being videotaped and transcribed. Based on the data collected, we hope to identify and describe tutoring strategies that are satisfactory for certain types of students and comfortable for consultants. With the large number of students who use the English Center's services and the large number of consultants who work here, the data should allow us to go beyond case studies in drawing conclusions, even though the data will be representative of only one writing center.
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B4. Writing Center Assessment and Critical Thinking
Panel | Room: Alumni | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Showing What We Really Do: Rethinking Writing Center Assessment through the Language of Critical Thinking
Presenter(s): Jennifer Kunka, Phillip Gardner, William Ramsey, Matthew Nelson, R. Taylor Bunn, Laurie Sansbury Institution(s): Francis Marion University
In this group presentation, members of a university writing center will present results of a two-pronged research inquiry into tools for assessing the effectiveness of writing center consultations and the critical thinking skills developed by writers through their tutorial interactions.
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B5. Horses, Bookstores, and Techies
Panel | Room: Chancellor West Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: What We Learned as Wage Slaves: Relating to Students with Experience from Beyond the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Claire Bates, Emily Murray, Kennie Rose Institution(s): Middle Tennessee State University
This panel will discuss how skills learned outside the writing center can cross over to benefit tutoring writing. The three panelists will discuss how experience in horsemanship/stable management, retail bookselling, and computer technology have affected their experience in the writing center.
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B6. Tutor Identities as a Writing Center Resource
Panel | Room: Chancellor East Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Staying in Touch: Responding to a Dynamic College Community with Informal Data Collection
Presenter(s): Rachel Edidin, Hilary Collins, Michael Gay, Arhm Choi, Terrence O'Neill Institution(s): Warren Wilson College
This program first outlines for the audience this argument: peer tutors should use their identities as community members as a resource. Second, it will give both theoretical and concrete justifications as to why this is best for the overall success and image of the writing center. Third, it will discuss how we translate this theory into practice in actual relationships, including what steps we have taken to be more receptive to writer's wishes, what we say to teachers and how we say it to change how they think of us and better align us with what they need, and the student initiatives from within the crew that have been instrumental in forming our image and resources to expand our audience and increase our range of application. Fourth, it will discuss how we measure the success of our approach, services, and programs. And last, it will present a summary of practices that may be useful, followed by an opportunity for questions.
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B7. Classroom/Writing Center Research
Constructed Panel | Room: Phillips Annex Second Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Heather Epes
Title of Presentation: Re-Centering Composition Research: Using Classroom Research in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Kerri Jordan, Steven Price Institution(s): Mississippi College, Monmouth College
Busy writing center directors often find their writing center research hampered by other institutional obligations. We will explore our potential to work "smarter, not harder"--that is, to design research projects useful to the writing center, even if the center is not the research project's original focal point.
Title of Presentation: Ever Greener Pastures: Teaching v. Tutoring Writing in Different Fields
Presenter(s): Michael Bogucki, Risa Applegarth, Danielle Aberle Institution(s): University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Despite different institutional situations, many Writing Centers benefit from a wide interdisciplinarity in its members and activities. UNC-Chapel Hill's Writing Center has tutors and staff from departments of anthropology, education, biology, history, philosophy, comparative literature, social work, and sociology as well as English. Each of these disciplines obviously brings its own expectations and paradigms about good writing, in terms of both product and process. Through interviews with Writing Center tutors and an analysis of feedback from students about the difficulty and perspicuity of different writing models, we will explore different potential techniques and strategies for Writing Centers to maximize their interdisciplinary resources. Considering so many institutions' recent emphasis on building writing skills across the curriculum and on fostering interdisciplinarity in general, Writing Centers have the opportunity to grow in new ways as a resource for programs seeking a different perspective on the models of writing in their areas.
Title of Presentation: Whose Session Is It Anyway?: Assessing Student Engagement in Tutoring Sessions
Presenter(s): Sherry Robinson, Marlowe Moore Institution(s): Eastern Kentucky University
This panel will explain the development and testing of a rubric to assess student engagement in writing center tutoring sessions. The Eastern Kentucky University Writing Center, in an effort to find objective, direct ways of measuring student learning in the writing center, videotaped several tutoring sessions. The directors then developed a rubric to measure student engagement in the tutoring session. This measurement will be a piece in the palette of assessment instruments that demonstrate the effectiveness of writing centers in enhancing student learning with regard to writing.
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B8. Under-Prepared Writers and WCs: Roles and Assessment Strategies
Constructed Panel | Room: Phillips Annex First Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Joe Essid
Title of Presentation: Placement Testing and Flagler College's Writing Center
Presenter(s): James M. Wilson Institution(s): Flagler College
Placement testing can dilute resources or enliven a Writing Center. At the Flagler College Writing Center is integral to successful student placement, learning, and growth. This presentation will describe the relationship of this testing and the subsequent placing of first year students in various courses on writing center work.
Title of Presentation: Maintaining Identity in a Changing Academic Environment: A Writing Center in Transition
Presenter(s): Jenna Wright, Anna Clark Institution(s): University of Tennessee at Martin
This presentation explores both the pros and cons of a new support role thrust on the writing center at The University of Tennessee at Martin and examines how this new role affects the center's overall operation: especially student tutoring, writing workshops, center administration, and center budget, as well as the impact on the community of campus writers.
Title of Presentation: Writing Centers and the Testing - Industrial Complex
Presenter(s): Dennis Paoli Institution(s): Hunter College, CUNY
The City University of New York has instituted a standardized test, the CUNY Proficiency Exam (CPE) for students in their upper sophomore semester. Across the university, test preparation for the CPE has been designated as the responsibility primarily of Writing Centers. Writing Centers do, as part of their regular activities, help students prepare for tests. But at most Centers test prep is usually often the most problematic service we provide. Tutoring test-takers puts intense pressure on a center's philosophical foundation, on its mission, and therefore, on its staff. Centers are student- and process-oriented. Tests are institution-centered and product-oriented. And the CPE is a high stakes standardized test; passing the exam is a CUNY graduation requirement. More pressure on the students, more pressure on the Center. More pressure on the college to show a high pass rate, more pressure on the Center. Is this our future?
Session C: Friday 10:15am-11:30am
C1. Innovate with Technology
Panel | Room: Club | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: An Apple a Day Keeps the Mystery Away: Using iPod Technology to Demystify Challenging Tutoring Moments
Presenter(s): Matthew Gardzina, Kathryn Roberts, Ankur Fadia Institution(s): Duke University
Duke's Digital Initiative provides the technology to engage in a variety of innovative projects. A consultant from the Center for Instructional Technology will first describe this university-wide project. Then, two undergraduate tutors will discuss how iPod devices with microphones can be used productively in a writing center setting. They will share audio clips and explore strategies from actual tutoring sessions to deal with these challenging moments.
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C2. Challenging Consultant Lore
Panel | Room: South | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Challenging Writing Consultant Lore: A Reconsideration of Some Consulting Concepts
Presenter(s): Rachael Ray, Jamie Locklar, Jake Patrick, Brent Debique Institution(s): Columbus State University
Four consultants from Columbus State University will offer practical consulting tips. Rachael Ray, I will consider different approaches consultants might adopt for writers who are visual and kinesthetic learners. I will offer my assessment of how my knowledge of a student's learning style affects the student's learning. Silence is Deadening: Using Silence Effectively in Writing Consultations, Jake Patrick. As a nondirective consultant, I will explain how I use silence as a tool of language and learning. Prewriting Comes Before Organizing: Using Organization as a Prewriting Tool, Jamie Locklar. I will explain my method of teaching students about fluid organization as a means to enhance the prewriting process. Professors Have No Prejudices: Stereotypes of the Writing Center, Brent Debique. I will present findings on the positive and negative representations of the CSU Writing Center that professors communicate. I will analyze how these representations affect students. I will discuss what can be done to fix the negative stereotypes, which tarnish the writing center's image.
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C3. Tutor Research
Panel | Room: North | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Tutor Research for Writing Center Education
Presenter(s): Mary Alm, Robin Bellinson, Christine Cozzens, Karl Fornes, Beth Godbee Institution(s): University of North Carolina-Asheville, Georgia State University, Agnes Scott College, University of South Carolina-Aiken, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Our panel considers tutor research as tutor education and describes research as professional development, resistance, self-reflection, and identity formation. By addressing tutor research from varied director and tutor points of view, we present the research process as it takes place in our centers—complicated, complex, yet complementary to our daily work. We believe that, like the teaching of writing, writing center tutor training is more effective when tutors engage in the practice they are studying, instead of merely talking or reading about it. To consider how tutors might become researchers of writing, tutoring, and related areas, we offer our experiences—the challenges, disappointments, and rewards—and invite participation in our discussion by the audience.
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C4. How Technology May Change the Face of Writing Center Work
Constructed Panel | Room: Alumni | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Deaver Traywick
Title of Presentation: Implementing the OWC at UCF: An Analysis of Discourse Markers in Face to Face and Online Feedback in the UWC
Presenter(s): Rusty Carpenter Institution(s): University of Central Florida
This presentation will share information about the Online Writing Center project: background about the project, results of the discourse analysis, and implications for training consultants.
Title of Presentation: Transforming the Writing Lab into a Communications Studio: Rethinking, Revising, and Reforming the Idea of a Writing Center
Presenter(s):Christina Bourgeois, Michael Laughter Institution(s): Georgia Institute of Technology School of Electrical & Computer Engineering Writing Lab
Our presentation focuses on how we are transforming the writing lab at Georgia Tech's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering into an innovative, state-of-the-art, multimedia facility responsive to the needs of the students and the faculty. We will discuss our research methodology and share the findings from our focus groups. We will also share the process of securing the space, funding, and resources necessary for this project.
Title of Presentation: Navigating the Research Process: Information Literacy in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Mercy Cannon Institution(s): Stephen F. Austin State University
Universities' widespread use of electronic resources has generated an increased need for "information literacy," (IL) a term used to designate competency in various research tasks. As Writing centers create a more focused approach to IL through promotion and tutor training, they will be able to reach more students across the curriculum.
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C5. Faculty/Tutor Interactions: Training Tutors and Faculty
Constructed Panel | Room: Chancellor West Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Pam Childers
Title of Presentation: Working with Multiple Literacies in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Anne Warner Institution(s): Spelman College
The Spelman College Comprehensive Writing Program incorporated a grant from the Bush Foundation for developing faculty pedagogy and supporting student learning of writing, research, and multimedia literacies. This presentation will share the results of the Flashlight survey and student and faculty comments for the purpose of reflecting on the multiple tasks a writing center may support in order to address its most important task: writing substantively and fully.
Title of Presentation: Writing and Rewriting the Role of the Course Tutor
Presenter(s): Megan Morris, Mollie Barnes, Cailin Copan-Kelly, Laura Tuttle, Jayme Walton Institution(s): Agnes Scott College
Evolving methodologies of tutoring can complicate our role in our college's Course Tutoring Program: we are not traditionally collaborative tutors, but we are not teachers, either. Our research defines a new hybrid between the tutor and teacher; "the course tutor" is different from a writing teaching assistant. Our objective is to apply new theories on the tutor's role in writing to our existing course tutoring program.
Title of Presentation: Supporting Undergraduate Research
Presenter(s): Nina Salmon, Judy Strang Institution(s): Virginia Military Institute
Writing Centers can provide valuable services to undergraduate researchers, often finding ways to collaborate that transcend the typical student/faculty/writing center relationship. This presentation will describe the Writing Center's role in VMI's Undergraduate Research Initiative.
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C6. What Counts?: Finding Assessment Methods That Meet Our Needs and Serve Our Goals
Constructed Panel | Room: Chancellor East Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Chere Peguesse
Title of Presentation: Institutional Calls, Center Responses: Barometrics in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Shireen Campbell, Paul Miller Institution(s): Davidson College
Although our first-year writing requirement has changed substantially in the past decade, the college has never assessed its outcomes. During our upcoming re-accreditation process, the college may designate the writing requirement an official Quality Enhancement area. We will study Center data and discuss how center statistics factored into curricular assessment and reform at our institution.
Title of Presentation: Following Up: The Effect of a Writing Center on Developmental Student Writing Apprehension and Writing Performance Two Years Later
Presenter(s): Claudia Grinnell Institution(s): University of Louisiana-Monroe
This presentation discusses the investigation of the relationship between students' demographic variables (age, race, gender) and writing performance and writing apprehension as well as the effect of writing center attendance on writing performance and writing apprehension. The results of this study supported the research on the effectiveness of the computer-assisted and on-on-one tutorial methods for developmental English students.
Title of Presentation: "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish": Thinking Outside the Box of Writing Center Assessment
Presenter(s): Rebecca Whitehead Institution(s): Winthrop University
As writing classes have shifted focus from product to process, writing centers must shift the focus of their assessment. Through quick writes and discussions, tutors can judge progress that students have made in improving their writing process and, therefore, assess a center's effectiveness in creating better writers, thus, fulfilling their mission.
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C7. Taking the Long View of Writing Center History and Practice
Constructed Panel | Room: Phillips Annex Second Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Karen Gardiner
Title of Presentation: Writing Center Experiment: The Road to Empowerment
Presenter(s): Samaa Gamie Institution(s): University of Rhode Island
This presentation will analyze the theories and practices of some of the early and later writing center models and provide an overview of their successes and challenges. In turn, this will help us arrive at approaches to overcome those challenges and articulate the future positioning of writing center work.
Title of Presentation: Centre with an 're': Inventing Writing Instruction in Canada
Presenter(s): Margaret Procter Institution(s): University of Toronto
Examining the work of writing centres in Canadian universities helps create a perspective on shared issues. In the absence of strong composition programs, Canadian writing centres have dominated writing instruction and supported strong WID movements. In so doing they have had to face acute questions about program design and evaluation and the very nature of their work.
Title of Presentation: A Look in the Mirror: A Longitudinal Study of the Work Performed by Students and Writing Center Tutors
Presenter(s): Doug Enders Institution(s): Shenandoah University
Presentation of the results of a four-year longitudinal study of the kinds of work students and tutors performed in over 2000 writing center tutorials at a small liberal arts college. The presentation examines the ways in which that work varied by discipline and course level.
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C8. Learning Disabilities
Panel | Room: Phillips Annex First Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Building Bridges of Understanding: Issues in Providing Writing Center Services to Students with Learning Disabilities
Presenter(s): Lori Beth De Hertogh, Connie Bracewell Institution(s): Applachian State University
An exploration of issues in writing center services to learning-disabled students and how these students are or should be assisted with their writing. The purpose is to formulate useful strategies for building bridges of understanding that ensure learning-disabled students receive fair and equal writing assistance within university writing centers.
Session D: Friday, 1:30pm-2:45pm
D1. Record Keeping in the Writing Center
Constructed Panel | Room: Club | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Jennifer Kunka
Title of Presentation: Maintaining FERPA Compliance and Professionalism in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Ronald D. Carter, Amy McAllister, Sarah Carpenter, Ford Simmons Institution(s): Francis Marion University
Our interactive presentation demonstrates strategies that any writing center can immediately utilize to ensure FERPA compliance and to maintain a professional atmosphere in the writing center.
Title of Presentation: The Impact of Conference Record Forms
Presenter(s): Barbara Gordon Institution(s): Elon University
What happens to writing center conference forms once in faculty hands? Is the form read? Does it have an impact? In this session we will relate the results of a study in which faculty reported how they do and don't use conference forms.
Title of Presentation: Reorienting with Research: Collecting Data on Writing Center Orientations
Presenter(s): Cathy Russell Institution(s): Tallahassee Community College
Our presentation consists of a brief explanation and demonstration of: our orientation procedure; the "Quality Enhancement Plan" and "Achieving the Dream" initiatives and their impact on our Writing Center; and our research project, processes, and findings. This presentation will generate discussion of the writing center's participatory roles and responsibilities in the "culture of evidence" that is emphasized in colleges across the country and will provide an example of how writing centers can meet such demands.
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D2. Outreach
Workshop | Room: South | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Connecting Writing Centers in Secondary Schools, Colleges, Universities: Collaborative Research into Practice
Presenter(s): Pamela Childers, James Inman, Leigh Ryan Institution(s):The McCallie School, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, University of Maryland
This workshop engages participants in discussions and activities designed to help them move from practitioner knowledge to theoretical concepts and methodological sophistication in writing center research. Not only will attendees leave with firsthand knowledge of and practice with this important research development strategy, but they will also be guided through activities designed to foster their own projects.
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D3. What is Research in the Writing Center?
Panel | Room: North | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Simply More Than One Thing: Acknowledging Contexts for Research in Writing Center Studies
Presenter(s): Patrick Bizzaro, Resa Crane Bizzaro, Philip Adams Institution(s): East Carolina University
This session problematizes writing center studies: it asks if our concept of research reflects an understanding of research available to us in English studies, theorizes that assessment of programs in writing in the disciplines profoundly affects how tutors manage consultations with students from different disciplines, and examines the difficulty of assessing individual consultations run by tutors if assessment addresses the tutoring of writing in the disciplines at various junctures in the writing process.
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D4. Poets in the Center
Workshop | Room: Alumni | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Poets in the Center: Techniques in Conferencing with Creative Writers
Presenter(s): Alan Coulter, Hilary Robson-Reeder Institution(s): Middle Tennessee State University
In this interactive workshop, attendees will create and conference poetry through the one-to-one session. The workshop will utilize various methods in approaching the creative writer within the writing center environment. Should time allow, ideas will be shared in how to implement creative writing groups to the services provided by writing centers to the college campus.
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D5. Developing Assessment Data
Panel | Room: Chancellor West Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Recycling the Evidence: Using Writing Center Assessment Data to Improve Writing Center Performance
Presenter(s): Lisa Bernstein, Jim Booth, Lisa Zimmerelli, Heather Duda Institution(s): University of Maryland University College
An online writing center team will discuss using a variety of evidence to integrate information about student writing into curriculum and faculty development. Integrating qualitative and quantitative evidence allows the center to identify constituencies, create supplementary materials, assist faculty with developing assignments, and develop sophisticated training and continuing education programs.
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D6. Professional Image
Workshop | Room: Chancellor East Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Professional Image and Success in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Chere Peguesse Institution(s): Valdosta State University
This interactive workshop addresses tutor anxiety about dealing with disgruntled students and disagreements with fellow tutors by developing professional behavior strategies.
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D7. WPAs Outside the Writing Center
Constructed Panel | Room: Phillips Annex Second Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Mary Alm
Title of Presentation: Beyond the Writing Center Walls: Writing Center Theory Application in Student Services
Presenter(s): Dollie Newhouse, Jo Angela Edwins Institution(s): Francis Marion University
Discuss how our experience within and study of Writing Center work have influenced our roles as administrators in other parts of the university environment. How the work of the Writing Center as a space for reinforcing the importance of the process approach to writing has a wider reach within and beyond the university environment than many might expect.
Title of Presentation: Good-Bye to All That: Gracefully and Gratefully Abandoning Ship
Presenter(s): Virginia Dumont-Poston Institution(s): Lander University
The question is: how does the writing center director's narrative end? Although beginnings are important, as Bishop and Crossley (1996) suggest, there is also the story of stopping; how does one separate from the role of writing center administrator?
Title of Presentation: Writing Center Research as Preparation for Program Administration: Mapping Institutional Spaces
Presenter(s): Jennifer Ahern-Dodson Institution(s): Duke University
How writing center research prepared this presenter for program administration and research outside the writing center. Key issues include practitioner-researcher tensions and mapping the institution.
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D8. Starting Writing Centers
Constructed Panel | Room: Phillips Annex First Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Margaret Procter
Title of Presentation: Steps Toward Creating an International Writing Center
Presenter(s): Cindy Oakley-Paulik, Jennifer Carney Institution(s): Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Empower matriculated ESL students by giving them the campus resources they need! Learn the ABC's of creating a Writing Center for ESL students from scratch. Everything from operating on a shoestring budget to developing training manuals will be shared.
Title of Presentation: The Long and Winding Road: A 25-Year Trek Towards a Writing Center
Presenter(s): Ron Smith, Larry Adams Institution(s): University of North Alabama
A discussion of a twenty-five year struggle to establish a university writing center.
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Research Fair: Friday 3:00pm-4:00pm
D9.
Games | Room: Hill Ballroom | AV Setup: None Provided
Title of Presentation: The Charlotte Writing Marathon
Presenter(s): Jennifer Pooler Courtney, Lil Brannon Institution(s): University of North Carolina-Charlotte
In order to frame our Writing Center's identity, our Writing Center sponsored the first Charlotte Writing Marathon. This marathon provides a way to bring writers together (members of the University, school children, Writing Project teachers, neighbors) to write and share their work. This presentation will explain the concept of writing marathons, provide examples of a Charlotte marathon, and illustrate the liberating philosophy of marathons.
Title of Presentation: Paper Chase
Presenter(s): Jan Wheeler, Josh Orr, Jessica Bardsley, Chantal Johnson, Brittany Mayer, Kara Phelps, Heather Rasley, Katherine Williams Institution(s): New College of Florida
"Paper Chase" is designed to improve Student Writing Assistant (SWA) and student writer familiarity with the stages of paper writing. Student writers and SWAs can develop their knowledge of different aspects of writing by playing the game. Paper Chase helps students and SWAs identify the available resources for assistance in paper writing, while encouraging a spirit of collaboration and enjoyment.
Title of Presentation: If You Build It, They Will Come: Using Legos in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Brian Breedlove, Colleen Lynch Institution(s): Duke University
Visual models are an effective way to help students better grasp writing. LEGOs are a valuable resource that writing centers can use to help visually-minded students improve their writing. This game will use LEGOs to model and deconstruct a five-paragraph theme and help students transition to college composition.
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D10.
Posters | Room: Hill Ballroom | AV Setup: None Provided
Title of Presentation: Pointing Writers in the Right Direction: Suggestions for Tutoring PowerPoint Presentations
Presenter(s): David Paulo, Natalie Roland Institution(s): Francis Marion University
In an effort to make fellow writing center consultants aware of and better prepared for the demand for assistance with PowerPoint presentations, two writing center consultants will present a poster session illustrating suggestions for proper preparation and strategy guidelines for efficient tutorials on PowerPoint.
Title of Presentation: Statistical Writing Center Benefits
Presenter(s): Anetia Ports Institution(s): St. Phillips College
As the writing center director, researching the center's statistics provides a visible source for administrators, faculty, students, and other academic personnel to acknowledge the writing center's importance in helping students learn how to become better writers.
Title of Presentation: Survey of Writing Center Effectiveness at Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH
Presenter(s): Mary Murray Institution(s): Cleveland State University
This presentation will explore the effectiveness of a Writing Center to first-year students and WAC students in a large, urban university. The research involves sampling students over a four-year period by either phone or email.
Title of Presentation: Is This a Doctor's Office?: Business Elements in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Leanna Trimper Institution(s): Winthrop University
Our mission promotes collaborative learning. Does a business-like atmosphere, however, impact student perceptions of what happens in the tutorial? Centers need to be responsive to their unique university environment; however, the tutors and the director need to constantly monitor their center's identity, to ensure it continues to fulfill its mission.
Title of Presentation: Enhancing the Image of the Writing Center Through Film
Presenter(s): Kerry Jannergren Institution(s): Columbus State University
For our presentation, we will have a poster displaying the results we found from the focus groups, handouts for those interested in possibly doing something similar for their Writing Center, and a laptop replaying the video. We look forward to this great opportunity to share our hard work and ideas with other Writing Centers in the area.
Title of Presentation: International Writer's Block: The Right Tools for International ESOL Students
Presenter(s): Derrell Seigler Institution(s): Valdosta State University
A presentation on the theories/techniques that can be used to better equip the tutor for assessing and instructing the international student in his her essay.
Title of Presentation: Top Ten Reasons to Visit the Writing Center: Developing a Writing Center Orientation Video
Presenter(s): Veronica Pantoja Institution(s): Chandler-Gilbert Community College
This poster session display will showcase the recent outreach efforts of the Chandler-Gilbert Community College (CGCC) Writing Center. To meet its goal to help more students achieve academic success, the CGCC Writing Center produced its orientation video, "Top Ten Reasons to Visit the Writing Center." Integrating Writing Center practice into a humorous 7-minute video has exposed the Writing Center to more students and faculty than before.
Title of Presentation: Collaboration and Assessment: Evaluating a Writing Fellows Tutoring Program
Presenter(s): Lisa Cahill Institution(s): Arizona State University
The Arizona State University Writing Fellows Tutoring Program, offered through the Learning Resource Center, connects first-year composition faculty with trained and CRLA certified tutors. The purpose of this research poster presentation is to showcase and receive feedback on how the partners have constructed and evaluated this new program.
Title of Presentation: From the Center to the World: International Conversation Hour
Presenter(s): Elizabeth Morley, Greg Bishop, Krystiane Evans, Christina Cornelison, Danielle Courts, John Dixon, Krista King, Liz Munninghoff, Ashley Reis Institution(s): University of Kentucky
In this session, graduate student leaders of the International Conversation Hour explain how it has enhanced the U.S. study experience of foreign students, enlightened American students about cultural differences, and offered valuable practice for students who want to teach English as a foreign language. They may even include their adventures with American food, troubling idioms, and pari-mutuel betting.
Title of Presentation: Let's Get Personal: Personality in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Morgan McGhee Institution(s): Duke University
This poster presentation explores how including the Meyers Briggs test in tutor training can help tutors understand and respond to the differences in writing processes among themselves and the students they tutor.
Title of Presentation: OWL Call: Why Writing Centers Need Online Tutoring
Presenter(s): Laura Dickey Institution(s): Duke University
This poster presents the highlights of the debate about asynchronous online tutoring as well as the specific benefits of this medium. By breaking down the advantages and challenges, the presentation will attempt to prove writing centers need online tutoring.
Session E: Friday 4:15pm-5:30pm
E1. Writing Fellows
Panel | Room: Hill Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Evaluating the Peer Tutor/Classroom Model
Presenter(s): Vicki Russell, Rebecca Walsh, Michele Strano, Julie Reynolds Institution(s): Duke University
This group panel will address the effectiveness of a writing center model in which trained undergraduate tutors were paired with interdisciplinary first-year writing courses, working one-on-one with students on two projects during the semester. The presenters will draw on data gathered from student surveys, tutor self-evaluations, and narrative reactions from participating instructors and explore the following questions: What is the value of such an experience for the peer tutors? How does this model enhance the instructional environment in which students learn how to draft and revise their works in progress? What strategies can be used to measure student reactions to the peer tutoring experience? And, finally, how do we contextualize our findings within a specific university's experience?
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E2. Mission Statements
Workshop | Room: Club (20-30) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: The Writing Center: What's the Mission Statement Got to Do With It?
Presenter(s): Constance Compana Institution(s): Wheaton College
The first part of every writing center's website, the mission statement can give the reader a sense of the collaborative heart of the writing center. But sometimes it raises more questions than it answers. This workshop looks at these questions as a way of seeing the connection between the language of the statement and the practices of the writing center.
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E3. Beyond Fix-It Shops: Writing Centers as Sites of Student Retention
Constructed Panel | Room: South (20-30) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Deidre Pettipiece Ray
Title of Presentation: Can You Fix My Commas?: Battling the Editor Stereotype in Writing Center Instruction
Presenter(s): Lisa Kirby Institution(s): North Carolina Wesleyan College
One of the prevailing attitudes about writing center staff is that they exist to "repair" or edit papers. This paper will explore this common misperception and examine how these ideas may have emerged.
Title of Presentation: Why Do They Return?: Researching Student Perception of Writing Center Purpose and Identity
Presenter(s): Bob Barrier, Chris Obenschain, Jared Miller, David Blair Institution(s): Kennesaw State University
This panel will present research on students' perceptions of the center, their changing attitudes towards its purpose, and the writing center's effect upon student retention. This research will suggest ways a center's image and atmosphere can be changed so that more students will return and more administrators can have an accurate view of the unique worth of writing centers.
Title of Presentation: Writing as Relationship: Assessing Trust in the Tutor/Student Exchange
Presenter(s): Lyndall Nairn, Chidsey Dickson, Karen Hatter Institution(s): Lynchburg College
The social constructionist theory that language is a social phenomenon is enacted daily in writing centers as tutors and students exchange ideas and form relationships of trust. Our research explores the effect of trusting tutor/student relationships on the acquisition and improvement of writing skills and on student retention.
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E4. Politeness in the Writing Center
Panel | Room: North (50) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: May I Have This Dance?: Politeness, First Impressions and Initial Writing Center Visits
Presenter(s): Diana Bell, Holly Arnold Institution(s): University of Alabama at Huntsville
Our research project uses politeness theory as a framework through which to explore the discursive space of writing center consultations, specifically the initial visits of basic writing students. The first presentation situates this project within the context of politeness theory, demonstrating the ways that politeness theory has been used in past research projects and providing a brief overview of politeness theory as it will be carried out in the presentations to follow. Looking at politeness theory through feminism and composition, the second presenter investigates the role of gender in the politeness rituals of initial writing center visits between returning consultants and basic writers. This presentation explores the ways that initial forms of politeness, mediated through gender, often constitute specific discursive roles. The third presenter will investigate shifts in the way negative politeness frames consultations in initial visits and those conducted later in the semester, after conversational and discursive roles have been established. This presentation looks at the ways that constitutive initial politeness is confirmed, renegotiated or subverted in those subsequent sessions.
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E5. Online Tutoring Success
Constructed Panel | Room: Alumni (50) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Jennifer Pooler Courtney
Title of Presentation: "To Boldly Go": Launching an Online Writing Center at Kaplan University
Presenter(s): Marla Cartwright, Kara VanDam, Carrie Hollibaugh, Lisa Petty Institution(s): Kaplan University Online
Kaplan University launched its first virtual Writing Center in May of 2005. Our student population is online, so we established an online-only Writing Center to support students' university writing tasks. We offer live synchronous tutorials, asynchronous question submission and faculty-written reference materials. Developing this has presented special challenges in layout, training and student outreach.
Title of Presentation: Bridging the Distance in Synchronous Online Tutoring
Presenter(s): June Griffin Institution(s): University of Georgia
Perhaps the greatest concern about online tutoring is that it is cold and dehumanizing. For students with little computer proficiency and limited literacy skills, an online tutorial can be especially frustrating and stressful. This presentation will examine aspects of these problems and present a synchronous online tutoring environment designed to meet these challenges.
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E6. Building a Strong Writing Center Culture
Panel | Room: Chancellor West Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Researching the Center: Using Qualitative Research to Build a Strong Writing Center Culture
Presenter(s): : Kate Brown, Julie Myatt, Dustin Anderson, Amy Hodges-Hamilton Institution(s): University of Louisville, University of Louisville, Florida State University, Vanderbilt University
This panel will discuss the importance of research throughout the life of a writing center. With an emphasis on a variety of qualitative research methods, the panelists will present research findings that speak to the challenges involved with creating and opening a new writing center, generating and maintaining an effective tutor-training program, facilitating a partnership between the writing center and the first-year composition program, and recording the history of writing centers. The panel will present data from qualitative studies conducted at three universities in the southeast and will offer suggestions for ways writing center administrators and staff can conduct similar studies in their own writing centers in order to gather information that can be used to build a strong writing center culture.
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E7. Theories Applied: Freire, Rogers, and Queer Theory in Action in the Writing Center
Constructed Panel | Room: Chancellor East Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Deborah Reese
Title of Presentation: Being Versatile: Queering the Tutorial Power Struggle
Presenter(s): Patrick Rabon Institution(s): Francis Marion University
This presentation focuses on power struggles that may arise during tutoring sessions when students are perceived as active participants and tutors are perceived as passive/non-directive participants. Current literature on the topic reveals a heterosexist ideology, whereas queer theory promotes a more open, honest and useful tutorial session.
Title of Presentation: We Can't Take Them to the Bank: Responding to the Banking Concept of Education in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Louis Clausi Institution(s): Armstrong Atlantic State University
In "The Banking Concept of Education," Paulo Friere explicates critical theory that condemns traditional pedagogical notions of what he labels the "banking" format of teaching. We will apply Freire's theory and subsequent responsive theories to writing center situations and develop a testable framework for practice. We will present our test results to establish a training template, investigating such issues as gender, age, ethnicity, and disabilities.
Title of Presentation: What Rogers Lacked: Support for the Integration of Directive and Non-Directive Methods in the Writing Center Consultations
Presenter(s): Jared Michonski Institution(s): Cedarville University
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E8.
Workshop | Room: Phillips Annex First Floor | AV Setup: None Provided
Title of Presentation: Tension, Discussion, and the Birth of Ideas: Consultant-Consultant Collaboration in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Kyle Warner, Jon Burr Institution(s): Appalachian State University
This dual presentation discusses consultant-collaboration in the Writing Center at Appalachian State University. The need to train new consultants, work together during sessions with special needs, and exchange ideas makes consultant-consultant collaboration a technique of interest. However, to avoid tension and a difference in opinion, positive discourse must take place.
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F1. Writing Centers as Gendered Space
Constructed Panel | Room: Club (20-30) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Ron Smith
Title of Presentation: f(x,y): The Function and Future of the Gendered Writing Center
Presenter(s): Deaver Traywick Institution(s): Newberry College
While writing centers are heavily feminized, both demographically and pedagogically, writing center directors often move in administrative structures that are not. This presentation explores the productive tension between our feminized pedagogy and administrative styles and the masculinist, hierarchical structures that we typically confront within our institutions.
Title of Presentation: Tapping Into the Gender Communication Gap
Presenter(s): Jamerson Magwood Institution(s): Winthrop University
Many cases tutors come across problems relating to the opposite sex. Males and females channel certain responses differently. Through some analysis on traits and typical body languages, a tutor can overcome the gender communication boundary and make their sessions more effective in the Writing Center.
Title of Presentation: What We Teach: Linguistic Sexism in OWLs
Presenter(s): Nicole Amare Institution(s): University of Southern Alabama
This paper analyzes seven OWL online grammar guides for instances of linguistic sexism. For example, 3,200 sentences in the OWL handouts reveal generic "he" and "man" are still prevalent. Because OWLs are much more mutable than print materials, revising sentences used in OWL handouts that do not employ gender-fair language is necessary.
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F2. Why Collect Data?
Panel | Room: North (50) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Researching the Writing Center: The Purpose of Data Collection and Analysis
Presenter(s): Toni Francis Institution(s): University of South Florida
Interactive presentation/workshop theorizing the purposes of data collection for research purposes.
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F3. Community Message Boards
Constructed Panel | Room: Alumni (50) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Beth Burmester
Title of Presentation: Creating Community among Tutors through an Asynchronous Message Board
Presenter(s): Alice Osborn, Marcia Toms Institution(s): North Carolina State University
Tutors who work in our satellite locations often complain of feeling disconnected from the "real center." We will discuss how effectively a newly implemented message board addresses this need for community. Other successes and pitfalls of the project will be addressed as well.
Title of Presentation: Extending the Conversation: The Directory of Southeast Writing Centers as a Site for Research, Communication, and Conversation
Presenter(s): Alicia Hatter, Kristen Blanco Institution(s): Georgia State University
As an online database for the writing center community where users can research other writing centers, The Directory of Southeast Writing Centers makes basic information about each center easily accessible. The intention for this user-friendly forum is to encourage further communication among directors and tutors.
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F4. Strategies for Poster Sessions
Workshop | Room: Chancellor West Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words": Tutoring Strategies for Poster Presentations
Presenter(s): Trixie Smith, Karen Wright, Laurel Taylor Institution(s): Middle Tennessee State University
This interactive workshop, focusing on design principles from technical writing and current studies in visual rhetoric, discusses basic ideas for creating effective poster representations of research. Design elements include fonts, color, white space, and graphics, and their effect on impact, appeal, and clarity. Workshop participants will create their own poster mock-ups.
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F5. Cyber Tutor Talk
Panel | Room: Chancellor East Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Cyber Tutor Talk: Extending the Conversation with 'Blogs and 'Books
Presenter(s): Sandee McGlaun, Melody Cotterill, Candace Cubera, Samantha Grillo, Mary Beth Johnson, Sarah Stack, Brian West Institution(s): North Georgia College and State University
To aid in assessment, many writing centers adopt tutoring journals as mechanisms of self-evaluation for tutors; to gain external feedback, we institute written evaluations of tutorial sessions. While these methods are beneficial, they have limitations. In this panel we explore the effects of adding two recent technologies to our evaluation repertoire: establishing a weblog tutoring journal and creating a writing center ?Facebook? account on our campus. What happens when we take the private space of the tutoring journal and turn it into a public weblog? How might an online journal facilitate conversation not only amongst the tutors within the host institution, but with tutors at other institutions as well? And what benefits and drawbacks are there in creating an uncontained, public evaluative space, such as the Facebook? We will reflect on these and other questions as we report on the effects of making our tutoring and learning process public.
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F6. Tutor/Faculty Collaboration
Panel | Room: Hill Ballroom (20) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Collaborating and Communicating: Tutors and Teachers in the Classroom
Presenter(s): Amy England, Eric Mast, Kyle Doan Institution(s): University of Cincinnati
Eric Mast is the Writing Center Coordinator for The Center for Access and Transition (CAT) at the University of Cincinnati. He will discuss tutor training and scheduling as well as collaborating with teachers in the classroom as well as the Writing Center. Dr. Amy England, Assistant Professor, will discuss tutor training and working with tutors in the classroom. Kyle Doan, Writing Center tutor, will provide the tutor's perspective on this collaborative relationship.
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F7. New Writing Center Challenges Post-Katrina
Panel | Room: Hill Ballroom (20) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Suddenly Marginalized: Transfer and Adult Students Help Focus Issues for Peer Tutors
Presenter(s): Kathi Griffin, Becky Lasoski, Anna Ellis, Yale Murphy Institution(s): Millsaps College
Due to its location in central Mississippi, this small private liberal arts college has become home to a number of transfer students from Tulane and Loyola Universities in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This influx of non-traditional students on our campus that largely serves a traditional, non-marginalized population prompted us to rethink how we approach challenges presented by sudden-transfer and non-traditional students in the writing center.
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F8. Online Tutoring: It Works!
Workshop | Room: Hill Ballroom (20) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Online Tutoring: It Works!
Presenter(s): Mickey Pellillo, Jennifer Gossler, Crystal White Institution(s): Bluefield College
For a small college of only 600-800 students, Bluefield College has had a very successful online tutoring program since 1997. We have paper submissions and revisions, tutor responses, anecdotal evidence, and statistics to demonstrate the effectiveness of online tutoring.
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F9. Writing Centers and Professional Legal Education
Panel | Room: Phillips Annex Second Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Centering Legal Writing: WAC/WID at the CUNY Law School
Presenter(s): Andrea McArdle, Sergio Gallegos, Fritz McDonald, Audrey Raden, Lori Wallach Institution(s): City University of New York School of Law
The School of Law at the City University of New York is the rare law school that participates in a cross-university Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing in the Disciplines (WAC/WID) initiative. Our principal vehicle for implementing WAC/WID is the Law School's Writing Center, and a challenge we face has been how to change both the perception and traditional function of a writing center, to refashion it from a site of remediation to a scaffold for professionalization. Our panel addresses the efforts of the Writing Center's staff to create a different model of a writing center, a multi-purpose resource for a law school community that includes but is not limited to writing tutorials. These activities illustrate the ways in which we now use the term "Writing Center" as a metaphor? for the centering of writing work at the Law School, and as the center of gravity for all the activities covered under the umbrella of WAC/WID? as much as for a description of a physical space.
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F10. Writing Center Alliances
Workshop | Room: Phillips Annex First Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Expanding Out of the Center: Researching Writing Center Alliances
Presenter(s): Rachel Greil, Bob Barrier, Mary Lou Odom Institution(s): Kennesaw State University
This workshop addresses tensions that can emerge among a writing center's need to build community and to build coalitions, its desire to maintain its own disciplinary and pedagogical convictions, and its dependence on other institutional relationships for support. We will explore how to address the financial and institutional pressures that challenge how writing centers respond to the evolving needs of a diverse student population.
Session G: Saturday 10:15am-11:30am
G1. Relationship Practice
Workshop | Room: Club (20-30) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Defining Successful and Pedagogically Sound Methods of Communication
Presenter(s): Heather Epes, Julie Wilson Institution(s): University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
In this interactive workshop, individuals will be given roles to play as teachers, tutors, and students. Each participant will employ a mode of relating and communicating with the other person or persons. After several skits, groups will then share their ideas in order to develop research driven questions and assess the possibilities for research that would help further define the concept of methodologies of relationship.
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G2. The Feminist Role of a Writing Center
Panel | Room: South (20-30) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: The (Feminist) Role of a Writing Center in a Changing University
Presenter(s): Emily Lindner, Beth Carroll, Bre Garrett, Beth Peddle Institution(s): Appalachian State University
This panel offers a feminist perspective on the writing center's role in a changing university. Using feminist models of writing center work, we explore the challenges of program development and the implementation of new services within institutional contexts that often run counter to (or seem resistant to) feminist politics and practices. Drawing on our experiences from the past year, we ask: What does it mean to be feminists working in a writing center? What kinds of consulting practices, rhetorical strategies, and problem-solving approaches are supported by feminist theories of learning, teaching, and administration? And how can answering these questions help feminists guide program development in a changing university? Offering four professional perspectives, we discuss ways to recognize the personal within the public and the creative within the conventional--how to operate and grow a center that offers our staff and clients the resources needed to satisfy institutional demands without compromising the free-thinking, empowering tenets of feminist politics and practice.
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G3. Writing Fellows
Panel | Room: North (50) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: A Researched Birth: How Good Research Helped Us Build a Peer Fellows Program
Presenter(s): Emily Dotson, Melissa Hudson, Stephanie Jolly, Chris Kaiser, Molly Smith, Anna Sewell, Elizabeth Morley Institution(s): University of Kentucky
The role of research is understood as vital in writing. We stress with our students the importance of valid, recent, relevant research to support their arguments and to justify their positions. Yet, as we discovered last summer when we began developing a peer fellow program at our university, good research is the key to successful academic programs as well. Drawing on resources from other universities, we were able to customize our own program and training. Now, in our first year, with six fellows from multiple disciplines in three writing courses, we are discovering again the importance of continuous research. Our best research comes from the fieldwork of our fellows. We imagine ourselves, even in this early stage of development, being able to add our own research about how we have solved student concerns, worked with instructors, and contributed to our students' understanding and appreciation for writing.
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G4. Writing Centers and WAC
Panel | Room: Alumni (50) | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Surviving the Storm: Negotiating Effective Shared Identities Between Writing Centers and WAC
Presenter(s):Karen Rowan, Michael Strickland Institution(s): Trinity University, Elon University
This presentation will examine collaborations between writing centers and writing-across-the-curriculum programs, with a particular focus on how such programs and their directors are institutionally situated. Though many scholars attend to the theoretical and pedagogical relationships between writing centers and WAC programs, far fewer have addressed how the ways such programs-and the people who direct them-are institutionally situated shape the ultimate success of writing center-WAC collaborations. Thus, the presenters will draw on original survey data to report on writing center and WAC program relationships and structures in the SWCA region. They will offer three case studies of writing center-WAC relationships that range from one person directing multiple programs, to conscious faculty/WPA collaboration and team-building, to hybrid program administration roles that make such collaboration difficult, though not impossible.
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G5. Personality Types in the Writing Center
Workshop | Room: Chancellor West Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: The Personality of Writing: Do Certain Personality Types Enjoy Greater Success in Writing?
Presenter(s): Christine Fudge, Judy Burges Institution(s): The Citadel
This workshop reviews sixteen personality profiles and presents research results that match the MBTI of 600-700 first-semester freshmen with their success rate in English 101. This workshop addresses how to identify various personality types, use that knowledge to help students produce their best writing, and alter teaching strategies to better-fit students' writing preferences.
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G6. Metaphors
Constructed Panel | Room: Chancellor East Ballroom | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Trixie Smith
Title of Presentation: Mapping the Writing Center: A Director in the Borderlands
Presenter(s): Noreen Lape Institution(s): Columbus State University
Existing between students and various academic sites, writing centers can challenge rigid boundaries. This presentation argues for the creative potential of existing on the limen by delineating the various border crossings of the Columbus State University Writing Centers: the CSU Writing Center's collaboration with the university library and involvement with the Center for Quality Teaching and Learning in creating opportunities for tutor training.
Title of Presentation: Metaphors for Writing, Tutoring, and the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Marlene Szymona Institution(s): North Carolina Wesleyan College
This research examines the metaphors that students who use the writing center use to describe their writing process as well as their tutoring sessions and the writing center in general. This information can be used to better understand student attitudes and perceptions about writing and tutoring and to improve instruction, center operations and image.
Title of Presentation: Renegotiating the Borderlands: Using Contact Zone Theory in the Writing Center
Presenter(s): Tanya McLaughlin Institution(s): Middle Tennessee State University
Using contact zone metaphors, writing center tutors can assist their students in grappling with difficult cultural issues. Differentiating fact from social construction can bring students to the realization that they have the power to choose for themselves the direction of their thoughts and their writing.
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G7. Outcomes-Based Assessment Strategies
Panel | Room: Phillips Annex Second Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Title of Presentation: Closing the Loop: Writing Center as Locus of Outcomes-Based University-Wide Assessment and Planning for Improved Teaching and Learning
Presenter(s): Deirdre Pettipiece-Ray, Linday Taylor, Michelle Hutchings Institution(s): Cheney University of Pennsylvania
Deirdre Pettipiece-Ray, Chair of Communications will discuss program design/development/proposal to Council of Trustees and Administration. Linda Taylor, Writing Program Administrator will discuss recruitment of writing-focused assessments across the disciplines and tutorial support for same. Michelle Hutchings, Student Writing Center coordinator, will discuss writing tutorial training in all disciplines and the student perspective of the four-year portfolio assessment plan. Etta Baldwin will discuss the practical aspects of budget allocation, hiring, professional, peer, and student tutorial staff and communication between same as well as between faculty and administration. First-year experience director will outline her plans to support and affirm writing done across the curriculum and first-year tutorial efforts in all areas. All will discuses long-term plans for revising programming efforts in light of the webfolio assessment.
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G8. ESL
Constructed Panel | Room: Phillips Annex First Floor | AV Setup: LCD Projector, Laptop, Screen, Overhead
Moderator: Robert Barrier
Title of Presentation: Investigating Intentional Learning Theories in the Writing Center: The Case of ESL Pedagogy
Presenter(s): Jerry Mwagbe Institution(s): Kennesaw State University
An individual presentation that considers the practice of intentional learning theories in writing center work and raises questions for further research.
Title of Presentation: Resisting the Urge to "Fix" What's Not Broken: How Writing Assistants Can Aid, Not Deter, Non-Native Speaking Students in Their Quest for a Voice
Presenter(s): Keri Mayes Institution(s): Middle Tennessee State University
To help NNS students master the English language, writing assistants should not assert a voice for them by "fixing" their writing. By offering language tools to improve their writing, hey can help NNS students articulate and enhance the voice they choose, a voice that embraces their total identity.