Praxis: A Writing Center Journal (20032011) Sections Focus Columns and Reviews Consulting Training News & Announcements
Home » Archives » Spring 2007 (Volume 4 Issue 2) - The Writing Center and the Classroom
From the Editors: The Writing Center and the Classroom Spring 2007 / Columns
Praxis looks at the writing center and the classroom
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In this issue on the writing center and the classroom, our articles overwhelmingly call attention to the hybrid forms emerging from meetings between these two sites of writing instruction. “Hybrid” is the keyword in our Focus section. In presenting research data from two composition classes featuring writing tutors, Holly Bruland argues that classroom-based tutoring (CBT) is a “hybrid genre,” with tutors moving from tasks traditionally associated with writing centers or classrooms into roles typical of neither traditional context. Steven Corbett’s article on the history of CBT provides helpful background for Bruland’s discussion by outlining the current theoretical and practical conversations about CBT. Melissa Tedrowe, associate director of the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, looks at another kind of “hybrid form” produced when writing centers offer composition classes of their own. This topic gets further treatment in later sections as well, in Lisa Leit, Michelle Lee, and Andrew Jones’ Column discussing classroom presentations offered by the Undergradute Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin, and in this month’s profile in Consulting of the University of Iowa Writing Center, which holds regular non-fiction and fiction-writing workshops. Rounding out the Focus section is an article on the Purdue Writing Center by Serkan Gorkemli and Tammy Conard-Salvo, who explore various types of professionalization in the writing center, including programs that integrate tutors’ academic pursuits and writing center responsibilities. Intersecting roles of tutor and student focus the contributions to our Consulting section. Lauren Shultz continues the discussion of CBT by sharing her experiences as an undergraduate “Writing Mentor.” Jennifer Kimball also reflects on experiences as an undergraduate tutor, concluding that writing centers and tutors alike can benefit from the sometimes difficult but ultimately rewarding combinations of roles enacted by peer tutors. Our Training section features two practical ideas for making writing centers more influential in classrooms. Gayla Mills argues the advantages of using a single writing handbook in all composition classes, and Andy Bourelle suggests requiring first-year composition students to visit the writing center. From undergraduate consultants to writing center directors to researchers of writing center theory, this issue’s authors provide an impressive range of perspectives on the writing center and the classroom. Reading through these perspectives, one sees that the writing center and the classroom meet in fascinatingly complex and fruitful ways.
‚ From Consulting to Mentoring: The Writing Center and the Classroom
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