How the Writing Center Changed My Writing Classroom

How the Writing Center Changed My Writing Classroom Sometimes I consider my path to teaching writing unique. After talking with adjunct colleagues, however, I discover I barely stand out. I didn’t get a degree in composition and rhetoric before I taught. Instead, I argue, I earned the degree after working in the writing center at one of my schools. The actual degree came later, yes, and through my coursework I found myself nodding in recognition. Much of what my professor taught I practiced without ever realizing it. The classroom remains the place of focus in scripting composition pedagogy, but I believe the writing center acts as the proving grounds. At my institution, adjuncts serve as writing tutors in the writing center. No doubt full-timers want to tutor, but contractual restrictions, numerous department meetings, and various other obligations make regular scheduling for them difficult. At the same institution, adjuncts teach over 50% of composition courses. And, like I said earlier, many of them followed a similar path to the desk at the front of the classroom. Before I taught, I earned an M.A. in Creative Writing. To this day, I cannot understand exactly why. No offense to my alma mater, but I didn’t learn much about creative writing I didn’t already know, and I wanted to teach. After a rather disheartening discussion with the program director intended to dissuade me from seeking a doctorate, I entered into my graduate studies in the hopes of teaching writing. In that program, few courses offered much insight into teaching writing. After publishing my first novel and submitting it as my thesis, I earned my degree, and wondered what to do next. A former undergrad professor told me to apply for adjunct positions. Ever the obedient student <ahem> I did exactly that. Two schools hired me. From what I could gather judging from the interview—often six of us at a time—the requirements were a degree and a pulse. Oh, and restraint in not going off on a rant about the process. That got one guy booted. This all happened over a decade ago. I still remember waking up in a cold sweat two nights before my first class, faced with the realization I knew nothing about teaching writing. After conquering this fear, I went about my business. The schools provided a textbook and a syllabus. The students supplied the attention. And I provided assignments. Looking back, I did a great job of assigning writing. Even in my naivete, I gave feedback and criticism. Not that I have papers from back then, but I remember my grading as fair and considerate. Writing always seemed sacred to me, and I treated it as such. My experience grew with each semester, as I discovered better assignments that elicited better writing from my students. Other professors observed my classes and offered advice on how to improve, all part of the process of growing as a professor of English, a teacher of writing. Funny, no one mentioned Harris, Bishop, Trimbur or Murray, or even suggested I read College Composition. Teaching a seven-course load between three schools made such extracurricular activity nearly impossible. I did manage to read an article here and there. I thought it helped. If nothing else, I found some alignment with some of the different schools of composition. Still, I hadn’t moved from assigning to teaching. One day, while in the adjunct area of a school I taught at which doubled as the writing center, I asked about the tutors. I’d spent some time listening to them engage with the students for almost a year, vulturing a few strategies here and there. Those tutors didn’t assign anything; they talked writing with their ‘clients’. This fascinated me. The writing center director told me adjuncts worked as tutors and asked if I was interested. I was too embarrassed to tell him I doubted I had the ability. Two weeks later, an eager pre-med student thrust a ten-page paper on Alzheimer’s disease in front of me. I read it. Chalk that up as step one. Of course, I read my students’ papers, but I didn’t read them. I find that a professor sometimes gleans their students’ papers much like a parent does their child’s. I don’t mean this as a power dynamic but instead, reading with an intention. Anyone who ever took a graduate course has learned how to skim. I knew the assignment I gave and what the expected results were. When reading the papers, I searched for the key elements and then worked on telling my students how to improve. With the Alzheimer’s paper, I didn’t have that pre-knowledge. The tutoring guidelines instructed me to interview the writer, ask her about the assignment and what her intentions were for the paper. While reading, I skipped over grammatical mistakes in the first pass because I wanted to know more about the paper itself. With the student reading along with me, I asked what certain concepts meant and what her intentions were for the piece. We engaged in a back and forth, and yes, I made corrections where appropriate, but did so wearily and made it clear to the writer that she could tell me when I made a contextual mistake. It must have all worked. She came back specifically to see me. She recommended others from her class do the same. Over time, I read papers across all disciplines, and realized I needed to shape my writing instruction toward those disciplines just as much as English. Working in the writing center changes how you grade papers. Usually, with my student papers, the margins are my space. The realm of literature and drama belong to me as well. I stand as the authority on Hamlet or Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Heck, for the latter, I wrote my dissertation on it; which of my students knows it better? For the medical or architectural papers I read in the writing center, I know little, and the writer guides me through unfamiliar terms. I’m there to help, to work side by side, to tread carefully and treat the writing as the sacred work I used to see it as. We talk writing from the ground up, and though I do this in lecture, it doesn’t come out the same. I needed to combine my ‘authority’ on writing with a certain curiosity about my students’ work. The writer in me needed to come out more, engage in discussions with my students instead of lectures more often than not. This revelation did not naturally come to me. Instead, it happened through two experiences that intersected the writing center and my classroom. First, a student of mine visited the writing center while I was there but not on schedule. Though I tried not to, I couldn’t help but listen in on the tutor’s interaction. I remembered the paper and my comments, and hearing the tutor guide my student through those comments, I realized how harsh they sounded. Remember, I always aimed for compassion. My words through the voice of the tutor sounded as though I put a magnifying glass on my student’s mistakes. When I spoke with the tutor—a friend of mine—afterward, I asked him about it. He said I gave good criticism but I dictated a bit too much. That stung. I didn’t initially agree, even after hearing how my commentary sounded. The second event cemented it for me. Another of my students came to the writing center, with only me on duty. It felt a little strange at first, guiding a student as a third party to the paper. My comments in the margin needed editing, I noticed, to offer more clarity. Through interaction, I gave my student a better indication of what I thought of the paper, good and bad. This was the second paper he handed in, and his first hadn’t improved much in the rewriting process. However, he intently listened as I walked him through his work. He told me what he wanted and intended, and I illustrated what his paper actually represented. I saw my circles and arrows and slashes and they all seemed to overwhelm the paper. Just as my student intended one thing with his writing and delivered another, I saw I did the same with my commentary. After conferring with me in the writing center, he submitted a vastly superior draft. And, to be clear, I did very little in the way of line-editing. I merely spoke to him about the assignment, about what he saw in the literature, and how best to convey that to a reader. Like I said, we spoke writing. The key to teaching writing lies within such a discussion with students. I’m not saying we need to work one on one with our students all the time. There are ways, however, where we can achieve this level of interaction. I now work with my students on their papers throughout the process, not just when the draft is handed in, asking questions regarding topics and their intentions. Through a series of mini-submissions, I use MS Word’s comment feature, helping them through the writing process. Rather than act as the authority on the subject of the paper, I treat each submission like a digital visit to the writing center. Imagining a discussion about the project, I offer insight and try to show my students what the words they produce conjure in a reader’s mind. Digitally, I talk writing with my students. Throughout all my writing experience, as a video games journalist, a customer service manager, an editor, and a co-author, the best writing has always come from talking shop with others. Now, I see that one of the cornerstones of teaching writing was something I had engaged in back then, writing discussions. Years later, after trudging through a doctoral program with heavy emphasis on teaching composition, I realize I worried way too much about sounding like I knew how to teach. The best lessons had come when I engaged in writing with others. When it comes to writing instruction, how we sound certainly has bearing on our students. We don’t need to sound authoritative; most students attribute this to us before we even utter a word. I don’t intend to wade into the power dynamic debate or political waters here, but instead merely suggest that working in the writing center for the past decade-plus, immersing myself in the process of writing, writing I have not assigned, has given me new perspective on how to teach. I highly recommend all professors take a turn, if for no other reason than to remind themselves of the process, and the effect of conversations with students about writing. Through these discussions, we can cross disciplines, languages, codes, and find a path to better writing instruction.