Writing Centers
This page guides you to resources that will help you establish a
writing center, including advice for building collaborative relationships with
teachers in the other content areas, college English and education departments,
and volunteers for your high school center.
Position Statements and Guidelines
On
Writing Centers, 1987
On
Composing with Nonprint Media, 2003
On
Computers in English and Language Arts, 1983
On
Electronic Online Services, 1995
NCTE/IRA
Standards for the English Language Arts
See especially numbers
1, 4, 5, 7, 8
SLATE Starter
Sheets
Writing
Centers
NCTE Assemblies
International
Writing Centers Association (IWCA)
Basic Steps
for Starting a Writing Center, a resource from IWCA
NCTE Catalog
The High
School Writing Center: Establishing and Maintaining One
Pamela B. Farrell, editor
Practical "how-to" information on establishing
a writing center and monitoring its daily operation is packed into Farrell's
work. Twenty-two articles focus on topics such as training professional and
student staff, techniques for working with student clients, and incorporation of
electronic writing tools.
178pp. 1989. ISBN 0-8141-2118-7. No. 21187.
Computers in the
Writing Classroom
Dave
Moeller
In a few brief years, the end
products of academic writing have evolved from typed versions of handwritten
manuscripts to the polished, professional-looking texts of the word processor.
For all students, the ability to write, to use a word-processing program, and to
unite the two skills in a synergistic blend of form and content has become a key
factor in achieving academic success. In Computers in the Writing Classroom,
Dave Moeller presents teachers with a framework for helping them help students
achieve this success. Divided into two parts, this book provides teachers with
guidance for incorporating computers into the writing classroom and for making
computers the essential tool for writing and writing instruction. Part I
discusses the theoretical underpinnings of computer-assisted writing
instruction, and Part II features a compilation of practical suggestions for
teaching writing with computers, including a wide assortment of writing lessons
specifically designed to exploit the more writer-friendly features of the word
processor.
Theory and Research Into Practice (TRIP) series.
93 pp. 2002.
Grades 9–12. ISBN 0-8141-0828-8. No. 08288
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the Table of Contents
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a Chapter Online
Weaving a
Virtual Web: Practical Approaches to New Information
Technologies
Sibylle Gruber, editor
In
Weaving a Virtual Web, Sibylle Gruber has gathered 20 essays by teachers who
actively use the Web with their students. The contributors explore a broad range
of topics, including how the Web increases students' ownership of their learning
and promotes empowerment; how technology affects the messages we send and
receive; how the Web facilitates communication, both within and beyond
individual classrooms; and how the Web helps students focus on the concept of
audience.
326 pp. 2000. Grades 6–College. ISBN 0-8141-5649-5.
No. 56495
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a Sample Chapter/Article
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a Sample Table of Contents
Teaching Writing
in High School and College: Conversations and
Collaborations
Thomas C. Thompson, editor.
What’s the
difference between a high school senior and a first-year college student? In
terms of age, study skills, and writing ability, not much. But in terms of
teacher expectations and student freedom and responsibility, the differences can
be huge. Because all too often high school teachers don’t talk with their
college counterparts—and vice versa—high school teachers sometimes give their
students well-intentioned but inaccurate advice about what to expect in college,
and those at the college level sometimes harbor unrealistic expectations of
their newest students. What can teachers do to prepare high school students to
write effectively in college? Thomas C. Thompson has compiled an illuminating
collection of encouraging narratives and studies suggesting that
secondary–postsecondary partnerships and exchanges can significantly improve
students’ ability to succeed at college-level writing tasks. The obstacles to
cross-grade discussions and collaborations are numerous, but, as the
contributors attest, so are the benefits. In these essays, you will
encounter
- two teachers who reflect on the rewards and challenges of
teaching a college course to high school students
- a college professor who struggles through a semester of
teaching high school English, arriving at a new appreciation of both high school
teachers and students
- high school seniors who learn to discriminate among conflicting
advice on their papers as college students work to provide helpful, balanced
criticism for these young writers
- high school students whose journal entries reveal their
reactions to having a college professor grade their papers, written to
college-level specifications
If you want to find out more about students’ writing experiences
before they reach your classroom or after they leave, you need only listen to
their former or future teachers. Reading this collection will give you a window
onto the experiences of high school and college teachers who are actively
working together to improve their students’ chances of writing successfully in
college.
243pp. 2002. ISBN 0-8141-0975-6. No. 09756.
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the Table of Contents
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a Chapter Online
Writing at the
Threshold: Featuring 56 Ways to Prepare High School and College Students to
Think and Write at the College Level
Larry Weinstein.
Writing at the Threshold offers both an eloquent philosophy of composition
instruction and an immediately useful set of classroom-tested teaching ideas
distilled from the author’s 28 years of teaching writing. Two aims underlie all
others: (1) tapping every student’s inborn ability to think extensively and well
and (2) helping every student develop the skills he or she will need in order to
communicate good thinking. Weinstein moves easily from brief, lively reflections
on inquiry-based learning to highly engaging strategies for translating theory
into practice in the classroom. In closing, he offers a set of five course
sequences, each proposing a markedly different way to shape a whole writing
course using methods discussed in the book. As a bonus, the author frequently
refers to additional materials on his companion Web site,
where teachers can “point and click” for resources to use or adapt in the
classroom.
144pp. 2001. ISBN 0-8141-5913-3. No. 59133.
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NCTE Journals (full text available to
members only)
Boquet, Elizabeth H. "Our Little Secret': A History of Writing Centers, Pre- to
Post-Open Admissions."
College Composition and
Communication 50.3: 463-482 (February 1999).
Examines the long and
conflicted history of the writing center. Argues that it is paradoxically the
very marginality of the writing center that offers its workers the chance to
serve not simply in a regulatory or supplemental fashion, but also to begin to
form alternative and perhaps even liberatory modes of
teaching.
Examines the long and conflicted history of the writing
center. Argues that it is paradoxically the very marginality of the writing
center that offers its workers the chance to serve not simply in a regulatory or
supplemental fashion, but also to begin to form alternative and perhaps even
liberatory modes of teaching.
Mohr, Ellen. "The
Writing Center: An Opportunity in Democracy." Teaching English
in the Two-Year College 26.4: 419-426 (May 1999).
Describes the Writing Center at Johnson County Community College
as an institution that implements democratic ideals in its staffing and
teaching; and where all voices are heard, encouraged, and validated. Describes
three things necessary to achieve a writing center with a democratic nature: a
peer-tutor program including formal tutor training; financial support from the
college; and college-wide support.
Tassoni, John Paul. "The
Liberatory Composition Teacher's Obligation to Writing Centers at Two-Year
Colleges." Teaching English in the Two-Year College 25.1:
34-43 (February 1998).
Argues that connecting classroom practice to writing center
tutorials prepares students to generate dialogic and democratic tutorials.
Describes a liberatory writing center (rather than a skill-and-drill site of
remediation). Describes classroom practices that help students develop critical
approaches to the power arrangements they encounter both inside and outside the
academy. Notes implications for two-year colleges.
Welch, Nancy. "Playing
with Reality: Writing Centers after the Mirror Stage." College
Composition and Communication 51.1: 51-69 (September 1999).
Considers the recent history of writing centers and evidence
that disrupts rather than confirms ideal conceptions about the function of a
writing center. Discusses how "practical" writing centers have settled into a
set of ideas about students and writing that needs examining. Examines the
"troubling" affinities between recent arguments about the role of writing
centers.
Additional Resources for Writing
Centers
Also Available from the NCTE Catalog:
Administrative
Problem-Solving for Writing Programs and Writing Centers: Scenarios in Effective
Program Management
Author(s): Myers-Breslin, Linda (editor).
Linda Myers-Breslin presents essays from experienced writing program
administrators (WPAs) and writing center directors ( WCDs) that offer scenarios
and case studies demonstrating the types of issues that these administrators
have faced and their solutions. Covering a broad range of topics, including
staffing a writing center, training new graduate instructors, acquiring funding,
asserting authority, and keeping up with changing technologies, this collection
will help both new and experienced WPAs and WCDs develop and maintain effective,
efficient, and successful programs and centers.
278pp. 1999. ISBN
0-8141-0051-1. No. 00511. College.
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the Table of Contents
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a Chapter Online
Border Talk:
Writing and Knowing in the Two-Year College
Author(s): Tinberg, Howard B.
Tinberg offers a unique account
of a diverse group of community college faculty working together to revise their
writing center's tutor protocols and expectations. Set in the "border" that the
two-year college occupies between high schools and universities and between
academia and the workplace, teachers address many of the unique concerns facing
two-year college faculty.
95pp. 1997. ISBN 0-8141-0378-2. No. 03782.
College.
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the Table of Contents
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a Chapter Online
Intersections:
Theory-Practice in the Writing Center
Author(s): Mullin, Joan A. (editor); Wallace, Ray (editor).
This introduction to writing center theory-in-use analyzes the cornerstones
of theory and proposes a reexamination of some taken-for-granted composition
practices. Intersections represents the numerous theories that underlie the
flexible, reflective practice necessary to every writing center, to every
classroom. Expected topics appear here -- collaborative learning, social
construction, whole language -- but these writing center practitioners also draw
on medical ethics, textual linguistics, feminism, and philosophical
hermeneutics.
196pp. 1994. ISBN 0-8141-2331-7. No. 23317. College.
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the Table of Contents
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a Chapter Online
Additional
References:
Brinkley, Ellen H. "Secondary Writing Centers: Benefits of
College and Secondary Collaboration." Paper presented at the Annual Convention
of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (38th, Atlanta, GA,
March 19-21, 1987).
Based on college writing center models, a number of high schools
are deciding to establish writing centers, some of them in anticipation of
competency tests in composition. Staffing can be the single most significant and
expensive factor for secondary schools wanting to provide writing centers. Among
the options for dealing with the staffing problem are: (1) using peer tutors,
who can be very effective if trained carefully to serve as approachable
reader-responders; (2) scheduling student teachers to spend one period a day in
the writing center, affording valuable experience and leaving full-time teachers
free for their regular duties; and (3) persuading administrators to reduce class
load and staff the center with experienced, full-time teachers. The student
teacher option provides the added benefit of necessitating a collaboration with
a college or university. Whether the college English Department, Education
Department, or writing center is involved, teachers in the secondary schools
receive input from the other institution while participating in the training of
preservice teachers who need the experience of working with individual students
and their writing. Writing centers are becoming more common in high schools, not
only giving secondary students the extra help in writing they need, but creating
a network that is beneficial on a number of levels.
King, Barbara. "Establishing a Writing Center on the
Secondary Level." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Council
of Teachers of English (13th, Halifax, Canada, August 18-22, 1980).
The critical components to be considered when establishing a
writing center at the secondary level are facilities, staff, and operation. The
term writing center is used because writing center is a more inclusive concept
than writing lab, dealing not only with remedial work but also with polishing
acquired skills and assisting students with particularly challenging
assignments. The writing center should be as near to the "mainstream" of the
school as possible to attract both students and faculty. An area of the library
or media center is an excellent location. The important idea is to make the
chosen location unique to writing activities. Besides the use of library tables
or carrels (to make the writing center look different from regular classrooms),
the only necessary materials are reference books (dictionaries, thesauri, usage
guides) and student papers. There are several ways of staffing the writing
center, including the use of faculty members across the curriculum, English
teachers only, and a combination of faculty and trained peer tutors. The key to
the success of a writing center is the individualized attention students
receive; so, depending on how much space is available, students should meet
individually or in small groups of less than six students. (Examples of
limited-service and full-service writing centers are discussed.)
Leander, Kevin M. "Laboratories for Writing." Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy 43.7: 662-668 (April 2000).
Looks at online writing centers and their multiple relations to
cyber spaces and physical places, as well as to institutional and cultural
practices. Notes proliferation of online writing centers, hybrid relations of
online and offline writing centers, relation of online writing centers to
classrooms, transforming space and practice in online writing centers, and how
accessible online writing centers are.
Lipscomb, Delores. "Tutoring Writing: Examining the
Process." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College
Composition and Communication (31st, Washington, DC, March 13-15, 1980).
A variety of components that operate in tutoring writing
are examined in this paper. Discussed are (1) the importance of the tutor's
language, tone of voice, and verbal interaction with the students; (2) active
listening techniques; (3) establishing an atmosphere of trust and acceptance;
(4) helping students develop a framework for understanding their writing
problems; and (5) establishing a flexible environment with a number of learning
options such as free writing, journals, or sentence combining. (AEA)
North, Stephen M. “The Idea of a Writing Center.”
College English 46.5: 433-446 (September 1984).
Describes and laments over the problems of working writing
centers on college campuses, including misinformed students and faculty, the
lack of adequate facilities, and the lack of professional respect.
North, “Stephen M. "Revisiting"‘The Idea of a Writing
Center.’" Writing Center Journal 15.1: 7-19 (Fall 1994).
Reexamines the author's 1984 essay "The Idea of a Writing
Center." Revisits in particular three relationships: the tutor and the writer;
the tutor and the teacher; and the tutor and the institution.
Reigstad, Thomas J.; McAndrew, Donald A. (1984). Training
Tutors for Writing Conferences. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of
English; ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills.
Intended for composition teachers who see "editor/writer"
conferences as the ideal teaching strategy, this booklet offers a procedure for
training tutors--staff or students--to respond skillfully to a writer's work in
a one-to-one context. The first half of the booklet discusses theory and
research regarding the tutorial process and some principles underlying the
subsequent tutorial model. The second half examines the writing and tutoring
processes, and presents a schedule for training tutors.
Stay, Byron L.; Murphy, Christina; Hobson, Eric. (1995)
Writing Center Perspectives. Emmitsburg, Md.: NWCA Press.
The idea for this collection of essays emerged from the First
National Writing Centers Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1994. It
contains: In the temple of the familiar : the writing center as church / Dave
Healy -- Walking the tightrope : negotiating between the ideal and the practical
in the writing center / Albert C. DeCiccio, et al. -- Writing centers and
writing assessment : a discipline-based approach / Mark L. Waldo et al. --
Perceptions, realities, and possibilities : central administration and writing
centers / Jeanne Simpson -- E pluribus unum : an administrator rounds up
mavericks and money / David E. Schwalm -- The dark side of the helping
personality : student dependency and the potential for tutor burnout / Steve
Sherwood -- Must we always grin and bear it? / Wangeci JoAnne Karuri --
Intellectual (proper)ty in writing centers : retro texts and positive plagiarism
/ Cynthia Haynes-Burton -- "Industrial strength tutoring" : strategies for
handling "customer complaints" / Cheryl Reed -- Tickling the student's ear :
collaboration and the teacher/student relationship / Dawn M. Formo and Jennifer
Welsh -- Giving birth to voice : the professional writing tutor as midwife /
Donna Fontanarose Rabuck -- Writing centers as sites for writing transfer
research / Julie Hagemann -- Holistic scoring : a valuable tool for improving
writing across the curriculum / Robert W. Holderer -- Centering : what writing
centers need to do / Joseph Saling -- Accreditation and the writing center : a
proposal for action / Joe Law -- Resisting the editorial urge in writing center
conferences : an essential focus in tutor training / Jane Cogie -- Assessing
writing conference talk : an ethnographic method / Carmen Wender and Roberta R.
Buck -- Using collaborative groups to teach critical thinking / Jean Kiedaisch
and Sue Dinitz.
Upton, James. "The High School Writing Center: The Once and
Future Services." Writing Center Journal 11.1: 67-71 (Fall-Winter
1990).
Shares observations about the philosophy and services secondary
level writing centers can provide. Suggests secondary writing centers provide
miniclinics, study skills information, opportunities for instructors to work
with the center staff, and effective writing to learn activities. Suggests that
writing center personnel become involved in classroom writing activities.
Wilcox, Brad ; Black, Sharon ; Anstead, Marcia Howell.
"Formative Assessment as Educational and Administrative Adhesive:
Establishing an Elementary School Writing Center." Clearing House 71.2 109-112
(November-December 1997).
Describes the collaboration between a university and an
elementary school to establish a writing center at the elementary school,
staffed by university students (preservice teachers). Describes the crucial role
of ongoing formative assessment activity for both elementary students and the
university preservice teachers.
"Writing Centers in Secondary Schools." English
Journal 76.7: 68-70 (November 1987).
Seven secondary school teachers discuss the need for writing
centers in secondary schools and identify the services they should provide.
Includes descriptions of existing writing centers, and suggestions that writing
centers should help students change their perception of writing as well as
intervene in stages of the writing process.
Abstracts obtained from the Educational Resources
Information Center (ERIC) database.
OWLs (Online Writing Labs) and Other Web
Resources:
Collaborative Academic
Preparation Initiative - A program placing preservice teachers and
college faculty in the local high schools in an effort to reduce the need for
remediation in writing among incoming university students.
Purdue
University OWL - The Purdue University Online Writing Lab includes
hundreds of handouts, tutorials, and forms to aid writers both on and off
campus.
Temple University
Writing Center - Temple's Writing Center has resources not only for
faculty and students but also for middle school educators and tutors.
Tutor.edu - This site
is an online training manual for writing center tutors.
Writing Center
Journal - This is the official publication of the International Writing Centers
Association, an assembly of NCTE. The Archives link takes you to
full text of selected back issues.
The
Writing Center at Michigan State University - In addition to having
several online resources for writers, the MSU Writing Center also has many
collaborative K-12 initiatives.
Writing
Centers - This is a chapter from the Bedford Bibliography for
Teachers of Writing.
Writing
Centers Research Project - Housed at the University of Louisville,
the Writing Centers Research Project conducts and supports research on writing
center theory and practice and maintains a research repository of historical,
empirical, and scholarly materials related to Writing Center
Studies.
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