Presentation/Proposal Title
Writing Centers in Current Industrialized Writing Education: Another Cog or the Remedy?
Type of Presentation/Proposal
Individual Presentation or Paper
Start Date
5-4-2019 9:45 AM
End Date
5-4-2019 10:45 AM
Keywords
writing studies, writing support, post-process pedagogy, collaborative writing, critical pedagogy
Description
Writing centers are often perceived as places where student writing is “corrected” and “fixed”. Writing consultants, accordingly, are dominantly viewed as proofreaders. Current industrialized educational structures have compartmentalized the process of writing to an extent that not only do writing composition courses function in separation from actual writing contexts, but also, in a Fordian-conveyor-belt mentality, writing centers are treated as a station where “faulty” writing products receive additional service before being finalized. Based on this paradigm, students with writing issues walk into a writing center with their “problematic” product to see a writing technician on duty and it doesn’t matter if the consultant has ever met the instructor of the course for which the student is writing, or if the consultant will ever see the student again.
In this presentation, a writing composition instructor and a writing consultant from University of Dayton’s writing center, Write Place, share their experiences about resisting the industrial model of writing education by inviting writing consultants into the classroom all through the process of a writing assignment and also by creating an intellectual relationship between the students and the writing consultants, or in other words, by creating an intellectual community. In this approach, writing consultants are not writing mechanics but part and parcel of the writing community. The consultants create an ongoing human relationship with the instructor of the course as well as the students. Moreover, rather than helping students execute an assignment by following a rubric—another relic of industrialized pedagogy—actively co-create the assignment with the instructor.
Writing Centers in Current Industrialized Writing Education: Another Cog or the Remedy?
Alumni Boardroom
Writing centers are often perceived as places where student writing is “corrected” and “fixed”. Writing consultants, accordingly, are dominantly viewed as proofreaders. Current industrialized educational structures have compartmentalized the process of writing to an extent that not only do writing composition courses function in separation from actual writing contexts, but also, in a Fordian-conveyor-belt mentality, writing centers are treated as a station where “faulty” writing products receive additional service before being finalized. Based on this paradigm, students with writing issues walk into a writing center with their “problematic” product to see a writing technician on duty and it doesn’t matter if the consultant has ever met the instructor of the course for which the student is writing, or if the consultant will ever see the student again.
In this presentation, a writing composition instructor and a writing consultant from University of Dayton’s writing center, Write Place, share their experiences about resisting the industrial model of writing education by inviting writing consultants into the classroom all through the process of a writing assignment and also by creating an intellectual relationship between the students and the writing consultants, or in other words, by creating an intellectual community. In this approach, writing consultants are not writing mechanics but part and parcel of the writing community. The consultants create an ongoing human relationship with the instructor of the course as well as the students. Moreover, rather than helping students execute an assignment by following a rubric—another relic of industrialized pedagogy—actively co-create the assignment with the instructor.
