Silencing the Dissertation Demons

Jennifer Marciniak – Assistant Director of the Virtual Writing Center

As a PhD candidate I have a lot of demons. For the majority of my doctoral career they have been there. They come to me in the form of voices –professors, colleagues, family members, even people who have no idea what it takes to undergo such a momentous task as a doctorate. Usually these voices are picking away at the back of my brain reminding me: “Only a week left before the rough draft is due, what the hell are you doing watching another episode of The Walking Dead when you have nothing for your lit review!?”  These voices started popping up during the initial two years of coursework. These annoying, lizard-tongued declarations always found me during that final push before the final papers were due. And they were loud. Overbearing. And, sometimes, overwhelming.

Even so, those seminar class demons do not hold a candle to those presently lording over my dissertation. As I begin this foray into the prospectus, which is the proposal or introduction to the dissertation, these demons are much nastier, and seemingly much less controllable. I say this because a dissertation is nothing like a seminar paper. You are not bound by (significant) deadlines like in a seminar class. Therefore, it can be much more difficult for people like me who need structure to hold themselves accountable. These demons are not harping on about deadlines. That’s small potatoes. These voices are a lot more destructive and vicious, creeping around in your psyche as you battle writer’s block saying, “You have no idea what you are doing. What are you even doing in this program? You are a complete failure.” And I can tell you from experience – and the blank pages that should be my prospectus – that it is hard to listen to this rhetoric and not start believing it.

So, I started looking for help. What I found is that I am not alone with dealing with these demons. I knew that to a certain extent, though.  I am part of a cohort of seven doctoral candidates dealing with the same issues, but it’s nice to see it in writing that you are not a complete botch on the academic landscape (like my demons tell me every day). The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill has resources for dissertation writers like me who need some consolation during this mammoth undertaking. One of the most beneficial resources they offer is a handout called “Silencing Your Inner Critic.” The information provided was a bit shocking – it was like they had a microphone inside my head and were recording the demon voices as they ridiculed me mercilessly. I think many writers going through a similar situation would benefit from an understanding voice, so I thought I would share this self-help resource here. It starts out with questions and bulleted “critic” voices. While UNC-Chapel Hill uses “critic,” I changed it to “demon,” as I thought it more appropriate for the way I hear them in my head:

What is your demon’s greatest fear?

• That you’ll sound dumb
• That you’ll disappoint a mentor
• That you are an academic impostor
• That you are not enough of a genius
• That you won’t get a job
• That you’re missing something within yourself (you aren’t talented enough)
• That you’re missing something in the research (you didn’t find the famous article)
• That you’re not worthy to make your claim
• That your idea isn’t significant enough

When does your demon speak most often?

• While you are writing
• Before you sit down to write
• After you’ve drafted something
• While you are doing things unrelated to your project
• Anytime, anywhere

Whose voice does your demon resemble?

• A parent
• A teacher
• A smarty pants

I originally put an asterisk (*) by the bullet points that I hear most often from my demons, but realized afterward that I put an asterisk after every single one of them. So I deleted them. My demons pop up to tell me how much I suck as a doctoral student pretty much all the time. When I am washing dishes, cleaning out the closets, folding laundry. I am constantly thinking about writing, but also constantly battling reasons why I can’t sit down and do it. Because of whom my demon voices resemble, I am shell-shocked into silence because of the fear of sounding dumb, disappointing people, and basically being inadequate. But what now? UNC- Chapel Hill does not leave you hanging. They provide do-it-yourself questions to help you battle these demons:

• Where might constructive criticism help you in the writing process?  Who might you consult for constructive criticism and when might you schedule that consultation?
• In what other situations does your demon speak up?  How do you respond to your demon in those instances and move forward?
• What might you say back to your demon when he/she pipes up?

While I will not divulge what I say to my demons (it’s inappropriate for a public forum), I think there is definitely something to be said for consulting someone outside of your committee for assistance. Many university writing centers offer dissertation workshops, or “boot camps,” that aim to get participants on a schedule. The overall goal is to jump start the dissertation and get the participant writing while providing simultaneous feedback. Some workshops are designed for those who are just starting the dissertation, while others are for those who are finishing up and need support with chapter revisions. Other workshops are designed to assist participants throughout an entire semester, sometimes two semesters, providing a more rigid schedule, as well as communal feedback.

The University of Louisville Writing Center held its first dissertation writing “retreat” in May 2012. I was one of the writing center consultants working with participants finishing their dissertations. For five days I worked with two doctoral candidates on chapter revisions. It was exhausting work, but at the end of the week there was significant progress. And, reportedly, a silencing of the participants’ own demon voices.  Since the retreat was so successful, The University of Louisville Writing Center will offer its second dissertation writing retreat in May 2013. The retreat, which caters to students from all disciplines, allows students to write, revise, and rework their dissertation chapters during the course of each day. Participants also have the benefit of one-on-one help with a writing center tutor as well as group activities with other participants. Those interested in participating in the workshop must have an approved dissertation proposal or prospectus, completed (or nearly completed) the data material gathering process, the approval of their dissertation advisor, and the commitment to writing each of the five days of the retreat. Applications for the retreat must include a copy of the proposal or prospectus, a one-page cover letter indicating why the retreat will be beneficial, and a letter of support from a faculty advisor. Deadline for applications is April 1, 2013.

For more helpful (and encouraging) tips from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill Writing Center like “Silencing Your Inner Critic,” visit their website.

All’s Fair in Love and the Writing Center: Adapting to Unfamiliar Genres

Michelle Day, Consultant

At the Writing Center, we always say that we will work on any type of writing. Once, that even meant working on a love letter.

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I have been hoping I might get to tutor another lovestruck student (no luck yet). But I am now realizing that, having never read, received, or composed a love letter, I have little context for the conventions of that writing genre: how it should be organized, how it should be formatted (do college sweethearts expect a “Works Cited” page?).

Affectionate missives are not the only genre my Writing Center colleagues and I have little experience with. So why do we always ask clients to bring in anything and everything they’ve written and want help with? And how do we navigate unfamiliar genre waters?

Here, I’d like to draw on the expertise of some of my fellow consultants’ blog posts to show how I might approach tutoring a student on composing written declarations of love.

• On January 22, Scott Lasley wrote about the importance of consultants seeking to learn from a tutoring session, rather than just teach. By being curious and willing to learn, he says, “we not only see what other writers are doing, but we also open our minds and by extension, our writing, to new areas of intellectual exploration.
• On January 28, Katelyn Wilkinson wrote a post about how consultants who aren’t “creative writers” can still provide helpful feedback to clients who want to work on a poem, short story, or other creative work. She suggests that tutors first establish the goals of the writer for the piece and give feedback on specific places that do or don’t work toward those goals.
• On February 4, Lauren Short argues that “just as we have a closet for getting dressed, we also have an arsenal of skills for writing papers.” She encourages writers to experiment with different techniques, genre, and language in order to find a unique writing style—a process we at the Writing Center would love to be a part of.

All of my co-workers’ advice plays into how I would approach tutoring a client on a love letter. Like Katelynn suggests, I would need to first know the client’s goals for the letter. Does the writer want the letter to sound polished and formal or more conversational? Does the writer know if the recipient reciprocates his/her feelings? How vulnerable is the writer willing to be? What is the ultimate message (besides love) that he/she wants to communicate? Asking those questions about rhetorical purpose can give me a framework for evaluating whether specific parts of the letter are working toward that purpose.

Second, I would need to take Lauren’s advice and hep the writer to work within his/her personal strengths and style. Writing in a way that makes the writer feel comfortable would be essential to drafting a heartfelt, natural letter, rather than one that sounds forced and uncomfortable. And, identifying some of the writer’s strengths might help him/her play to those strengths on future writing assignments.

Finally, I would need to remember to learn from and listen to the client. Pretending like I have a complete grasp on all genres of writing wouldn’t make me any more familiar with how to write love letters. So, it would be important for me to focus on my own strengths—examining the rhetorical effects of certain ways of writing—and let the writer be the expert on what the end product should look like

 

This is a much oversimplified version of the process we go through to provide assistance on unfamiliar genres, and there are likely a lot of other strategies consultants use. How do you approach tutoring on a piece of writing you’re not accustomed to reading or writing?

The Rhetoric of Style: Writing is Like Getting Dressed in the Morning

Lauren Short, Consultant

You greet the day with panic because you overslept. Again. All that matters now is grabbing your things and making your way out the door looking reasonably presentable to society. Even though you may be thinking to yourself, “I have nothing to wear,” you somehow find a few articles that do the trick. When it comes to drafting a paper, a panic similar to a missed alarm can be so overwhelming that you think, “I have nothing to write,” but you shouldn’t feel pressure to create your magnum opus the first time. When it comes to writing (and getting dressed in the morning) you don’t have to reinvent the wheel–follow a formula that works for you and feel free to throw on an unexpected accessory once in a while.

While at the university, generally everyone has to wear a top, bottoms, and shoes (or at least one would hope). A typical paper includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. Though forms of style and styles of writing will differ within specific contexts, you get the basic idea. If you’ve got an outline to work from, the next step is easy. What really makes our work special is the extras that we use to define ourselves, our style, if you will, just as each person has a distinguishing characteristic about his or her choice in dress. If you’re not sure what your strengths are as a writer, feel free to ask! Ask your friends, family, professors, or your trusty neighbors at the writing center. Realizing that you have something unique about your writing, be it your indelible voice, your penchant for creating an organized paper, or your strength for research.

Recently, a student came in hoping I could help check over his paper before he turned it into class. From the get-go, I noticed that he had an unmistakable colloquial voice about his writing. While some of his paragraph structures needed work and he needed to find relevant research to validate his claims, I was taken with the way he could turn a common phrase and make it sound appropriate for an academic paper. Some of his words needed updating, but for the most part, I didn’t want him to lose his voice. This student’s voice was like a perfectly-tied bow tie upon his paper.

Another student needed help brainstorming for an upcoming paper and seemed desperate to lock down a thesis statement. Her sources were in order, her notes were organized, and she was able to answer all of my questions, indicating that she knew what she wanted to write, but was afraid it would all come out wrong. Since this student had indicated her skills for organization, I tried to steer her in the direction of asking questions that would answer her writing prompt. We made a few organized lists that detailed what she wanted to express and were able to cross out extraneous details until we were left with a few concise statements to form a thesis. This student’s organizational intuition was a polished pair of pearl earrings to pull together the rest of her ideas.

The overarching message here is that just as we have a closet for getting dressed, we also have an arsenal of skills for writing papers. One man’s strength is another’s weakness, so it just takes practice to determine what you need to work on and what you need to highlight in your writing. Remember that just like personal style, writing can be fun! Let it be the place where you show off your knowledge, entertain a crowd, or move someone to tears. Once you get the basics, feel free to play around a little. Write in a format you’ve never experienced before. Try coming from a different perspective. Mess with language. Because if we conform to a prescribed popular notion of what writing is, we will never develop anything new. Create a style all your own–and if you need any help along the way, you know where to find us…

Critiquing Creative Writers for Those Who Are Not

Katelyn Wilkinson, Consultant

While we advertise help for any kind of writing, be it an essay, resume or co-op report, students often overlook the Writing Center as a place that offers creative feedback as well. Recently, I have noticed a surge of fiction and poetry, both assigned and not, in consultations. As a creative writer myself, these pieces have been both a joy and a challenge to provide feedback for. For some of my fellow consultants these sessions may offer more challenge than joy, however, as I have often overheard them recommending students make appointments with other consultants more creatively-inclined. I realize creative writing isn’t for everyone; still, it is not impossible for those who don’t consider themselves creative writers to offer feedback on such pieces.

As academic writers themselves, all consultants are familiar with reading and critiquing academic essays. However, not every consultant is a creative writer or familiar with giving feedback to one. Given how many different genres and styles of creative writer there are, it can be difficult for even those who term themselves “creative writers” to give feedback to pieces outside of their chosen genre. I have found this to be true as a poet trying to advise students who are writing longer works of fiction. I will be the first to admit that not every session has gone perfectly – some feel more like trial-by-error – but after working consecutively with several different students, I have identified two different things that should be kept in mind in order to get the most out of creative sessions. Since many of these works must be digested in a short period of time, I think these suggestions are helpful for not only consultants who are unfamiliar with reading creative work, but students who might find themselves in peer-response situations as well.

Establish the goals of the writer.
There are many different ways you can approach a creative piece; you might dive straight in to the text, or pause to talk to the author before the reading even begins. Since most of the consultations I’ve had have dealt with works in progress, I find myself doing the latter more often than not. I find this helpful because it allows me to ask the student what I consider the most important question about the piece – What are your goals? What are you trying to achieve with this work? This is especially important to establish with pieces that do not come with an assignment or prompt from a teacher. As a consultant or a peer-reviewer, I have found it just as helpful to go into a creative piece knowing what the author wants to achieve as it is to know the prompt for an academic paper. From there, it’s easier to discuss the nitty-gritty things such as character development, point of view, dialogue, and other sentence-level issues, as well as keep the session on track so the student can get the most out of their time.

Be conscious of how you’re critiquing.
Creative writing is an extremely personal endeavor, and for many students it’s hard to share such work let alone subject it to criticism. With creative pieces especially, the line between author and narrator is often blurred, so it’s important to not conflate the two; the thoughts and experiences of one don’t necessarily belong to the other. Keeping that in mind, anyone reading creative work should also be careful to balance negative and positive feedback while remaining honest as a reader. It helps to be specific about what works and what doesn’t in a piece, as well as what could be done to strengthen the work. For example, rather than saying “you need to work on your dialogue,” pull out a specific moment in the piece that seems weak and talk about different ways the student might strengthen that moment.

Finally, it is important to remember that your opinion as the reader is subjective, and critiquing creative writing isn’t as black and white as identifying a comma splice in an academic paper and showing a student how to fix it. In my creative writing sessions, I repeatedly remind students that everything I say is simply my opinion; I find this takes the pressure and frustration off of them to feel like they must make every change I suggest. Students should remember that they, as the author, always have the final word on their piece.

A Two-Way Street: Learning from Clients in the Writing Center

Scott Lasley, Consultant

With my first semester at the writing center complete, I call up the images of all the students I’ve worked with and surprisingly, find more faces of science and business students than English major students.  In the few months of my infancy as a writing consultant, it was especially daunting to work almost exclusively with students in fields of engineering, business, and chemistry because what could this lowly English student help with outside of mundane grammatical and surface-level concerns?  This sentiment was a mere manifestation of my “newness” anxiety that was barely a whisper by the end of the first month.  I became entranced with what work the non-English major students brought in to the writing center.  I found myself learning ideas and concepts that I never dreamed would cross my path from deformable models regarding imaging software to simpler things like how to write business letters and memos.  It was as if I had become the student, my eyes wide as I listened to the teacher inform me of some new piece of knowledge. 

I remember reading a student assignment about some new findings regarding a hominid species that supported the possibility of co-evolution in Southeast Asia.  Staring down at the pages of pictures and blocks of text on this new hominid, I found myself getting lost in the circled and highlighted prints and lines, entranced by the unexpected nature of this newly found knowledge.  What if it were true?  What if this changed our very understanding of world?  Dramatic, I know, but being presented with something I had never considered or even thought of made such findings like a stop sign of sorts in that I must wait and take notice of what lies in front of me.  Even though I knew next to nothing about evolutionary studies, I could not help but absorb all that could from what I saw, like a young boy does when listening to his father.  I craved to know more and found myself taking mental notes of names like homo floresiensis and co-evolution as I worked through the session.  As I sat down in front of my computer after the session, I quickly brought up Google, typing my mental notes into the slender search bar, excited less by what I may or may not find and more by the shear possibilities of what might be found.

This experience, like many others so far while working at the writing center, has demonstrated the importance of consultants not only tutoring and teaching students in order to help them become better writers, but learning from them as well.  That’s not to say that we have to play the role of the engaged student or that we will always enjoy and want to know about what our clients are working on.  Desire and curiosity have their limits.  However, by being intellectually curious of the world outside the English department, we not only see what other writers are doing, but we also open our minds and by extension, our writing, to new areas of intellectual exploration.

Teaching Practices in the Writing Center: Looking Forward

Amy Nichols, Consultant

More than a year ago, I took my first glance at the University of Louisville website. I remember being enthusiastic, as a former professor had recommended the program as one which might match well with my interests. I looked over the application and the professors in the department, but what really caught my eye was the description of the graduate assistantships for M.A. students: “Until they have completed eighteen hours of graduate work in English, M.A. GTAs are assigned to the University Writing Center.” As a student deeply interested in writing pedagogy, both in writing centers and in the classroom, this requirement crystallized my interest in the program; however, I still had some reservations. Would I be able to make a successful transition into the first year composition classroom in the second year of my M.A.? Would one year of classroom experience give me a strong enough C.V. to apply for other teaching jobs in the future?  

While I won’t begin teaching in the classroom until next fall, I can sense many of my questions already being answered through my interactions with students and assignments from a broad swathe of disciplines. As a consultant who students view as an ‘outsider’ not involved with the class or the professor, I have been able to watch them react to a variety of assignments, and to observe instructions and prompts which might engender interest or confusion. In addition, I have had to constantly refine and diversify my approaches to explaining any given assignment, seeing what methods help clarify the finer points in the art of academic writing.

Beyond these hands-on, writing-related experiences, there have also been moments when I have had to help students understand the college writing culture. When students begin with “I’m not sure what my professor means by…” our conversations often move beyond the piece of writing itself. I sometimes find myself becoming a sort of cultural guide for students learning to navigate in the world of academia; how to ask for clarification on assignments, how to request a meeting with a professor, and other elements of the communal life of the university often directly correlate to writing what might seem like a simple response paper. These conversations have made me remember my own experience as a first-generation student at a small liberal arts university, learning what Ruby Payne might call the “hidden rules” of college life – rules which might seem extra-textual, but which are critical to the success of any piece of writing (and success overall) in the world of academia. 

Perhaps these observations are obvious; all writing is produced within specific contexts for specific audiences. But the position of writing center consultant sits at a strange intersection in the university: some liminal space apart from classrooms, professors, deadlines, and disciplines, and yet intricately connected to all of these things.  Without this direct experience at the writing center – that is, without getting involved on a deeper level in that interplay between individual and community which we call collegiate writing – I cannot imagine myself seeing the same set of needs in my future students or setting the same kinds of specific goals for my pedagogy moving forward. As I move into my second semester of tutoring, I can honestly say I would not have wanted my assistantship to begin in any other way.

Back to Work in the Writing Center

Adam Robinson, Associate Director

We enter this Spring semester with incredible momentum.  Last Fall, we increased our number of consultations (we did 2587 appointments!—200 more than last Fall) as well as our number of in-class workshops (we gave over a 100—almost double from last Fall).  And as usual, our online exit surveys showed high praise from the writers who worked with us.

Traditionally, the Spring semester is slower than the Fall—fewer students are enrolled, activity on campus is slower, etc.  But we have reason to believe that this Spring may be our busiest Spring yet.  In the Fall, we reached out to a number of student services offices and programs, such as TRIO, Family Scholar House, the Cultural Center, and Undergraduate Advising.  I once worked as an academic counselor for U of L’s College of Arts and Sciences, so I know firsthand the incredible impact and influence these offices have on the students who frequent them.  Sometimes students don’t feel comfortable asking their professors for help, but those same students will talk to their advisors and mentors.  For example, last October, I attended a college fair for the Family Scholar House, a support service for single-parent students.  The fair was held at one of the Family Scholar House residence locations, which allowed me to have informal conversations with the students in the program.  Many told me that they knew about the WC but didn’t feel comfortable visiting—some didn’t want to ask for help, others were afraid of criticism.  Being able to talk to them in a non-institutional space made a big difference.   Those working in these programs understand that too—that students need not just information but encouragement seek out help from professors and campus resources.  Our plan is to continue to build partnerships like these.

We have some side projects to work on this Spring, too.  U of L has begun migrating its website to a newer version of Plone (our content management software), a move that will afford all departments and offices more freedom to design custom sites.  We hope we can design a site that meets both the needs of our U of L community members as well as the needs of other Writing Center community members who may visit our site.  And while May is a ways away, we are gearing up for our second Dissertation Writing Retreat (check out our May 30, 2012 blog to learn about our first retreat).  The first one was a great success, and we’ve already received inquiries from interested students who have begun writing their dissertations.

Our main goal, however, is to keep offering excellent tutoring and response to students, staff, and faculty.  I want to personally thank Ashly Bender, Alex Bohen, Nancy Bou Ayash, Sam Bowles, Daniel Conrad, Michelle Day, Tika Lamsal, Scott Lasley, Brit Mandela, Jennifer Marciniak, Amy Nichols, Meagan Ray, Lauren Short, Mandi Strickland, and Katelyn Wilkinson.  Their excellent work is why writers keep coming back for help and why those same writers leave with smiles on their faces.  I’m happy to see all of our consultants again after a long break, and I’m equally excited to see some of our regular clients already returning this year.  And of course, I eagerly await the opportunity to see some new faces too—and hope they become familiar faces.

I want to wish Bronwyn Williams, our director, the best of luck on his Fulbright—he’ll be in England for six months doing important research on literacy.  That leaves me in charge of this place. So perhaps then, a personal goal is to not screw anything up!  I look forward to the challenge.

Finally, I want to send my sympathies to Dr. J Blaine Hudson’s family.  Dr. Hudson served U of L for many years as a professor in the Pan African Studies Department and more recently as the Dean in the College of Arts Sciences.  He died on Saturday, January 5.  Dr. Hudson leaves behind an incredible legacy not only at U of L but also in the Louisville community where he worked tirelessly for others.

World Majority Students and Writing Center Practices

Tika Lamsal, Assistant Director of Graduate Student Writing

Working at the writing center with a wide range of writers from domestic to international students (whom I call world majority students, following Fox, 1994 – see Listening to the World for details), I have had an opportunity to broaden my tutoring experiences in a different way than by teaching various English courses. A face-to-face consultation with writers, although similar to other conferences and peer review sessions with students in class, has provided me with more confident communicative moments I share with other writers. Having to understand writers’ concerns and prioritize agendas based on their interests and needs seems more meaningful than doing guesswork on my part for their writing. More meaningful than these, however, are the learning moments from the writing of students that hail mostly from different rhetorical traditions, language and cultural backgrounds. Writing traditions vary and differ in various cultures; writings don’t get less sophisticated or more advanced depending on which part of the globe they originate from; writing styles simply are different and have different rhetorical values. These ideas have reinforced as I continue to work with more world majority students at the writing center.

An international graduate student, for example, couldn’t understand why she had to avoid the lengthy background she had provided before she even touched on the key issue or idea in her article. She also seemed surprised when I suggested during a consultation that it was okay to use “I”, and active voice structures in her paper, although it was a formal research project. We first had to talk about different rhetorical choices used in the context of her home country before moving to the nuts and bolts of academic writing in US universities. Similarly, another world majority writer found a natural way of communicating and “adding flavor” to her academic writing by peppering her words and even sentence structures occasionally with her native language expressions.

These are only two of the scores of other examples in daily tutoring situations when we encounter different ways of writing, especially through the works of world majority students. Initiating a dialogue during writing consultation, I have found most of the world majority students well prepared to share their past cultural and academic experiences, which communicate to us a useful conceptualization about the ways they write or the rhetorical styles they choose. What they need for such a dialogic initiation is our attention or care to their experiences. For instance, when I open the conversation with my own experiences of working with differences in writing, the writers seem very intent on bringing in their own experiences in a suggestive and helpful way for me to devise my tutoring strategies. Once they get to know the differences, the world majority students are more likely than before to understand and work towards changing their writing style in order to meet their assignment expectations, despite the difficulty they face in the beginning to adopt new academic conventions. This interactive way of consulting has helped me not only learn about different rhetorical strategies underlying the writing of world majority students but also refine and solidify my own tutoring practices. Meanwhile, majority of the issues writers want to work on during most of the sessions happen to be similar ones, irrespective of writers’ positions as domestic or world majority students. When working with graduate students in both HSC and Belknap, for example, I come across similar concerns or issues of academic writing, such as grammar, nuances of research writing, transition, consistency of verb tenses, etc., that students ask for help.

However, while most of the writing issues may be commonly resolvable and negotiable when working with both domestic and world majority writers depending on the nature of writing, cultural and language contexts inevitably trickle in the writing of the latter as we deal with global level concerns. Since it seems unimaginable to generalize students’ writing strategies based on the regions or countries of origin, it becomes viable to start with a general conversation about how the students are accustomed to writing, what course expectations they have for the assignment, and how the students can work towards meeting those expectations. Being attentive to their specific cultural and academic contexts, we can work together with world majority students to help them produce meaningful writing and academically succeed in the university. With their understanding of how variety of languages and cultures can influence their writing styles, most of the world majority students seem to be more than willing to learn new writing conventions in order to both gain knowledge and succeed in their programs. I continue to learn from those teachable moments in the writing center.

Learning about Responsive Practices from the University Writing Center

Nancy Bou Ayash, Assitant Director

I had initially imagined that my writing center work, particularly the weekly fifty-minute consultation sessions, wouldn’t be any different from the countless one-on-one conferences I’ve had with my college writing students and workshopping sessions in peer writing groups.  I admittingly expected my writing center pedagogy to be completely informed by (and never informing) my so-called student-centered teaching approaches.  Looking back at my teaching role and what I had then perceived as student-centered practices, I prided myself on creating spaces for empowering writers to experiment with unfamiliar genres and writing styles and to consider alternative rhetorical decisions and options.  At that time, little did I know that beneath the veneer of student-centered discourse, my own words about effective writing and rhetorical practices and productive revision plans remained unquestioned, nonnegotiable, and always in the very center of every composing and re-composing process.

Over the course of this semester at the writing center, I had come to realize how much I had become engaged and concerned not only with written texts but even more with the resourceful writers and creative designers behind them.  I had come to discover a once forgotten interest in issues critical to my students’ sense of self and lived realities, issues that I had initially overlooked or had hoped would remain unarticulated in a traditional classroom setting under the excuse that there are always more important learning outcomes to tap into and academic writing skills to develop.  My consultation sessions had rekindled my ability to move beyond my impractical teacherly categories of students in terms of ability and performance and of their written texts into binaries of standard vs. nonstandard compositions.  As I worked closely with both graduate and undergraduate students from across the disciplines, I listened to them with care as they expressed their aspiration to join their dream professions in a capitalist global market and enhance their career prospects, efforts that they saw as largely contingent on their mastery of academic writing conventions and on the kind of guidance we can offer in the writing center as they moved towards those goals.  

As we teased out in every single session the specificities of the social, economic, cultural, and linguistic realities and relations that they wished to maintain, rewrite, or revise in their textual and discursive decisions and choices, I had started to re-envision my writing center clients as always thinking, living, and composing through global-local scenes.  My newly acquired writing center pedagogy had taken precedence over the pedagogical approaches I’d developed over the years in intervening in the dominant politics of language through foregrounding the intricate relationship between specific instances of languaging, writing, thinking, and living.  As our clients’ stories continue to rapidly and radically change in light of current economic and geopolitical pressures, new linguistic and cultural realities, and emerging multiliteracies, I cannot help but wonder to what extent are we adequately changing our own stories about language, learning, literacy, and identity? 

I look forward to yet another exciting day with another writer, a different text, and a new story that will continue to unsettle and complicate my preconceived perceptions and categories about writing, writers, and texts.  As my clients continue to read their writings aloud while, at times, laughing at their self-acknowledged errors, with a sigh of “I can’t believe I didn’t even notice that,” I will surely be having more of those ‘aha’ learning moments of my own.

What my psychologist taught me about the Writing Center…

Sam Bowles, Consultant

I recently had an encounter that really helped me understand and appreciate the experience clients visiting the Writing Center often have.

I have always been a student looking to take advantage of the full range of services offered on a college campus. I always get my flu shots. I have participated in group exercise classes and in fitness assessment and planning programs. I have even regularly scheduled massages when they are being offered through campus health services. So when I was starting to get stressed out a few months ago, signing up for an appointment with a psychologist (another free service provided to students) made perfect sense.

I went into my first 50 minute session (coincidentally the exact length of the sessions we offer in our Writing Center), fully expecting that I would lay out my problems, the things that were causing me to stress or worry, and then I could sit back and let the psychologist—the professional—do the rest. He would identify my problems, the root of them in particular, and then tell me the fixes for them. I was in for a surprise, though. The session didn’t exactly go as I had planned.

He asked a lot of questions. It seemed as though every time I presented something I thought needed work, every time I laid something out wanting him to tell me the solution, he responded by asking more questions of me. “Well, what do you think?” “Why do you think that makes you feel that way?” “How do you think you could make that part of your life less stressful and therefore more enjoyable?”

In all honesty, I started to get a little frustrated. This session was requiring a lot more thinking and work on MY part than I had expected. After all, HE was the professional, not me. It was in the middle of that first session that I had an epiphany: I looked up at my psychologist and said, “Oh my gosh, this is like the Writing Center for my life.” He was a little confused at first, but I explained.

I ultimately came to thoroughly appreciate the methods of my psychologist and found our sessions to be very valuable. He equipped me and empowered me to identify and deal with the stressors my life. But that initial session finally enabled me to fully empathize with the experience of many writers when they visit the Writing Center for the first time.

All of us who work in the Writing Center have observed the frustration of clients who come in with expectations and pre-conceived notions of what they think we do and how they think we do it. It’s not at all unusual for clients to think they will present their papers, and we—the professionals—will fix them while they sit back and watch. It’s not at all unusual for clients to become frustrated when, instead, they are met with probing questions and challenges to think deeper. However, just as my psychologist demonstrated patience with me as I came to understand the process, I often have to be patient with clients as they wrap their minds around our methods. We want, as our mantra goes, not only to fix a given paper but to improve the individual writers with whom we work, but we cannot forget to empathize with clients as we help them understand not just how we do what we do but also why we do it that way.