Presentation/Proposal Title
“Wright-ing / Writing / Righting the Way: A Tutor’s Reflective Journals on Her Work in a Regional Prison”
Type of Presentation/Proposal
Individual Presentation or Paper
Start Date
6-4-2019 11:15 AM
End Date
6-4-2019 12:15 PM
Keywords
community engagement, creative writing, prison
Description
As the number of community writing centers grow in the U.S., tutors are often asked to exchange the safe space of their university writing centers for those of local schools, homeless shelters, community libraries, or prisons. In these settings, tutors uncover more information about the community—and about themselves. After all, “[w]riting in, for, and with the community” (Deans, 2000) requires tutors to do multiple things: to engage in the complex work of negotiating new communities of practice (Wenger, 1988); to consider issues of power, race, age, gender, and class; and to explore ways in which tutoring writing in the community requires an emphasis on personal, not simply professional, connections. This raises several questions: How do tutors perceive their work in these contexts? Do tutors experience a “transfer of learning” (Zimmerelli, 2015) in these settings? And what can writing centers do to help tutors engage in critical self-reflection about this work?
Using her weekly reflective journals recorded for four semesters, one tutor maps her progress co-facilitating her writing center’s “Writing from the Inside Out” Prison Project, a program which brings creative writing workshops into a local correctional facility. She tracks the evolution of the program in the Saginaw Correctional Facility, identifying how changes in the curriculum—as well as her perceptions of her role—developed the writing of the program participants, as well as her skills as a tutor, teacher, and person. Participants will learn about ways reflective journals can write/right the way of these programs and the tutors themselves.
“Wright-ing / Writing / Righting the Way: A Tutor’s Reflective Journals on Her Work in a Regional Prison”
M2320
As the number of community writing centers grow in the U.S., tutors are often asked to exchange the safe space of their university writing centers for those of local schools, homeless shelters, community libraries, or prisons. In these settings, tutors uncover more information about the community—and about themselves. After all, “[w]riting in, for, and with the community” (Deans, 2000) requires tutors to do multiple things: to engage in the complex work of negotiating new communities of practice (Wenger, 1988); to consider issues of power, race, age, gender, and class; and to explore ways in which tutoring writing in the community requires an emphasis on personal, not simply professional, connections. This raises several questions: How do tutors perceive their work in these contexts? Do tutors experience a “transfer of learning” (Zimmerelli, 2015) in these settings? And what can writing centers do to help tutors engage in critical self-reflection about this work?
Using her weekly reflective journals recorded for four semesters, one tutor maps her progress co-facilitating her writing center’s “Writing from the Inside Out” Prison Project, a program which brings creative writing workshops into a local correctional facility. She tracks the evolution of the program in the Saginaw Correctional Facility, identifying how changes in the curriculum—as well as her perceptions of her role—developed the writing of the program participants, as well as her skills as a tutor, teacher, and person. Participants will learn about ways reflective journals can write/right the way of these programs and the tutors themselves.
