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ON LOCATION

UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Contents

Preface..........................................................................................................................................................................................................ixAcknowledgments..................................................................................................................................................................................................xiIntroduction: On Location in Classroom-Based Writing Tutoring Candace Spigelman and Laurie Grobman..............................................................................................................11 Diplomatic Relations: Peer Tutors in the Writing Classroom Teagan Decker......................................................................................................................................172 General Readers and Classroom Tutors across the Curriculum Mary Soliday.......................................................................................................................................313 Building Bridges to Academic Discourse: The Peer Group Leader in Basic Writing Peer Response Groups Laurie Grobman............................................................................................444 Writing and Reading Community Learning: Collaborative Learning among Writing Center Consultants, Students, and Teachers Jim Ottery, Jean Petrolle, Derek John Boczkowski, and Steve Mogge.....................605 Tutors' Voices-Building Trust and Community in Peer Writing Group Classrooms Casey You........................................................................................................................726 The Idea of a Writing Center Meets the Reality of Classroom-Based Tutoring Barbara Little Liu and Holly Mandes................................................................................................877 Bringing The Noise: Peer Power and Authority, On Location Steven J. Corbett...................................................................................................................................1018 A Cautionary Tale about "Tutoring" Peer Response Groups Melissa Nicolas.......................................................................................................................................1129 Tutors' Voices-Active Revision in a Peer Group: The Role of the Peer Group Leader Kelly Giger.................................................................................................................12610 Contextualizing Issues of Power and Promise: Classroom-based Tutoring in Writing across the Curriculum Marti Singer, Robin Breault, and Jennifer Wing........................................................13911 Classroom-Based Tutoring and the "Problem" of Tutor Identity: Highlighting the Shift from Writing Center to Classroom-Based Tutoring David Martins and Thia Wolf.............................................15712 "I've Got No Strings on Me": Avoiding Marionette Theater with Peer Consultants in the Classroom Susan Hrach Georgecink.......................................................................................17413 Reconstructing Authority: Negotiating Power in Democratic Learning Sites Candace Spigelman...................................................................................................................18514 Tutors' Voices-Institutional Change and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Fellows Program Jennifer Corroy..........................................................................................205Conclusion: Hybrid Matters: The Promise of Tutoring On Location Laurie Grobman and Candace Spigelman............................................................................................................219Notes............................................................................................................................................................................................................233References.......................................................................................................................................................................................................245Contributors.....................................................................................................................................................................................................256Index............................................................................................................................................................................................................259

Chapter One

Teagan Decker

Of the many things that define a writing center, one of the most crucial is the relationship it has with those who assign the writing in the first place. Some centers, especially those connected with basic writing programs, are thoroughly intertwined with the classroom and may serve as labs that students attend as an extension of their composition classes. Others are more autonomous and may have spun away from their home departments altogether, housed in a central location such as a library or undergraduate center. Many are connected with a department, usually English, but are autonomous within that relationship, free to practice forms of pedagogy that diverge from the writing program they are associated with. This type of center attempts to provide students a place separate from the classroom, a place where they can find a different perspective, an interested audience, a place to be free from the authority of the instructor.

In 1984, Stephen North articulated the frustrations and desires of many writing centers by declaring independence from the writing classroom and the writing instructor: "In short, we are not here to serve, supplement, back up, complement, reinforce, or otherwise be defined by any external curriculum" (440). As directors of writing centers, those of us who share his views try to maintain a separateness from the classroom, which serves to strengthen our authority and allows us to offer an alternative learning experience to students. Writing centers don't want independence because of animosity toward instructors. Most writing center directors have been or are instructors, and many tutors plan on making a career in teaching. The real reason for our quest for autonomy has to do with our fundamental belief that students can become better writers and learn from writing better if they have a place to practice writing and share writing that is separate from a writing classroom.

DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE

For many centers, this desire for separateness has resulted in a place that is, in fact, separate. Far from being combative about autonomy, many writing center directors no longer have to think about these issues: others in the department, although they may not all fully understand or appreciate what goes on in the writing center, leave it alone. The writing center may even operate under a different pedagogical theory than the writing program. Writing centers have achieved an institutional independence that is no longer in need of defense-we are constantly fighting small battles, but the larger one has for the most part been won.

However much we value this independence, we must allow that a strict approach to autonomy can create a...