22.2 Communities in the Writing Center

PR AXIS a writing center journal

22.2 Communities in the Writing Center

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025)

VOL. 22, NO. 2 (2025): COMMUNITIES IN THE WRITING CENTER TABLE OF CONTENTS ABOUT THE AUTHORS COLUMNS Editors’ Introduction: Communities in the Writing Center Alexandra Gunnells and Samantha Turner

FOCUS ARTICLES

Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff Administrative Teams in the Writing Center Kara Poe Alexander, Lauren J. Short, and Claire Seekins LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies: Affinity Groups as Queered Professional Development for Writing Centers Katharine Brown and Jonah Breed Take a Breath: Building an Emotionally Mindful Writing Center through Mindfulness Education for Tutors Bree Johnson Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education: An Experiment in Tutor-Led Assessment Tyler Gardner, Madilyn Abbe, Gabbie Schwartz, and Olivia Drew Swasey A Guide of One’s Own: How Writing Center Training Manuals Fail to Support Writing Fellows Needs Alex Drozdoff, Maureen McBride, and Elisabeth L. Miller Across Times and Spaces: Tutor Perspectives on Asynchronous Training Components at a Hispanic-Serving Institution Amanda M. May, Omolola Ayegboyin, Rose Gonzales, and Katherine Lundebjerg Navigating Writing Center Timescapes: Reflections on Tutor Self-Efficacy at University and Community Sites Kendyl Harmeling, Alexandria Degner, Jennings Collins, and Laura T. Cox Looking Back to Get Ahead: Student Need and Social Justice in the Writing Center Tyler Sehnal Accidental Power: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Writing Center Interactions Between Tutors and Multilingual Tutees Lisa DiMaio

BOOK REVIEWS

Review of Reconstructing Response to Student Writing: A National Study from Across the Curriculum Mary Hedengren

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Kara Poe Alexander is professor of English in Professional Writing and Rhetoric and director of the University Writing Center at Baylor University. She teaches courses in literacy studies, composition theory and pedagogy, writing center studies, and technical and workplace writing. Her research examines the ways that writers enact literacy practices and identity within multiple sites of writing. She has one coedited book, Multimodal Composition and Writing Transfer (2023), and her work has appeared in several scholarly journals, including College Composition and Communication, College English, Composition Forum, Composition Studies, Computers and Composition, Praxis, and Rhetoric Review, as well as edited collections.

Lauren J. Short is a lecturer of English in Professional Writing and Rhetoric and assistant director of the University Writing Center at Baylor University. She teaches courses in persuasive writing, writing center studies, technical writing, creative nonfiction, and advanced composition. Her work on digital literacy has appeared in XChanges and creatively in Arkana.

Claire Seekins is the Coordinator of the University Writing Center at Baylor University. She holds a master’s degree in technical communication from Texas Tech University as well as teaching certifications for English language arts and reading (ELAR) and English as a second language (ESL). Previous work has appeared in The Peer Review, and Claire’s research interests lie in exploring sonic rhetorics and how they influence writing center and healthcare spaces.

Katharine Brown is the Associate Director of University Writing at Auburn University, where she focuses on graduate student writing support across disciplines. Her research addresses welcoming practices in writing centers, embodied contemplative pedagogies, and graduate student writing self-efficacy.

Jonah Breed is a professional writing consultant for University Writing at Auburn University, specializing in graduate student writing support and prison education. He enjoys working with writers at all stages in their writing journey and is transitioning into teaching 6th grade English Language Arts.

Bree Johnson is an undergraduate student at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, NC majoring in English and minoring in Film Studies graduating in the class of 2025. Besides working as a tutor in their university’s Writing Resources Center (WRC), they are also a Communication Consultant for a Critical Communication course.

Tyler Gardner is the director of Brigham Young University’s writing center.

Madilyn Abbe is a former undergraduate tutor at Brigham Young University’s writing center and now a student at UC Berkeley School of Law. Gabbie Schwartz is a former undergraduate tutor at Brigham Young University’s writing center and now a M.A. student at Brigham Young University.

Olivia Drew Swasey is a former undergraduate tutor at Brigham Young University’s writing center and now a Ph.D. student at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Alex Drozdoff is a PhD Candidate in the English: Rhetoric and Writing Studies program at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests include writing across the curriculum, writing support and identity, and rhetorical ecologies. She served as a Graduate Student Assistant Director for the Writing and Speaking Initiative Fellows Program from 2021-2023.

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025) Maureen McBride is the Director of the Writing & Speaking Center at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests include peer academic support, peer response groups, first-year writing, corequisite curricular approaches, reading-writing intersections, reading pedagogy, writing assessment, and mentorship models. She has published with College Composition and Communication, Composition Forum, Praxis, and Journal of Writing Assessment. She serves as the Co-Coordinator for the International Writing Centers Association Mentor Match program.

Elisabeth L. Miller is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing and Speaking in the Disciplines program at the University of Nevada, Reno. She researches and teaches about disability, health, literacy, and writing in the disciplines. Her work appears in venues including College English, Across the Disciplines, The Writing across Curriculum Journal, Writing Center Journal, and the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine.

Amanda M. May is the writing center director at New Mexico Highlands University. She earned her PhD in rhetoric and composition from Florida State University in 2020 and has spent most of the last 15 years working in writing centers as an undergraduate tutor, graduate assistant, sole writing center employee, and now tenureline director. She also taught abroad for two years. Her current research focuses on recovering her writing center’s history.

Omolola Ayegboyin is currently pursuing a master’s degree in English at New Mexico Highlands University.

Her studies focus on language and communication studies, and composition writing. As a graduate assistant in the writing center, she actively contributes to creating a positive learning environment by providing personalized support and fostering collaborative spaces for fellow students.

Rose Gonzales is currently pursuing a master’s degree in English at New Mexico Highlands University. Prior to attending graduate school, she earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a bachelor’s degree in special education. In the future, she hopes to teach English or Special Education somewhere within the state of New Mexico.

Katharine Lundebjerg is in her senior year of her Undergraduate Criminal Justice Studies degree at New Mexico Highlands University. She received an Associate of Applied Science in Criminal Justice from Central New Mexico Community College in 2021. She currently works as an undergraduate tutor at NMHU’s Writing Center and coaches fencing throughout New Mexico. Her limited spare time is filled by rock climbing, ballroom dancing, and writing.

Kendyl Harmeling is an English instructor at the University of Louisville and is the out-going Assistant Director for Community Literacy at UofL’s University Writing Center.

Alexandria Degner is a master’s student, graduate teaching assistant, writing teacher, and writing consultant at the University of Louisville.

Jennings Collins is an MA candidate in English and a graduate teaching assistant in the University of Louisville’s English department.

Laura T. Cox is an MA student, writing teacher, and University Writing Center consultant at the University of Louisville.

Tyler Sehnal is a PhD candidate and instructor at New Mexico State University and an adjunct faculty member at Western Technical College in El Paso, Texas. He has taught courses in composition, the humanities and social sciences, graphic design, and business and technical writing. His current research interests include composition and AI, the intersections of rhetoric and violence, and teaching technical communication and social justice.

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025) Lisa DiMaio is the Coordinator of Multilingual Learner Writing Resources in the University Writing Program at Drexel University, where she teaches composition courses designed for multilingual (ML) writers. With over twenty-five years of experience teaching and tutoring ML learners, her work includes providing support for ML writers and peer tutors and facilitating professional development for faculty who teach ML writers.

Mary Hedengren teaches at Brigham Young University where she is also a graduate writing consultant at the Research and Writing Center.

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025)

EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION: COMMUNITIES IN THE WRITING CENTER Alexandra Gunnells University of Texas – Austin praxisuwc@gmail.com As much of our field’s scholarship reminds us, studies of what goes on in the writing center are so often studies about the communities that keep our centers functioning. Across the board, the authors in our Spring 2025 issue are concerned with who does the labor of writing center work. From in-depth looks at tutor training, education, and self-efficacy to alliances and relationship building across tutor communities and administrative teams, this issue refocuses our attention on the people at the heart of writing center work.

This issue begins with “Affordances of MixedDesignation Faculty and Staff Administrative Teams in the Writing Center” by Kara Poe Alexander, Lauren J. Short, and Claire Seekins. The authors use their center’s administrative transition to a mixed-designation leadership team to build upon scholarship that examines the configuration of WC administration. Building on the theme of administrative reflection and responsivity, Katharine Brown and Jonah Breed offer “LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies: Affinity Groups as Queered Professional Development for Writing Centers” as a case study for developing more equitable staff communities and filling gaps in field-wide knowledge about how theories of inclusivity translate into practice.

Several articles in this issue are focused on tutor education, offering a variety of perspectives that center the experiences of current and previous tutors. Bree Johnson invites us to slow down in “Take a Breath: Building an Emotionally Mindful Writing Center through Mindfulness Education for Tutors,” which extends the WC’s turn towards tutor wellness to reflect on Johnson’s development and implementation of an original mindfulness training for tutors. Next up, Tyler Gardner, Madilyn Abbe, Gabbie Schwartz, and Olivia Drew Swasey present a study of how tutors grow as collaborators through their tutor training in “Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education: An Experiment in Tutor-Led Assessment.”

Highlighting tutor perspectives on the relationships between tutor training and institutional context, Amanda M. May, Omolola Ayegboyin, Rose Gonzales, and Katherine Lundebjerg contribute “Across Times and Spaces: Tutor Perspectives on Asynchronous Training Components at a HispanicServing Institution” in order to make a multi-vocal argument foregrounding where knowledge-making about tutor training happens. Alex Drozdoff, Maureen

Samantha Turner University of Texas – Austin praxisuwc@gmail.com McBride, and Elisabeth L. Miller pay similar focus to the context in which our tutors’ work takes place in “A Guide of One's Own: How Writing Center Training Manuals Fail to Support Writing Fellows Needs.”

Rounding out this section, Kendyl Harmeling, Alexandria Degner, Jennings Collins, and Laura T. Cox reflect on the pedagogical importance of time in “Navigating Writing Center Timescapes: Reflections on Tutor-Self Efficacy at University and Community Sites,” which offers opportunities for connecting to communities of practice.

We finish off this issue with a section attuned to power relations between people in the writing center.

In “Looking Back to Get Ahead: Student Need and Social Justice in the Writing Center,” Tyler Sehnal pushes us to re-familiarize ourselves with the histories of the field in order to implement more radical praxes going forward. Next up, Lisa DiMaio offers “Accidental Power: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Writing Center Interactions Between Tutors and Multilingual Tutees” as an examination of how discourse choices may reinforce linguistic dominance in tutor-tutee interactions.

This issue ends with Mary Hedengren’s review of Reconstructing Response to Student Writing: A National Study from Across the Curriculum. As Hedengren notes, Melzer’s book offers invaluable insights into best practices for responding to student writing across curricular contexts and departments, including writing centers.

This issue is chock-full of exciting insights from practitioners across the spectrum of who inhabits the writing center, and we hope you enjoy it. We here at Praxis remain deeply grateful to the reviewers, authors, and copy-editors who helped make this issue a reality.

We especially want to thank our brilliant undergraduate interns, Audrey Fife and Ava Vano, who helped prepare this issue for publication. We wish a restful summer break to all of our authors, reviewers, and readers.

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AFFORDANCES OF MIXED-DESIGNATION FACULTY AND STAFF ADMINISTRATIVE TEAMS IN THE WRITING CENTER Kara Poe Alexander Baylor University Kara_Alexander@baylor.edu

Lauren J. Short Baylor University Lauren_Short@baylor.edu

Abstract

Writing center scholars have long been interested in the configuration of administrative leadership, often focusing on the roles and designations of writing center administrators (WCAs), whether faculty or staff. This article builds on existing scholarship by examining the affordances—capabilities and limitations—of a mixed-designation administrative team composed of both faculty and staff. Using our writing center as a case study, we highlight the benefits and limitations of a leadership team composed of both faculty and staff. We outline our center’s transition to a mixeddesignation leadership model and use affordance theory to delineate the potentials and constraints of such teams, exploring how this configuration impacts functionality, effectiveness, and reach.

Capabilities of this model include institutional visibility and legitimacy, access to information and resources, institutional reach, tutor education and training, and mentorship. Limitations include time constraints and a split focus, communication challenges, role ambiguity, and potential reinforcement of hierarchical structures. We conclude with practical recommendations for WCAs seeking to enhance their team structure or add faculty or staff administrative roles. By exploring the unique potentials and limitations of mixeddesignation teams, we aim to contribute to ongoing conversations about equity, inclusion, and effective leadership structures in writing center administration.

Introduction The configuration of administrative positions in writing centers has been a longstanding area of interest to writing center scholars (Dvorak and Rafoth; Geller and Denny; LaFrance and Nicolas, “Institutional,” “What’s”; Perdue and Driscoll).

Understanding how a center is structured and who fulfills its leadership roles is of vital importance in advancing its mission and goals, enhancing diversity, and increasing operational effectiveness (Healy; Valles et al.). Writing centers often feature a mix of administrative positions, such as directors, assistant directors, coordinators, and graduate assistant directors, who collectively manage and administer a writing center (Caswell et al.; Fels et al.; Isaacs and Knight). This research has been helpful for writing center administrators (WCAs) advocating for additional positions, revising job descriptions, implementing diversity initiatives, and expanding centers.

Existing scholarship has primarily focused on human resource (HR)-designated roles and their impact on writing center operations, examining factors such as faculty versus staff designations, job security, and

Claire Seekins Baylor University Claire_Seekins@baylor.edu

workload allocation (Geller and Denny; Healy; Isaacs and Knight; LaFrance and Nicolas, “What’s”). Studies have highlighted the distinctions between tenure-line faculty directors and contingent faculty directors ( Lerner; Perdue and Driscoll). Other scholars have researched the demographic make-up of WCAs, considering such things as gender, age, race, HR-status, educational background, workload percentage, or scholarly production and professional identity of WCAs (Ervin; Healy; Isaacs and Knight; LaFrance and Nicolas, “What’s”; Perdue and Driscoll). Still others have explored the affordances—or capabilities—associated with specific role configurations, such as having tenureline faculty, contingent faculty, or full-time staff in leadership positions (Fels et al.; Truesdell).

While this research has provided critical insights into individual roles and their implications, less attention has been paid to the dynamics of mixeddesignation teams, where faculty and staff WCAs collaborate within a single leadership structure. Such an investigation is essential to understanding how these configurations influence the functionality, visibility, and reach of writing centers. Moreover, mixed-designation teams have the potential to address issues of hierarchy, equity, and workload distribution in ways that promote a more cohesive and collaborative work environment.

In this article, we—a faculty director, faculty assistant director, and staff coordinator at one writing center—extend the conversation on administrative configurations and HR-designated roles by examining the affordances, or capabilities and limitations, of mixed-designation leadership teams in writing centers.

Using our own center as a case study, we explore the potentials and limitations of an administrative team made up of both faculty and staff roles. We also address the reinforcement of hierarchies within these structures, particularly the potential for inequitable dynamics between faculty and staff administrators. By centering these dynamics, we contribute to ongoing conversations about how mixed-designation teams can enhance effectiveness, promote visibility, and navigate institutional power structures.

In what follows, we situate our analysis within scholarship on position configurations and affordances.

Next, we provide a detailed account of our team’s

Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 3 composition and present a case study of our writing center’s leadership model. We then discuss the possibilities and constraints inherent in mixeddesignation teams and offer practical recommendations for WCAs seeking to develop or refine similar configurations. These insights aim to support administrators in designing leadership structures that foster equity, inclusivity, and collaboration while advancing the writing center’s goals.

Writing Center Configuration

Administration

Position

Writing center scholars have long examined how administrative positions are configured in writing center contexts, often focusing on HR designations and their implications. This research has illuminated the professional identities of WCAs, the material conditions and institutional contexts of WCAs, and the affordances of faculty- versus staff-designated WCA positions (Healy; Isaacs and Knight; LaFrance and Nicolas, “Institutional,” “What’s”; Perdue and Driscoll). These studies highlight how HR designations shape the work and experiences of WCAs, influencing factors like job stability, institutional autonomy, and professional trajectories.

A foundational study by Dave Healy in 1995 revealed that the majority of writing center directors hold faculty appointments (69%), are predominantly female (74%), and have a graduate degree (96%), with most trained in English/literature (66%) (30).

Subsequent research by Isaacs and Knight found a smaller percentage of directors in faculty roles (54%), most of whom were non-tenure track (71%) (48). Geller and Denny categorized WCA career trajectories into three primary routes: (1) administrative professionals; (2) tenure-line faculty; and (3) non-tenure line faculty (100- 1), which is consistent with others’ observations (Balester and McDonald; Perdue and Driscoll). They argued that traditional faculty positions—with their focus on research, teaching, and service—may not always align with the growth and sustainability of writing centers or the job satisfaction of WCAs (113). Similarly, Fels et al. explored the benefits (freedom, flexibility, and autonomy) and risks (instability, insecurity, and uncertainty) of contingent WCA roles, underscoring the complexities of administrative configurations in writing centers.

Research has also addressed how HR designations influence institutional roles and individual and collective work practices (Caswell et al.; Lerner; Perdue and Driscoll; Valles et al.; Webster). LaFrance and Nicolas used institutional ethnography to examine

how faculty and staff WCAs develop distinct “standpoints” shaped by institutional norms and classifications (“What’s”). These standpoints bind them “to particular practices through the force of cultural norms, institutional standards, and beliefs about the value of particular types of work” (“What’s” 10). Their findings reveal that faculty WCAs tend to have higher qualifications, greater institutional autonomy, and fewer on-site responsibilities, while staff WCAs tend to engage in more task-specific duties with less institutional mobility (see also “Institutional”). This stratification within writing centers impacts the perception of workload, expertise, and the value of contributions within writing centers and to the institution (Lerner).

LaFrance and Nicolas conclude that not only do HR designations shape individual roles and collective understandings of writing center mission and goals but also that WCAs must recognize the influence of institutional structures and discourses in order to foster effective administration, equity, inclusion, and a cohesive work environment (“Institutional; “What’s”).

Building on this work, Caswell et al. analyzed the diverse labor practices of WCAs through case studies of new directors. They found that administrative configurations have their own set of affordances that significantly shape professional experiences and perceptions of belonging (191). Similarly, Travis Webster examined the labor queer WCAs perform as part of their jobs. He found that queer WCAs use their identities and experiences as forms of capital to navigate and leverage their roles effectively, which emphasizes the intersection of personal identity and professional labor. He also challenges assumptions about the benefits of tenured WCA roles and advocates for more inclusive leadership and recognition of the diverse labor sustaining writing centers. Collectively, these studies underscore the nuanced affordances and constraints of various administrative configurations.

While this body of research has advanced understanding of position configuration in writing centers, gaps still remain in exploring the dynamics—or affordances—of mixed-designation leadership teams comprising both faculty and staff. LaFrance and Nicolas call for further study on how these configurations influence daily practices and institutional outcomes (“What’s” 12). Our research seeks to address this gap.

Affordance Theory Affordance theory provides a useful lens for analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of mixeddesignation WCA leadership teams. Originally developed by psychologist J. J. Gibson in relation to

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 4 visual perception, affordance theory was later applied by semiotician Gunther Kress to communicative modes, such as visual, aural, gestural, and alphabetic text, to emphasize their unique capabilities and constraints (“Design”; Multimodality). Kress argues that semiotic modes afford distinct possibilities and limitations for representation and engagement, which therefore facilitate and limit, enable and constrain, certain meaning-making possibilities (“Design”; see also Kress, Multimodality;). This framework has since been used to examine affordances in various contexts, including educational settings, institutional structures, technology, and physical spaces (Alexander, “Material”; “Spatial”; Cummings et al.; Garrett; Laflen; Sheffield and Hea).

These broader applications have shown how affordance theory can be a useful tool to facilitate understanding of the capabilities and constraints of various compositional elements.

In the context of writing center administration, affordance theory highlights how any leadership structure presents potentials and limitations that have consequences for functionality, effectiveness, and impact. Faculty WCAs, for example, may have greater institutional influence and autonomy, enabling them to shape policies and practices, while staff WCAs often bring expertise in day-to-day operations. However, these roles also come with limitations, such as faculty WCAs being less involved in the center’s daily functioning and staff WCAs facing barriers to professional advancement. By examining these affordances and constraints, we can better understand how mixed-designation teams navigate institutional hierarchies and foster collaborative leadership. In short, this study applies affordance theory to analyze the interplay between faculty and staff roles in writing centers. By exploring the unique potentials and limitations of mixed-designation teams, we aim to contribute to ongoing conversations about equity, inclusion, and effective leadership structures in writing center administration.

Context The Writing Center at Baylor University opened in 1983 and operated for almost 35 years with a single faculty director who received a one-course reduction per semester to direct the writing center (equivalent to 10 hours per week). Both tenured and lecturer (i.e., full-time, nontenured) faculty served in this role. The tutoring staff consisted of graduate students studying English literature who worked 20 hours per week as part of their assistantship. In 2017, Kara, a tenured faculty member, became director. With only 10

hours per week allocated to managing the writing center, she quickly recognized the need for additional administrative support to help oversee operations during the remaining 38 hours the center was open but she was not available. This need became especially urgent due to two significant changes that spurred the center’s growth: the addition of undergraduate consultants and the relocation of the writing center from the English department building to the university library. These changes dramatically increased the center’s visibility, accessibility, and reach among students and faculty, and demand for our services grew.

However, this expansion also highlighted the limitations of the existing administrative structure, where a single faculty director working 10 hours per week was insufficient to effectively manage the center’s growing operations and meet the increasing needs of students and staff.

As a short-term solution, Kara internally promoted two graduate consultants to serve as Graduate Assistant Directors (GADs). These GADs worked 10 hours per week each, assisting with mentoring, outreach, and staff management. Together, the administrative staff provided 30 hours of weekly coverage. While this model worked for a couple of years, it proved unsustainable. GAD appointments depended on approval from the English graduate director, and if no students were available in a given year, then Kara would be left without any administrative support.

Thus, in March 2019, just one month after relocating to the library, Kara submitted a hiring proposal for two new administrative positions: (1) a faculty assistant director who would split their duties between writing center administration (50%) and teaching as a lecturer—a non-contingent role at our university—and (2) a full-time administrative assistant.

To inform this proposal, Kara researched writing center staffing models at other universities, consulted with writing center directors, and reviewed discussions on the Wcenter listserv. The proposal outlined the background, need, and rationale for both positions and emphasized what would be lost if the positions were not filled. It also included a list of job duties (see Appendix A for an abridged version of proposal).

In the end, only the faculty assistant director was approved. Following a year-long national search, Lauren was hired. The updated staffing model now entailed one faculty director (10 hours per week), one faculty assistant director (20 hours per week), and 1-2 GADs (10 hours per week each), totaling 40-50 hours of weekly coverage. This new configuration enabled the center to meet demand, improve coverage, and maintain operations. However, Kara and Lauren found they

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 5 lacked the time, energy, and resources to expand services, implement long-term visions, or develop strategic initiatives. The situation worsened during Lauren’s first year when they learned that GADs would no longer be assigned to the writing center.

Recognizing the continued need for additional staff, Kara and Lauren drafted a second proposal, this time for a “coordinator” position. This full-time staff role required a master’s degree and experience working in writing centers (see Appendix B for an abridged version of proposal). In the proposal, they emphasized the urgent need for a full-time staff presence in the writing center and outlined the potential crisis in services if the position remained unfilled. They also appealed to the university’s history of supporting the writing center’s growth. Ultimately, the coordinator position was approved, and after another national search, Claire was hired, joining the team a little over two years after Lauren. With the addition of Claire, the newly formed “Leadership Team” now had 70 hours per week collectively dedicated to the writing center.

Potentials of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff Administrative Teams We have experienced many benefits of having a mixed-designation staffing model in our writing center, both institutionally and internally. The distinct roles of faculty and staff administrators have enhanced our access to resources, institutional capital, and reach.

Internally, this staffing diversity has fostered collaboration, problem-solving, and innovation by leveraging individual talents, perspectives, and knowledge to the benefit of the team and, thereby, our writing center. In this section, we elaborate on these opportunities.

Institutional Visibility and Legitimacy One key advantage of having both faculty and staff WCAs is the increased legitimacy it lends to the writing center within the university. In higher education, a PhD and faculty status often symbolize expertise and authority, conferring professional cachet when interacting with the institutional community (Geller and Denny; Truesdell). A terminal degree and faculty status signal expertise in the field of writing studies and on writing instruction. Consequently, the presence of faculty in a writing center communicates that the writing center is a place for rigorous collaborative learning and instruction, with a structure and pedagogy rooted in scholarship and expertise. While many writing centers also have staff administrators with terminal degrees, the

differing roles and expectations associated with faculty and staff positions often influence visibility, perception, and influence (LaFrance and Nicolas, “Institutional”).

Although internally we try to limit these traditional views of what counts as legitimate, this institutional perception helps attract attention, support, and resources from stakeholders.

Faculty, however, are not the sole contributors to legitimacy and visibility; affordance theory emphasizes that staff are, too. The addition of a full-time staff position, such as our coordinator role, has further enhanced our credibility; it has also improved our status and influence within the institution. Other campus centers, institutes, and programs commonly have fulltime administrative staff who provide crucial support, management, and supervision. Before hiring our coordinator, administrative functions were handled by English department staff unfamiliar with our specific operations or needs. With Claire’s hiring, though, we internalized critical tasks such as hiring student worker positions, managing our budget, reviewing timecards, and ordering supplies. This restructuring streamlined processes, improved efficiency, and strengthened the writing center’s professionalism. These changes have also made the center more visible and aligned it with institutional norms, which demonstrates our selfsufficiency and positions us even more as a legitimate campus service. Our experiences echo Lerner’s observation that “[a] writing center director who is in a full-time staff position can be just as influential in an institution as can a tenured faculty member” (44).

Claire’s full-time presence has provided the stability that signals our legitimacy institutionally.

Access to Information and Resources Another advantage of having a WCA team comprising both faculty and staff is expanded access to institutional information and resources. Faculty and staff often operate within distinct networks in the institution and receive targeted communications that address their respective roles. At our institution, for instance, faculty receive communications from the Provost’s Office and deans that focus on academic policies, research opportunities, and curriculum development. In contrast, staff receive communications that center on administrative procedures, operational logistics, and institutional protocols. By sharing this information with each other, our team gains insights into areas that would typically be inaccessible to us individually, which is valuable for understanding the institutional perspective. This cross-role exchange of

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 6 information enhances our ability to make informed decisions and strategically plan for the writing center.

Furthermore, the mixed designations of our administrative team give us greater insight into institutional resource allocation, which has proven beneficial as we have advocated for additional funding or support for special programs. Faculty members often have access to research funding, departmental resources, and academic initiatives tied to strategic planning, while staff members are well-versed in budgetary processes, financial allocations, and administrative funding streams. By combining these perspectives, we can identify the best person to address specific challenges or engage with key stakeholders. This integrated approach allows our team to more effectively advocate for and allocate resources, ensuring the writing center has the support needed to thrive and pursue all available avenues for finding and accessing institutional resources.

Additionally, the writing center’s physical position in the library extends our institutional reach.

Claire’s regular presence in the writing center enables her to build strong relationships with library staff, including the facilities coordinator, research librarians, marketing staff, and security personnel. These connections have proven instrumental in advancing our center’s goals. Her full-time commitment also allows her to attend campus resource fairs during summer, spring, and winter breaks, where she has made connections and built partnerships with other student support services such as the tutoring center, counseling center, career center, and international student services. If our team were limited to a single HR designation, we would miss out on many of these networking opportunities. By leveraging the unique advantages of both faculty and staff roles, we expand the writing center’s network and promote its mission more broadly throughout the institution.

Institutional Reach

Operational Consistency and Efficiency

A mixed HR-designation has also enhanced our institutional reach by broadening our professional networks. Individually, we are embedded in institutional communities that, alongside our writing center roles, shape our unique professional identities and contribute to the success of the writing center. Maintaining these identities and participating in these communities is crucial to sustaining and further developing the center, as its success is somewhat interdependent on institutional support brought on by “programmatic collaboration, or working with offices and individuals across campus” (Garrett). As insiders to these specific communities, we can gain access to more spaces and conversations and amplify the writing center’s visibility and impact. One practical form this collaboration takes is the ability to participate in university-wide and collegespecific faculty- and staff-specific meetings, luncheons, and trainings.

These HR-designation-specific networking opportunities allow us to connect with colleagues who share similar professional contexts and goals. For example, faculty team members Kara and Lauren can connect with colleagues in their home department and with other faculty through invited class presentations, participation on university committees, and academic meetings where they can advocate for the writing center. Similarly, staff member Claire develops relationships with administrative staff in the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office and other departments, leveraging her consistent presence at staff-only events to promote the writing center.

Another advantage of having both faculty- and staff-designated positions within a writing center is the enhanced operational consistency and efficiency these roles afford. Prior to the approval of the coordinator position, our writing center relied solely on facultydesignated positions. Kara and Lauren collectively provided 30 hours of coverage for a center operating 48 hours weekly. Faculty obligations, such as meetings, committee work, presentations, and conferences, frequently disrupted this schedule, resulting in a hodgepodge approach to coverage. However, the addition of Claire as a full-time coordinator has ensured greater consistency, benefiting both our student staff and those who depend on the center’s services throughout the year.

A consistent managerial presence year-round also has enabled significant operational expansion. Prior to hiring a coordinator, the writing center operated only during the spring, fall, and summer semesters and was closed during “off-periods” (i.e., December/January, May, August). With Kara and Lauren on 10-month contracts, supervising student workers over the summer required unpaid labor or creative off-campus solutions.

In contrast, Claire’s 12-month contract and presence year-round allows the writing center to remain operational during these off-periods, offering consultations over winter break and through midAugust. This continuity ensures adequate supervision of student employees and even supported our center’s transition into an independent department.

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 7 Another capability of a full-time staff presence enables the center to pilot new operational strategies and complete projects during slower periods. Claire leverages these times to pilot technologies, analyze data, update organizational documents, and conduct research for special initiatives. Consequently, Kara and Lauren can focus on other essential tasks that were previously neglected due to limited coverage. For instance, they have been able to add and adequately supervise a dedicated student social media coordinator position and a writing center intern. Faculty directors also have more time to guide student workers in creating additional writing resources, such as handouts, class presentations, and videos. Moreover, the faculty assistant director has used some of her renegotiated time to establish an official “Outreach Team,” a group of student staff trained to deliver in-class presentations and workshops.

Likewise, the faculty director has focused on larger initiatives, such as merging the writing center with the Graduate Writing Center, conducting research on a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Program, and securing additional funding for graduate consultants.

The coordinator’s consistent presence also fosters mentorship opportunities for student staff, which builds relationships and cultivates trust. In short, this capability of greater operational consistency and efficiency provided by adding a staff member enhances our operations and provides a consistent presence in our writing center.

Tutor Education and Training Another possibility of having both faculty and staff WCAs is the ability to offer a credit-bearing tutor education course. While both faculty and staff in writing centers inherently engage in daily consultant training— as is true in ours—a faculty designation has made it possible to recruit and train undergraduate consultants through a semester-long, for-credit course. Having faculty directors who teach a credit-bearing tutor education class has enhanced our tutor education program and made it more sustainable. This course allows future undergraduate consultants to learn about writing center theory and practice while also apprenticing in the writing center, developing skills within the context of theory. This comprehensive training model bolsters the credibility of peer consultants and reinforces their image as capable, skilled, and knowledgeable professionals. This perception also contributes to a positive ethos and further legitimizes our writing center. Although our university does allow credentialed staff to teach courses, such teaching is considered adjunct work and falls

outside the regular workload and annual evaluations. As a result, if Claire were to teach a course, she would have to do it on her own time—outside of her regular workload—without it being recognized in her annual review.

While faculty contributions enhance the academic aspects of tutor education, Claire’s staff role provides complementary benefits. Because Claire is onsite more often than Kara or Lauren, she often builds stronger relationships with consultants, who frequently seek her guidance on challenging sessions or employment concerns. Her accessibility benefits tutor education, as she can sometimes better understand emerging needs and propose relevant topics for staff meetings. This blend of both faculty- and staffdesignated positions enriches our tutor education program through diverse learning opportunities and fosters staff camaraderie.

Mentorship The mixed-designation WCA model we employ also fosters robust opportunities for mentorship and professional development among leadership team members and student staff. Each member of our leadership team brings unique perspectives and institutional knowledge shaped by our HR designation, educational and professional experiences, and institutional identities. This diversity enhances collaboration and innovation within the team. For example, Claire has benefited from mentorship and advice from Kara during her annual review, while Kara has learned from Claire about processes such as purchasing, hiring, and event planning, which inform strategic planning, budgeting, and recruitment efforts.

Similarly, Lauren and Claire have gained insights from Kara on integrating research into their roles. Through collaborative efforts like drafting this article, Lauren and Claire have deepened their understanding of writing center research, collaborative writing, and academic publication.

Moreover, Lauren contributes valuable perspectives from her experiences at multiple writing centers, and she has been able to offer Kara and Claire a range of insights on writing center operations, tutor training, and outreach. Her expertise in areas such as generative AI further enriches team discussions and strategic planning. Additionally, Kara and Lauren alternate teaching the tutoring writing course, and they reflect together on successes and areas for improvement, thereby enhancing the course’s quality over time. This mentorship is not top-down or monodirectional; rather, it is multidirectional and

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 8 reciprocal, with each member contributing valuable knowledge and support.

Our leadership structure also serves as a model for our student staff by exposing them to diverse forms of writing center leadership and various professional pathways. This exposure helps students understand the multifaceted roles and varied career trajectories available in writing center leadership, which is an important perspective given the lack of standardized paths to these roles. Even for individuals not pursuing writing center leadership, witnessing collaborative and reciprocal mentorship within the team provides valuable insights into effective teamwork and professional growth. By adopting a mixed-designation leadership model, we contribute to the holistic development of both professional staff and student employees.

Limitations of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff Administrative Teams While the mixed faculty- and staff-designated model offers many benefits, it also presents challenges.

These include time constraints and split focus, role ambiguity, communication challenges, and reinforcing hierarchical structures.

Time Constraints and Split Focus One drawback of mixed-designation WCA teams is differing operational expectations between faculty and staff positions. Faculty WCAs often manage commitments outside of the writing center, such as teaching, advising, committee work, and scholarship (Truesdell 2), while staff positions typically have more consistent responsibilities and presence. The multiple commitments of faculty positions can divert attention from the day-to-day operations of the writing center. In our center, Kara and Lauren balance faculty responsibilities alongside their writing center duties, which can make it hard for them to know what to prioritize. Research is fifty percent of Kara’s job, but administrative and teaching responsibilities often take precedence. Lauren must carefully plan her time to address her various faculty duties. This balancing act can leave faculty WCAs stretched thin as they navigate diverse demands (LaFrance and Nicolas, “What’s”).

This split focus can also limit a faculty leader’s firsthand understanding of daily activities and operations in the writing center. Faculty WCAs, at least those who are part-time in the writing center, may have less awareness of consultant sessions, employee issues, and operational concerns compared to staff. This lack of awareness can

lead to delays in addressing important matters, which can be time-consuming and frustrating for staff.

In contrast, having a full-time staff member ensures continuity and responsiveness to urgent matters. For instance, Claire effectively handles urgent issues like staff absences to prevent disruptions such as missed shifts or cancelled appointments. Previously, when faculty directors were off-site, student staff managed alone, often scrambling to cover shifts or cancel appointments. Additionally, Claire’s consistent availability supports faculty who drop by the center.

Before, when a faculty member dropped by and faculty directors were not present, they observed only student staff in the writing center, and if they needed something they had to send an email later. With a dedicated staff member, the writing center is able to resolve issues immediately and maintain a positive image of the writing center. In short, a staff member benefits the writing center by managing employee issues promptly, maintaining professionalism, and supporting faculty needs immediately.

Communication Challenges Effective communication within a mixeddesignation team can also be challenging due to the varying and sometimes inconsistent on-site presence of faculty WCAs. While Lauren and Kara strive for regular hours in the writing center each semester, inevitably, their schedules are often disrupted due to unexpected meetings, speaking engagements and conferences, and service obligations. These often immediate and unforeseen changes can disrupt team expectations and coordination. Additionally, faculty WCAs may be less available for timely email or text communication due to their competing responsibilities. This fragmented communication hinders timely consensus and problemsolving, delaying responses to urgent issues within the writing center.

To mitigate these constraints, our leadership team prioritizes consistent communication. We meet weekly for 90 minutes to update each other on our individual work, plan for upcoming meetings, and to resolve issues. When immediate issues arise and we cannot meet in person, we use email, Teams messaging, texts, and phone calls to stay connected. Following Dvorak and Rafoth’s advice, we prioritize ongoing communication, understand each other’s communication styles, and adapt “to meet everchanging writing center dynamics” (185).

Role Ambiguity

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 9 Role ambiguity is another constraint of a mixed-designation WCA team. Each WCA in our writing center specializes in specific areas but participates in decision-making collaboratively, leading to an overlap in roles. This intentional overlap can make it difficult to precisely define each role. For instance, Lauren has faced challenges in annual review processes to differentiate her contributions from Kara and Claire.

This ambiguity of roles can contribute to frustration and feelings of imposter syndrome. To address this challenge, we have begun codifying our roles and processes in handbooks, which helps ensure that knowledge and procedures are readily available, especially during leaves or transitions. For example, we have created job descriptions and a list of duties for each position, which guides each of us in our individual role and can be helpful when talking with others about what each position entails. We have also created a coordinator handbook that outlines processes and procedures and serves as a point of reference if someone needs to take on a task with which they are unfamiliar. By delineating duties, expectations, and processes, we have been able to clarify individual roles and responsibilities and enhance promotion and review processes.

Reinforcement of Hierarchical Structures One last limitation of mixed-designation faculty and staff leadership teams is their potential to reinforce outdated hierarchical structures. LaFrance and Nicolas observe “a tiered or stratified system” (“What’s” 12), which can result in some faculty and upper-level administrators preferring to interact solely with faculty WCAs. For instance, despite Kara’s efforts to involve Lauren and Claire in meetings with the Dean or other administrators, their participation has sometimes been deemed unnecessary. This pattern reflects a broader issue, where Claire’s extensive expertise—including a master’s degree in the field, years of writing center experience, and leadership roles in graduate school— may not be acknowledged by faculty or administrators unfamiliar with her background. While such instances have been rare in our experience, we acknowledge the potential for these dynamics to surface in environments that prioritize or reinforce hierarchical structures.

Furthermore, while it has not been our collective experience, we recognize that hierarchical reinforcement is not limited to interactions outside the writing center but can also manifest between faculty and staff leadership, and even between tenure-line and nontenure line faculty, within the team itself. Within academia, scholars have investigated “hierarchical microaggressions,” which refer to “the everyday slights

found in higher education that communicate systemic valuing (or devaluing) of a person because of the institutional role held by that person in the institution” (Young, et al. 66). These everyday slights include insults or invalidations such as devaluing one based on their role and ignoring, excluding, interrupting, or expressing surprise at one’s knowledge or expertise (Young, et al.

66-68). For mixed-designation leadership teams, this dynamic can lead to staff members feeling undervalued, ignored, excluded, and/or diminished and to observing different treatment, prestige, or visibility than faculty leaders, despite the expertise and knowledge they bring to the position. The fact that staff generally take on a majority of the essential but more tedious and less glamorous duties like scheduling and checking timecards, while faculty receive promotions, raises, and travel funds, can exacerbate feelings of inequity. This disparity can contribute to issues of diminished job satisfaction for staff or non-tenure track faculty administrators, echoing Healy’s findings that tenure-line WCAs—who are better paid, work fewer total hours, and work fewer hours in the writing center—tend to have the highest level of job satisfaction (35).

Further research into this phenomenon within writing centers would add greatly to the literature. As scholars of hierarchical microaggressions have suggested, an intersectional approach investigating how one’s status as a staff member interacts with other identity markers, such as race and gender identification, would provide a richer understanding for how these hierarchies are reinforced (Brewer and di Gennaro; Young, et al.). Furthermore, acknowledging that these hierarchies persist despite conscious efforts to dismantle them is crucial. It serves both as validation for staff members and a reminder for faculty to strive for equity and inclusion in the management of their mixeddesignation teams.

Discussion and Recommendations for MixedDesignation WCA Teams This case study, though centered on one writing center, sheds light on the complex dynamics of mixeddesignation leadership structures in university writing centers. Healy states that “if we are to understand the issue of professional status among the people who run writing centers, we need to know more about who they are and how they conceive of their own roles” (27). By examining the affordances of teams comprising both faculty and staff, this research underscores how HRdesignated roles impact writing center effectiveness and individual WCAs. Affordance theory highlights both the potentials and limitations of such teams. Potentials

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 10 include institutional visibility and legitimacy, access to information and resources, institutional reach, operational consistency and efficiency, tutor education and training, and mentorship. These advantages foster a collaborative environment where diverse institutional standpoints can lead to innovation and create a unified, cohesive team.

However, mixed-designation teams also have some constraints. Faculty members may struggle to balance administrative duties with other academic commitments, thus limiting their direct involvement in and firsthand knowledge of daily writing center operations. Additionally, role ambiguity may emerge within mixed-designation teams, posing challenges in defining duties and responsibilities and potential frustration. Furthermore, varying schedules and responsibilities among team members can hinder effective communication, delay decision-making, and disrupt writing center operations. Finally, the potential reinforcement of hierarchical structures can impede collaboration and innovation, particularly when faculty members are favored in interactions or inequity persists.

Despite these challenges, WCAs can successfully navigate these complexities of mixed-designation teams by emphasizing the potentials and downplaying the limitations. By fostering open communication, clarifying roles, and advocating for equity within the team, WCAs can create a more effective and collaborative writing center environment.

We conclude by offering recommendations for WCAs to better navigate the affordances of a mixeddesignation faculty and staff leadership model.

1. Foster clear and open communication and meet regularly.

To ensure alignment on writing center issues, we recommend open communication and regular meetings.

Holly Ryan notes that “speaking and engaging with other directors is an essential part of what directors need to be successful in their positions,” and we believe that extends to interpersonal team relationships as well. The weekly in-person 90-minute meetings allow us to touch base, share concerns, and make decisions. We also make a regular habit of checking in with administrative staff who are present when we arrive in the writing center for the day. Regular communication fosters trust on a mixed-designation team, which makes it easier to share when we are facing personal or professional commitments or challenges that may require us to ask for additional assistance. This type of support can help to balance previously discussed factors that could contribute to job dissatisfaction, such as the potential

for inequity or discrimination induced by hierarchical structures. If pressing concerns arise, we all keep backup times open to chat, even if briefly. We also prioritize communicating via Zoom, Teams, phone, or text. While regular check-ins can be time-intensive for larger leadership teams, it has proven essential for ours.

Despite the challenges, open, frequent communication between team members can make large impacts when it comes to job satisfaction and retention.

2. Listen well and respect each other. Recognize that everyone brings expertise.

As a team that values collaboration, we make it a priority to listen to the input of each person before moving forward with a decision. We respect the knowledge and expertise each person brings and value each person’s unique standpoint. We also make sure that everyone has input on decisions so that all voices feel appreciated. Clearly, there are day-to-day responsibilities that do not require a sign-off from the whole group, but our team has gotten a feel for those moderately impactful decisions that could benefit from input from the whole team. Because of our differing on-site hours, institutional knowledge, and HR-designated roles, we find it beneficial to check in to see if one of us has insight into how to move toward a solution before starting from scratch on our own. This level of collaboration ultimately leads to better decisions and demonstrates confidence and trust in each team member.

As opportunities arise to expand a writing center’s leadership staff, consider other credentials, achievements, or experiences being privileged and challenge any underlying biases. Although this article focuses on WCA HR-designations and the affordances of mixed-designation teams, additional factors that may be limiting the center’s potential should also be considered. Future research could consider the affordances of interdisciplinary writing center leadership teams. By modeling for early-career administrators, graduate administrators, and even undergraduate tutors how diversity (of race, sex, class, discipline, experience, etc.) is actively valued in the writing center, we can begin to recruit a more diverse generation of WCAs. 3. Codify rules and responsibilities in handbooks.

To improve clarity and efficiency, we recommend that writing centers with mixed-designation leadership teams formalize job descriptions, roles, and duties in handbooks or position descriptions.

This documentation serves as a reference for team members,

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 11 reduces ambiguity, and ensures consistency, even when a team member is unavailable. Codified roles also support discussions during tenure and promotion review committees and annual evaluations. Clearly defined responsibilities ultimately enhance accountability, streamline decision-making, and promote a fair division of labor.

4. When building a mixed-designation team, set ambitious goals and avoid self-editing.

Building a mixed-designation team often involves navigating limited resources, bureaucracy, and institutional politics. As Caswell et al. note, “Change is slow and tedious and nearly entirely dependent on others” (197); thus, WCAs should articulate an idealized vision for their writing center and persist in advocating for it. It took two separate proposals and five years to develop our team; we would like to expand our team even more in the future. We recommend that WCAs consider what they would like their center to be able to do and decide on a team make-up that can best execute that vision. With consistent university budget cuts, it can be all too tempting to assume that upper administration will deny any request to expand a leadership team. We advocate asking anyway, especially when accompanied by evidence of growth, usage, retention, and need. Much like students, upper administrators and HR professionals do not always have a full understanding of what a writing center is or does. Those outside of the greater writing center community frequently overlook the fact that writing center studies is a unique discipline with a decades-long history of scholarship and practice.

Being able to articulate a center’s mission and impact in terms that upper administrators value—such as usage, retention, graduate rates, and engagement data—can help align the center’s needs with larger institutional goals. While requests for expansion may still be denied (as many WCAs know all too well), advocating boldly ensures that the writing center’s mission and potential remain visible, and allowing them to deliver the decision avoids preemptively ruling out possibilities.

5. To enhance faculty-led leadership teams, consider advocating for staff-led roles to allocate more time for vision-casting.

Our writing center operated for decades under the leadership of only one faculty member. Four and a half years ago, a second faculty administrator joined the team. Our on-site supervision was still limited due to the faculty-designated roles that meant Kara and Lauren juggled administrative duties with teaching, research,

and service responsibilities. The addition of a staff member brought increased operational support, enhanced supervision, and provided a consistent on-site presence, thus enabling our center to expand in significant and unexpected ways. This consistency improved consultant experiences, elevated the writing center’s credibility, and freed up faculty directors to focus on strategic planning and long-term growth initiatives. It also helped challenge problematic hierarchical structures that persist in academia. As Valles et al. point out, “Directors do not hire themselves, so they are not responsible for the current state of leadership. Moreover, directors can take actions to help move writing center spaces forward as new leaders enter the field.”

6. Foster equity and inclusion by addressing the hierarchical structures that can marginalize staff WCAs. To foster equity and inclusion in mixed-designation leadership teams, tenured WCAs should actively address the hierarchical structures that can marginalize staff members and non-tenure track faculty. One suggestion is to promote transparent and equitable decision-making processes that explicitly value the expertise and contributions of all team members, regardless of their institutional designation. This includes involving staff leaders in high-level administrative meetings and decision-making discussions, which ensures their voices are heard and their expertise is recognized. Furthermore, having staff members be the first to speak in meetings can empower them to take on greater autonomy and ownership of writing center functions. Additionally, faculty WCAs might reevaluate task distribution by taking on tasks they don’t normally complete as part of their role, such as volunteering for resource fairs, visiting classes, picking up food and drink for events, or helping with scheduling. Sharing responsibilities among all team members can prevent the overburdening of staff with less prestigious tasks and build camaraderie and goodwill among the team. Additionally, faculty WCAs could advocate for professional development funding for staff WCAs so that they can attend (or even present at) conferences and grow in their roles. This may even enhance satisfaction and engagement in their role.

Finally, ongoing education about hierarchical microaggressions—both within the team and in interactions with external administrators—can help identify and mitigate patterns of exclusion or inequity. A conscious effort to acknowledge and disrupt these dynamics will strengthen team cohesion, enhance

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 12 morale, and better align leadership practices with writing center values of collaboration and inclusion.

In conclusion, examining the affordances of a mixed-designation WCA model highlights a range of potentials and limitations that other writing center teams can consider when they are looking to enhance or modify their team. The mix of roles, designations, and standpoints of a mixed-designation team allows for the best of a staff-only team and a faculty-only team. While challenges still exist, by addressing them head-on and leveraging the unique capabilities of both faculty and staff designations, WCAs can navigate the complexities of collaborative leadership teams effectively. Moving forward, it is imperative to continue refining and documenting processes, fostering open communication, and advocating for the necessary resources to support the growth and development of writing center leadership teams. With a shared vision, commitment to collaboration, and clearly defined roles, writing center administrators can thrive in their mission to support students and promote writing excellence within their institutions.

Appendix A: Proposal for Assistant Director and Coordinator (abridged) To: College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office From: Kara Poe Alexander, Director, University Writing Center Date: March 5, 2019 Subject: Proposal for Assistant Director and Administrative Assistant for the Writing Center This proposal outlines the need and rationale for hiring two additional staff members to work in the writing center: (1) an administrative assistant (AA) (100% writing center) and (2) an assistant director (AD) (50% writing center/50% teaching). If we can only hire for one of these positions, the first priority and greatest need is for an administrative assistant.

Need for Additional Staff The writing center currently relies on a model of one director and two graduate assistant directors (GADs). The director is a tenured faculty member with a one-course teaching reduction (i.e., 10 hours per week). The GADs are graduate students who work 10 hours per week each and help with administrative tasks.

Together, the three of us work 30 hours per week in the writing center. Our writing center is also open 48 hours, so there is an 18-hour difference between open time and administrative staff coverage time. In addition, with a student staff of 25-30, the workload is substantial and,

in reality, the director works on writing center tasks more than the allotted 10 hours per week (usually 20-25 hours per week), which demonstrates a need for additional professional staff. Moreover, GAD labor is going away after this year (because they are needed as research assistants or teaching assistants), and then the director is left running the writing center on her own.

To summarize, by myself, and with only 10 hours per week allocated to writing center work, I cannot complete the substantial workload required to do this job well. Additional coverage hours are needed to supervise staff, train and observe tutors, be present in the writing center, interview and hire new staff, coordinate student schedules, work with faculty, promote the writing center, and manage writing center communications. Ideally, the writing center would have a full-time (FT) administrative assistant (AA) who is on site in the writing center forty hours per week, and an assistant director (AD) on site twenty hours per week.

Rationale and Benefits Having additional staff in the writing center provides several benefits: ● Greater oversight of our undergraduate student workers. The writing center currently employs more than 25 undergraduate students, and we expect this number to grow now that we have moved to the library. Our current supervision of student workers is incomplete, and we could really use a staff member to help oversee and supervise student employees.

Although I am on site some of the time, my teaching, service, and research commitments mean that I am not there all the time. An onsite AA could supervise and oversee the student workers, ensure that student workers are adhering to our policies, and handle the daily conflicts that arise from constantly changing work schedules. ● Administrative presence on site in the writing center forty hours per week. Ideally, we would have a full-time staff member on site forty hours per week. This person would be onsite and in charge of the space, greeting visitors, serving as a resource, and offering a consistent supervisory presence in the writing center. ● Freeing up the director’s time to work on vision-casting and tutor training. Hiring an AA and AD would free up my time to cast vision, develop a sustainable tutor training program, write reports, meet with faculty and staff, and strategize on how to most effectively

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 13

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grow the center. I currently wear many hats as director, and offloading some of this work would allow me to focus on vision-casting and growing the writing center.

Greater staff involvement in consultant observations. One of the most integral aspects of ongoing consultant training is the culture we have created of observation, feedback, and growth. Right now, however, we do not have enough time to observe each consultant every semester. As a way around this limitation, we require the consultants to observe each other.

With an AD, we would be able to observe consultants each semester and better understand their strengths and areas for improvement, which would then guide us as we plan and develop tutor education and training.

Having an AD would even allow for the possibility to conduct multiple tutor observations. Observations and feedback sessions are a key part of our training, but we do not currently have the labor to provide this important feedback to our consultants.

Expanding services. Having additional staff would allow us to expand our services (e.g., writing camps, writing retreats, writing groups, workshops for faculty and students, curriculum development, mobile writing centers).

Remaining open all year and providing supervision during “off” periods. A full-time AA would allow the writing center to be open all year, including during May, Spring break, and Christmas break. They would also provide staff supervision during these “off” times (the director is on a 10-month contract). Moreover, they would help us meet the needs of online graduate students who are in school over the summer and holidays.

Being more competitive with peer and peer-aspirant institutions. Every writing center in the Big 12 Conference and many writing centers at peer-aspirant universities have at least two additional staff beyond the director. Hiring these positions would be consistent with the model of writing centers at other universities and would elevate the writing center’s reputation.

Frees up English office staff to work on English Department tasks and provides greater oversight. Hiring full-time staff will free up English office staff to focus solely on English Department-related tasks. Currently, the English office manager coordinates the

hiring of student workers in the writing center and approves timecards. Her responsibilities include collecting paperwork, signing forms, approving bi-weekly timecards, and chasing down student workers who have not submitted timecards. Beyond the added workload for them, the director also has no oversight of whether timecards have been completed accurately. Having an AA on-site would streamline services, consolidate services into one physical location, and provide greater oversight.

Appendix B: Proposal for Writing Center Coordinator Position (abridged) To: College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office From: Kara Poe Alexander, Director, and Lauren Short, Assistant Director, University Writing Center Date: November 15, 2021 Subject: Proposal for a Writing Center Coordinator Position Background The writing center currently relies on a model of one director (10 hours per week), one assistant director (20 hours per week), and one to two graduate assistant directors (GADs) (10 hours per week each), for a total of 40-50 hours per week of coverage. Beginning Fall 2022, the writing center will no longer have GADs on staff (they are needed in the English Department for RA and TA positions). The need for greater administrative coverage is also a direct result of the significant number of undergraduate tutors the writing center now employs.

Daily, our tutors require supervision and management, assistance with scheduling and requests for time off, and training, which the current administrative staff cannot cover in its entirety. This situation demonstrates a timesensitive reason for needing this staff line. If we don’t hire for this position by next fall, the writing center will actually face a crisis of services: we will have to reduce the hours we are open, reduce the number of undergraduate staff, limit faculty outreach and writing across the curriculum initiatives, close for the summer, and decrease tutor education and training time. In short, we will become a shell of what the writing center currently is and what the university has supported us to be.

To summarize, the coordinator will allow us to (1) maintain our current operations after GADs are gone, (2) provide forty additional hours per week of on-site coverage (thus totally 70 hours for administrative staff),

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 14 and (3) allow us to improve our future operations by freeing the director and assistant director to focus on tutor education and program initiatives, instead of administration and staff management. We really appreciate how much the University has invested in and supported the writing center over the past few years. We now have a prominent location in the library, a large staff of undergraduate and graduate consultants, greater visibility and reach across the disciplines, a faculty assistant director, and funding support from multiple areas on campus (i.e., College of Arts and Sciences, English, Libraries, Provost’s Office, University).

However, the success of the writing center is in jeopardy if we are unable to make additions to our staff.

Need and Rationale A writing center coordinator would be responsible for the following: ●

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Managing and coordinating work schedules of the student staff. Currently, the GADs handle the process of coordinating the consultants’ schedules each semester (an arduous process that involves collecting student schedules, synthesizing the schedules to create master tutoring and desk worker schedules, inputting these schedules online into our client management system, adjusting the schedules at the beginning of the semester, and updating the schedule on a weekly basis when students have to miss work). Having a coordinator to handle this process would greatly help the director and assistant director focus on other important issues.

Overseeing the undergraduate student workers. The writing center currently employs more than 25 undergraduate students, and this number has grown consistently over the past three years since moving to the library. Our current supervision of student workers is incomplete and lacks oversight and supervision.

Although the administrative staff is on site some of the time, we are both faculty members with additional responsibilities (teaching, research, service) and are not there all the time.

A coordinator would be able to supervise consultants when we are not there and oversee the timecard submission process.

Administrative presence on site in the writing center forty hours per week. A fulltime staff member provides on-site supervision forty hours per week. This person would be onsite and in charge of the space, greeting visitors,

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serving as a resource, and offering a consistent supervisory presence in the writing center.

Expanding services. Having a coordinator would allow us to expand our services (e.g., writing camps, writing retreats, writing groups, workshops for faculty and students, curriculum development, mobile writing centers). We could also develop mechanisms to collect quantitative and qualitative data on the writing center to improve the quality of our writing instruction. Understanding these data could lead to greater student retention, outreach across disciplines, and improvement in writing instruction and tutor education. Because we are understaffed at the professional level, we have not been able to develop these important resources.

Enabling the writing center to remain open year-round. A coordinator would allow the writing center to be open all year to serve the needs of online graduate programs, study abroads, and short courses and facilitate a continual, uninterrupted service year-round. A year-round staff member would help facilitate a response to student demand for our services that we are currently unable to satisfy.

Being more competitive with peer and peer-aspirant institutions. Every writing center in the [conference] and many writing centers at peer-aspirant universities have a coordinator position (in addition to director and assistant director). Many of these writing centers have at least two additional staff beyond these. Hiring a full-time coordinator would elevate the writing center’s reputation nationally and internationally.

Freeing up the director/assistant director to enhance tutor education, cast vision, develop WAC and WID programs, and enhance writing instruction for faculty.

Hiring a writing center coordinator would free up our time to cast vision and plan for the future. Offloading administrative and management tasks to a full-time coordinator would allow us to focus on growing and expanding the writing center.

Works Cited

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Affordances of Mixed-Designation Faculty and Staff • 15 https://compositionforum.com/issue/27/mat erial-affordances.php ---. “Spatial Affordances as a Tool for Assessing Pedagogical Places, Spaces, and Locations.”

College Composition and Communication, vol. 75, no. 3, 2024, pp. 585-612.

Balester, Valerie, and James C. McDonald. “A View of Status and Working Conditions: Relations between Writing Program and Writing Center Directors.” Writing Program Administration, vol.

24, no. 3, 2001, pp. 59-82.

Brewer, Meaghan and Kristen di Gennaro. “Naming What We Feel: Hierarchical Microaggressions and the Relationship between Composition and English Studies.” Composition Studies, vol.

46, no. 2, 2019, pp. 15-34.

Caswell, Nicole, et al. The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors. Utah State UP, 2016.

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LGBTQ+ ALLIANCES AND ALLIES: AFFINITY GROUPS AS QUEERED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR WRITING CENTERS Katharine Brown Auburn University brownkh@auburn.edu Abstract

This article introduces affinity groups as a writing center professional development initiative in support of the inclusion of our LGBTQ+ employees. These groups invite employees with shared identities to form a supportive community and hold critical conversations about relevant topics. A writing center at a large university in the Southeastern United States engaged in queer worldmaking and launched two affinity groups in support of LGBTQ+ inclusion: the LGBTQ+ Alliance, and the LGBTQ+ Allies. In this article, the authors engage in storytelling to consider how participating in and leading affinity groups impacted their professionalization and their sense of welcome. They conclude with reflections on how writing center administrators can queer their approach to staff professional development with the goal of creating a more welcoming workplace for LGBTQ+ employees.

Introduction Writing center literature reflects a significant gap in attention to supporting LGBTQ+ employees and students; Rihn and Sloan attributed this gap to heteronormativity in the field. While there has been growing attention to LGBTQ+ experiences within writing centers, praxis-focused literature often only addresses the needs of the LGBTQ+ students who visit writing centers (Herb and Perdue; Simpkins; SuhrSytsma and Brown), rather than the LGBTQ+ employees who staff these spaces. Accounts that detail the experiences of LGBTQ+ consultants and administrators frequently share personal narratives of trauma, discomfort, or fear (Anonymous; Denny; Dickerson and Rylander; Dixon; Sloan), and intervention suggestions are often limited to calls for one-time Safe Zone training (Herb and Perdue).

This lack of attention to LGBTQ+ employees and students is concerning, as writing centers frequently purport to be welcoming spaces to all who enter. While writing center scholarship has done a good job theorizing the need for inclusion, there is a gap in knowledge about how those theories translate into practice. At our large writing center at University Writing (UW) at Auburn University, we observed that we had a limited understanding of how to enact LGBTQ+ inclusion. In fact, we found we were inadvertently centering cisheterosexual perspectives in our staff professional development curriculum.

LGBTQ+ staff shared with us that our efforts to

Jonah Breed Auburn University jwb0085@auburn.edu educate peer consultants about LGBTQ+ identities left them feeling dissatisfied or even hurt when their colleagues expressed resistant perspectives. Thus, it became clear that we needed to develop a new approach to welcoming our LGBTQ+ staff, one that centered their experiences and celebrated their identities.

We built upon calls made by Carter and Dean as well as Eller and Wood to investigate what makes students feel welcome in writing centers by turning our focus to welcoming LGBTQ+ peer consultants. To better welcome LGBTQ+ peer consultants, we engaged in queer worldmaking, defined as creating a space where queer people can thrive (Berlant and Warner).

Professional development is the main contact time we have with staff, and we re-envisioned our approach to professional development by centering our focus on the wellbeing of our LGBTQ+ employees. As a result of this reconsideration, we launched affinity groups, which included the LGBTQ+ Alliance, a space for members of the LGBTQ+ community, and the LGBTQ+ Allies, a space for anyone interested in learning about allyship.

By forming groups based on identity, supportive communities could be built, and conversations could be cultivated that supported wellbeing. These groups represented a departure from UW’s usual approaches to professional development.

We contend that welcoming practices differ for employees with marginalized identities, and we call for a queered approach to staff professional development. By first exploring how to welcome our LGBTQ+ student employees, we will be better positioned to welcome LGBTQ+ student writers.

Through queer worldmaking, we communicated our commitment to creating a workplace that is more welcoming to LGBTQ+ staff and invited everyone to have a role in that work. In this article, Katharine H. Brown, UW’s Associate Director who developed and led affinity groups, and Jonah Breed, then a Graduate Program Assistant who participated in and later co-led affinity groups, reflect on how these groups supported their learning and growth. They consider how these groups celebrate queer empowerment, avoid centering queer trauma, and impact workplace culture. Their model for queered professional development can be adopted in other writing center contexts.

LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 18 Positioning Our Work UW is a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)/Writing in the Disciplines (WID) program and writing center at Auburn University, a large, R-1 research institution in the Southeastern United States. It is staffed by six full-time administrators, ten graduate assistants, an undergraduate assistant, and approximately 40 student workers. UW has one director and two associate directors, each of whom focuses on a different population: faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. For faculty, UW offers faculty academies, in which teams of faculty within departments collaboratively redesign their courses or programs to incorporate high-impact writing assignments. For graduate students, UW offers four writing programs that give attention to mindful writing for wellbeing, peer support, and specialized tutoring. For undergraduate students, UW offers the writing center, which is staffed by graduate assistants and student workers. Additionally, UW facilitates in-class writing workshops upon faculty request.

With a large team of employees and a wide range of programming, UW’s administrators sought to establish a culture of professional development around community and wellbeing. To this end, administrators held a weekly team meeting and regularly read and discussed books that addressed topics such as positively framed conversations and healthy habit-building.

Katharine, who supervises the graduate assistants and directs the graduate student writing programs, began each graduate assistant weekly professional development meeting by leading a breath-focused meditation that aimed to calm stress and center focus on the present moment. One of her goals was to create an environment where thoughtful reflection about identities and experiences was welcomed. All staff involved in the writing center engaged in regular, ongoing professional development in small groups called Circles (Marshall) and all staff meetings. They were annually invited to participate in Safe Zone training, which Auburn University’s Student Counseling & Psychological Services describes as a 4-hour training course that focuses on sexuality and gender to create safety for LGBTQ+ students. Auburn’s Safe Zone program is adapted from the Safe Zone Project, which provides learning resources and outlines values for LGBTQ+ inclusive organizations.

While establishing a culture of professional development, UW’s administrators centered diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as an ongoing source of inquiry and sought to inform programming and policies

with principles grounded in DEI. In practice, UW engaged in a semester-long initiative with the full staff in 2020, in which we read about antiracism in writing center praxis and conducted an assessment institute. For the assessment institute, staff created a rubric and evaluated programmatic materials, such as workshop slide decks and handouts, for antiracism (Basgier, et al.; Cicchino, et al.). This project led to the development of a linguistic diversity statement, which we shared at the start of all workshops, as well as the revision of several workshops. Other initiatives included inviting experts from Auburn University’s diversity office to lead discussions about identities and help us align Auburn University’s and UW’s diversity statements.

Additionally, the full staff regularly considered compassion practices to encourage team unity and to create a more welcoming environment for staff and clients.

Peer consultant professional development also centered DEI; in fact, one peer consultant learning outcome stated that consultants should “serve writers from various backgrounds and identities using practices grounded in diversity, equity, and inclusion (e.g., sharing pronouns, ‘calling in’ and ‘calling out,’ asking questions about client’s background and experiences relevant to their project).” As professional development, peer consultants were assigned readings – usually selected from writing center-focused journals – that aimed to educate them about LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and neurodiverse identities, among others. These readings were then discussed in Circle or all staff meetings.

In spite of these efforts, student employees with minoritized identities at times disclosed to administrators uncomfortable or painful experiences resulting from the professional development curriculum. LGBTQ+ peer consultants described hearing colleagues discuss their identities from uninformed perspectives, and they noted that assigned readings were aimed at educating cisheterosexual people about LGBTQ+ identities, topics about which they were already deeply knowledgeable, and thus they did not learn from the content. As writing center literature has given little attention to LGBTQ+ identities, it was difficult for administrators to identify readings that resonated with our staff. It was clear that these attempts to create a welcoming and inclusive environment were falling short, and UW needed to queer its approach to LGBTQ+ inclusive professional development.

Literature Review LGBTQ+ Identities in Writing Center Literature

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 19 The research gap on LGBTQ+ lives in the midst of writing centers has been repeatedly noted. In 2006, the International Writing Center Association published a Diversity Initiative Position Statement that identified “the absence of a significant body of research and scholarship addressing diversity matters in our discipline” and called for attention to “members of underrepresented groups such as people of color, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, and people with a range of abilities, economic needs, and linguistic expression” (1). Perhaps in response, there has been growth in attention to many of the underrepresented groups described in the statement.

However, the significant gap in research into LGBTQ+ inclusion persists. In fact, Denny described this lack of scholarly activity as a “curious silence” (n. pag.).

Also identifying silence toward LGBTQ+ lives, Rihn and Sloan conducted a meta-analysis on writing center literature that addressed LGBTQ+ lives at the length of at least one paragraph. Beyond exposing a gap, these authors argued that heteronormativity is apparent within writing center research and tutor guidebooks, both in what is written and what is ignored and thereby rendered invisible. In a similar vein, Robinson et al. called out Ryan and Zimmerelli’s classic The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors, a text frequently assigned to peer writing consultants, for framing diverse identities as “issues that might arise” disruptively during a consultation (n. pag.). These authors compellingly exposed writing center literature as normative, both reflecting and perpetuating the climate of writing centers. Through being silent on LGBTQ+ identities or framing these identities as potentially disruptive, writing center studies has fallen short of meeting the needs of LGBTQ+ employees and students.

Concerningly, research that breaks silences through sharing the experiences of queer consultants in writing centers consists of three stories of trauma (Dickerson and Rylander; Dixon; Sloan). Sloan described tutoring a student whose paper described “the sin of homosexuality”: “Never had I felt myself, my own identity, so directly threatened—pushed back towards that old ultimatum, that suffocating closet door" (9).

Second, Dickerson considered whether to come out to a student after facing a “heterosexist question” about his experience of opposite-sex attraction, ultimately deciding it was unsafe: “There was an intense war happening behind the scenes. A split second calculation of the pros and cons” (Dickerson and Rylander 7).

Third, Dixon described her exclusion from conversations about supporting LGBT writers, stating, “My bisexuality was not ‘queer enough,’ at least for my writing center colleagues” (n. pag). These accounts

reflect trauma experienced within writing centers; concerningly, reading only stories of trauma in LGBTQ+ focused professional development positions LGBTQ+ identities as an issue or as suffering and disempowered.

Instead, we hoped to cultivate discourses of empowerment throughout our professional development, and thus create a more welcoming space for our LGBTQ+ staff.

Affinity Groups as Queered Professional Development Although writing center literature continues to explore welcoming clients, there is a gap in research on welcoming staff inclusively.

Writing center administrators often aim to create friendly, welcoming, homelike spaces; however, Grutsch McKinney as well as Eller and Wood argued that these attempts often center privileged identities while missing opportunities to welcome individuals with marginalized identities.

While these authors’ critical lenses on welcoming are helpful, their emphases remain on welcoming clients.

Writing center literature addressing professional development also focuses on welcoming clients, and it makes little mention of staff wellbeing.

Professional development is typically an ongoing process throughout a peer consultant’s tenure that focuses on clients’ comfort, satisfaction, and connections with peer consultants (Peterson; Robinson et al.; Wulff). DEI-oriented professional development is more frequently a one-time occurrence that is clientserving (Connor and Clinger; Greer et al.). Attempts to address LGBTQ+ inclusion often rely on Safe Zone, a one-time training that focuses on the learning of cisheterosexual participants and, in the space of writing centers, may maintain a focus on client experiences. As an example, Anonymous, a writing center administrator, described implementing Safe Zone training “to prepare ourselves and make gestures toward queer and trans students” (n. pag.).

While Safe Zone is a valuable program that begins conversations about LGBTQ+ inclusion, it does not represent a sustained approach to LGBTQ+ inclusion that builds community and invites conversations over time. Instead, it is a one-time DEI experience that emphasizes voluntary participation, and it can be challenging for administrators to find time in busy onboarding and professional development schedules to add this experience. As an example, Herb and Perdue hoped to implement a one-hour Safe Zone training for staff, but they “simply weren’t able to fit the program into our training meetings” (76). Furthermore, the training does not equip administrators to radically re-envision approaches to professional development

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 20 and LGBTQ+ inclusion. In fact, Standridge, a writing center administrator, felt reluctant to display a Safe Zone sticker, fearing that heterosexual, cisgender students seeing the sticker would feel uncomfortable and decide to not visit the center: “We should support those [LGBT] groups who are un-safe. But we should not do that at the cost of educating those not in the group” (n. pag.). While Safe Zone is a valuable introduction to LGBTQ+ topics, sustained attention to LGBTQ+ lives in the midst of writing centers and transformative practices are much needed.

Instead of a one-time DEI training, affinity groups offer a sustained approach to creating a more inclusive workplace. The history of affinity groups can be traced to the Civil Rights Movement. Employees of corporations such as Xerox launched employee resource groups (ERGs) to give Black employees a space to advocate for their rights in the workplace (Catalino et al.). Over time, ERGs, or affinity groups, were adapted within educational settings for students and faculty with minority or underrepresented identities. In their current form, affinity groups invite participants with shared identities to establish a supportive community, hold critical conversations about relevant and challenging issues, and take collective action over a sustained period of time (Alicea and Johnson; Oto and Chikkatur). In professional spaces, they are a paid opportunity for employees to participate in DEI efforts. Generally, affinity groups focus on supporting individuals with marginalized identities, and separate allyship groups for people with socially privileged identities may be formed.

Beyond building a healing community, many affinity group members collectively engage in activism or design an intervention (Greene; Kulkarni, et al.; Michael, et al.). However, UW’s affinity groups emphasize community and wellbeing while not asking group members to undertake a service project. With plans to expand affinity groups to support additional minoritized identities, we wanted to avoid putting the onus of improving the culture of inclusion on the members of the office who were already experiencing identity-based challenges at our predominantly white institution. UW’s affinity groups cultivate wellbeing through community support, and they avoid championing traditional narratives of workplace productivity, such as those within writing center research that focus on client experiences while ignoring staff experiences.

To our knowledge, our affinity group project within the space of a writing center is the first of its kind, and it represents a queered approach to staff professional development. A goal of UW’s affinity groups was to welcome staff, especially LGBTQ+ staff

who may find few resources to support them as they navigate identity-related challenges and traumas in our unique socio-cultural location. This queered approach to professional development shifts the direction of conversations away from clients and toward wellbeing.

After all, as Giaimo stated, writing center “success...depends on the emotional wellbeing of our workers” (7). In other words, UW moved away from productivity narratives that only address client experiences. Instead, we believed that centering staff wellbeing, especially that of our LGBTQ+ staff, would result in improved client experiences. Thus, we see our affinity groups as care work (Giaimo) focused on welcoming our LGBTQ+ employees.

Affinity Groups’ Theoretical Framework In this section, we consider how theories of queer worldmaking, discourse, brave spaces, and storytelling have informed the design of UW’s affinity groups.

UW’s affinity groups engaged in queer worldmaking with the aim of creating a more welcoming workplace for LGBTQ+ employees. Berlant and Warner defined queer worldmaking as the creation of expansive queer cultures where queer people can thrive.

Outside of queer cultures, the authors argued, “we would always be outnumbered and overwhelmed” (563). The members of the LGBTQ+ Alliance collaboratively created a brave space in which members could have transformative conversations about their identities because socially privileged, cisheterosexual perspectives were minimized or absent. The members of the LGBTQ+ Allies also participated in queer worldmaking by collaboratively creating a brave space in which they reflected on their identities and ongoing allyship journeys while considering ways to make the workplace more inclusive for their LGBTQ+ colleagues. Through this multifaceted approach to queer worldmaking, UW expanded its ways of welcoming LGBTQ+ employees.

A primary way affinity groups engage in queer worldmaking is through relationship-building while cultivating queered discourses. Discourses, according to Butler, can empower and oppress while impacting the way a person understands themselves. Jones et al. aptly stated, “The language a person hears used about them becomes the language they use about themselves” (7).

Through attention to discourse, individuals can work together to queer a culture and language that is historically cisheteronormative. LeMaster et al. emphasized that through building relationships among LGBTQ+ individuals, a world separate from

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 21 “discursive violence” starts to form (347). Thus, our goal was to hold conversations within both groups that celebrated queer identities and queer empowerment. We deliberately avoided focusing on the traumas we had previously highlighted in our professional development curriculum, as trauma-focused conversations can inadvertently enact discursive violence by only focusing on pain and disempowerment.

Katharine’s vision for affinity groups centered on fostering sustaining and healing relationships through queered discourses; thus, affinity groups are a wellbeing project. Instead of avoiding conversation about LGBTQ+ identity and lived experience–a cisheteronormative move–affinity groups embrace these conversations, drawing on the brave versus safe spaces framework to structure conversations. Safe spaces problematically prioritize members’ comfort and protection from challenging conversations (Arao and Clemens). Safe spaces rhetoric may camouflage members’ avoidance of topics that can ultimately help them understand themselves and the people around them; this avoidance of challenging topics can foster silence about LGBTQ+ people. This ultimately leads to the space’s cisheteronormativity remaining uncontested.

On the other hand, brave spaces embrace challenging conversations by recognizing that discourse is required for meaningful change (Arao and Clemens).

In UW’s affinity groups, we leaned into storytelling to reflect on our experiences and build community. Andrew situated storytelling as part of consultant professional development; through storytelling, writing center staff become “better learners and better teachers – identities that are better together than apart” (n. pag.). Through storytelling, consultants build connections, explore their consulting identities, and move away from the potentially isolating task of one-on-one tutoring (Andrew). We see storytelling as part of wellbeing and learning, and we sought to establish a brave space within affinity groups for storytelling. Brave spaces require that members “own [their] intentions [and] impacts” of their words (Arao and Clemens 145) and creating group agreements that guide conversations can foster community and vulnerable conversations. Essentially, group agreements require participants to acknowledge that their statements impact others and to discuss what collective growth will look like for members.

By drawing on theories of queer worldmaking, discourse, brave spaces, and storytelling, we developed affinity groups. Our groups represent a novel, potentially transformative approach to writing center professional development, one founded in queer worldmaking that centers the wellbeing of LGBTQ+

employees. We believe that affinity groups have impacted the culture of our workplace and improved the wellbeing of our staff. In the next sections, we give a brief overview of our launch of affinity groups, and then we engage in storytelling to show how these groups shaped our experiences at work.

Affinity Groups in Practice Getting Started To recruit affinity group members, Katharine invited participation at an all-staff meeting. She described the goal of creating a more welcoming and inclusive workplace for LGBTQ+ employees, and she noted that participation is a paid professional development opportunity. She shared that the groups were important to her as a queer woman, and she described the identity-based vulnerability she had felt in past workplaces. Finally, she described the groups as sites of community building where discussions of identity and inclusive action would take place.

One-third of the staff elected to participate by completing an online survey. Once Katharine had a list of participants, she emailed availability polls to determine when to schedule meetings. She was careful that responses to the polls would only be seen by her to avoid outing anyone’s identity to others. Based on poll results, Katharine scheduled three groups, each with seven members. There would be one LGBTQ+ Alliance group and two LGBTQ+ Allies groups. She scheduled 5 meetings per group at a biweekly interval. In future semesters, Katharine allowed groups to decide how often they wanted to meet, and several groups, including the LGBTQ+ Alliance, chose to meet weekly throughout the full semester.

Additionally, Katharine selected a theme and wrote discussion questions for each session. Rather than creating separate curricula for each group, she wrote a curriculum for the LGBTQ+ Alliance and used the same one for the LGBTQ+ Allies. With this strategy, Katharine sought to queer the curriculum while centering and honoring LGBTQ+ lives. In practice, Katharine allowed the conversation to flow as members saw fit, as long as the conversations honored group agreements and loosely pertained to the day’s topic. In subsequent semesters, Katharine shifted to a student-led model of the groups. In the new model, group members suggested topics they wanted to explore, and Katharine and the student leaders crafted discussion questions and curated resources for each session.

Group Agreements

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 22 Drawing on brave space theory (Arao and Clemens), Katharine set aside time during the first meeting of each affinity group for the collaborative creation of group agreements. While creating group agreements, participants discussed their goals for participation and the kind of community they hoped to create. These conversations acknowledged that each member held the ability to shape the dynamics of the group and that conversations about identity can be challenging. Some examples of agreements created by groups include: • Confidentiality is vital. I won’t disclose the names of the members of this group or their identities to anyone. I am free to discuss my own experiences in the group, but I won’t discuss those of others.

• I will listen mindfully with an awareness that discussions are vulnerable.

• I will share ideas and ask questions with the understanding these may impact others.

• I will come to this group as an equal, and I will not evaluate or assess anyone based on our discussions.

We believe that the success and bravery of UW’s affinity groups began with establishing expectations for conversation and behavior both within and outside of meetings. These group agreements acknowledged that conversations may be uncomfortable, as our goal was to avoid creating a pseudocommunity that avoided critical discourse (Grayson). Creating group agreements encouraged group members to consider their identities, engage in storytelling about their experiences, and contemplate welcoming practices. In the next section, we share our own stories about how participating in and leading affinity groups impacted our sense of belonging and our professional development.

Experiential Narratives In this section, we engage in storytelling and share personal narratives that capture small but impactful experiences within the LGBTQ+ Alliance and the LGBTQ+ Allies. Storytelling, as we explained earlier, can be an act of queer worldmaking. Through reflecting on our identity-based experiences and positionalities, we take a step toward building a workplace that is more welcoming to LGBTQ+ people.

We begin our stories with our positionalities because awareness of positionality is integral to our ability to impact programmatic culture. We recognize that we are always engaged in a process of consciously

and unconsciously shaping UW's culture through the lens of our identities. By regularly investigating and reflecting on our identities, we seek to understand how our identities shape our decisions and UW's culture.

First, Katharine reflects on her own learning and growth through participating in and leading the LGBTQ+ Alliance. Next, Jonah reflects on his developing understanding of allyship, considering how participating in the LGBTQ+ Allies impacts his work as an educator.

Katharine’s Positionality Statement When I joined the UW team in May 2020 as a graduate assistant and doctoral candidate in English education, I was anxious about entering a new workplace. As a white, queer woman, I wondered what climate toward LGBTQ+ people existed within the unit and whether I could be open about my identity without repercussion or social alienation. However, I found UW’s emphasis on DEI to be inviting, although I sensed a need to deepen attention to welcoming LGBTQ+ staff and clients. By making my queer identity visible, I hoped to advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion.

To that end, I began searching writing center literature for resources on welcoming LGBTQ+ staff and clients, finding scant information. Thus, I decided to focus on LGBTQ+ inclusion in writing centers as my dissertation study. In conversations about this goal with Christopher Basgier, Director of UW, he suggested researching affinity groups as one way to enact inclusive practice. This sparked the concept for my dissertation study, in which I implemented affinity groups at UW and studied their impact through a qualitative research study. My aim was to create a more welcoming workplace for LGBTQ+ staff and to expand UW’s affinity groups in subsequent semesters to address additional identities.

As I envisioned affinity groups and designed my dissertation study, I experienced a change in roles at UW. I planned affinity groups in early summer 2022, was hired as Assistant Director of UW in July 2022, launched affinity groups in August 2022, graduated with my Ph.D. in August 2023, and was promoted to Associate Director in September 2023. In each of these roles, I have continued to develop, expand, and lead affinity groups while reflecting on how my positionality influenced my work toward creating a more inclusive workplace.

Katharine’s Narrative

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 23 My queer journey has been fraught with challenge, and in different spaces I have struggled with feeling either too queer or not queer enough. I felt far too queer for the spaces where I had grown up: a conservative, Southern Baptist home and school.

Coming out to family and friends resulted in loss of meaningful relationships. In those spaces and relationships, I struggled to celebrate my identity.

My feeling of being too queer also manifested in professional spaces, and at times I strategically chose to not disclose my identity. In past workplaces, when coworkers inquired about my dating or personal life through heterosexist terms (“Do you have a boyfriend?”), I responded with gender neutral language (“I’m in a relationship”) and quickly moved the conversation elsewhere. Concealing my queerness felt necessary for survival.

On the other hand, I had navigated the feeling of being not queer enough in other spaces. When I visited LGBTQ+ focused events, I felt out of place. Growing up, I had experienced little exposure to media and conversations that celebrated LGBTQ+ identities.

Thus, I was not able to pick up on cultural and media references often made at those events. I am also cisgender, and my clothing choices did not visibly signal my queer identity.

In fact, the spaces where I had felt most comfortable in my identity were in my graduate courses and at UW. I found allies in some of my professors, and I wrote about my positionality in my qualitative research methods courses. I felt that UW’s emphasis on DEI was welcoming, and I tentatively began asking for more attention to LGBTQ+ inclusion, an act of self-advocacy and self-celebration that I hadn’t attempted in other workplaces. This was well received, and I felt empowered to launch the LGBTQ+ Alliance and the LGBTQ+ Allies as activism and advocacy for LGBTQ+ people. My goal was to celebrate queer identities and queer empowerment and build community while avoiding centering trauma. However, I felt impostor syndrome and worried that I was not queer enough to lead the LGBTQ+ Alliance. I also worried that my presence as an administrator would put a damper on conversation.

Nevertheless, from the very first meeting of the LGBTQ+ Alliance, I experienced kindness, welcoming, and acceptance from the group members. When I arrived for the first meeting just a few minutes early, I found that the other group members had arrived even earlier and were already discussing their identities and experiences in our workplace, at our university, and in our region of the United States. Rather than leading or

directing the conversation as I had planned, I joined as a peer and co-learner.

Over time, I shifted the LGBTQ+ Alliance meetings to a student-led model. I was eager to give peer consultants the opportunity to lead conversations on topics they felt were meaningful, and I suspected that a peer consultant as discussion leader would be far more inviting than an administrator. In this new approach, members of the LGBTQ+ Alliance suggested topics, and then they collaborated with me and each other to identify resources and design discussion questions and activities on those topics. We then facilitated the sessions.

Recently, members of the LGBTQ+ Alliance requested that we discuss queer fashion and queer signaling through fashion. For queer people, fashion is connected to identity expression, and fashion choices may impact professional security. As an example, an employee adopting queer fashions may face increased surveillance from coworkers who are not LGBTQ+ affirming. In other words, fashion is a relevant and vulnerable topic for many LGBTQ+ employees, and queer fashion can be an important topic for queered approaches to staff professional development.

When this topic was requested, I again felt imposter syndrome about my ability to co-lead these discussions with the student members. In the LGBTQ+ Alliance, I was surrounded by colleagues who had bold, defined senses of style that challenged gender norms and thoughtfully signaled queerness. On the other hand, I felt that my clothing choices tended to conform to professional and gender norms, and I was unlikely to be read by others as queer.

Our session on fashion opened with an invitation to participants to draw their favorite outfits and share their drawings with each other, explaining why they enjoyed wearing those items. One of the student leaders then asked, “What makes your style queer? The answer is not that a queer person is wearing it.”

Members thoughtfully described the ways their clothing represented their identities. I was the last to speak, again feeling impostor syndrome about whether my fashion was queer enough for the Alliance.

“I don’t think I have much fashion sense, much less a queer sense of style,” I shared, looking down at the table rather than at others. When I spoke, the group member seated next to me immediately began staring at my white leather sneakers, making a wordless point.

“Personally, I think you have a great sense of style,” shared one member. Another group member told me, “There’s a style called lesbian academia, and you might want to look that up to see if it resonates with you.” I acknowledged that I knew the style and that I was

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 24 dressed similarly, with my tucked in, striped and collared button-down shirt covered with an oversized, “boyfriend” style cardigan, all in shades of blue and gray.

It was one of my favorite outfits, one I had worn the week previously while presenting at an academic conference. It was comfortable and felt like me, just as much as my floral dresses also feel like me.

In that moment, I felt validated and accepted.

Rather than feeling like too much or not enough, I felt like my identity was just right for me, and I had a sense of belonging with my colleagues. For me, a sense of belonging is a first step toward experiencing safety in my identity and wellbeing at work. Experiences such as this one reaffirmed to me that queer worldmaking is an important component of LGBTQ+ inclusive writing center professional development. Providing a foundation of belonging for peer consultants is necessary to the work of writing center administrators, and professional development initiatives are a means to communicate welcoming and belonging. A foundation of belonging can then be a starting point for peer consultants to engage in self-directed, goal-oriented professional development.

Through leading the affinity groups, I was able to deeply consider what makes me feel welcomed and safe, which includes community membership and stated support from others. Queer worldmaking requires ongoing, intentional efforts from all members of an ecosystem, and it is not a one-time effort. Seeing my colleagues, including Jonah, engage in the LGBTQ+ Allies was another factor that supported my sense of welcoming and belonging as a queer woman.

Jonah’s Positionality Statement I joined the UW team in August 2020 as an undergraduate peer writing consultant. An aspiring secondary English language arts educator, I wanted to bolster the UW community while preparing for my career. Due to my positionality as a cishet white male, identity-based concerns were not immediately apparent to me. However, UW’s emphasis on DEI motivated me to explore how I could help build an equitable space, especially when I was promoted to lead consultant in August 2021. As lead consultant, I led a weekly Circle group, in which many conversations centered on identity. Thus, I considered how I could make the space both accommodating and open.

In summer 2022, I began my master’s degree in secondary English language arts education and was hired by UW as a graduate assistant. Katharine, then newly hired as Assistant Director, was my supervisor.

During the affinity groups’ pilot semester, I joined the

LGBTQ+ Allies. In the subsequent semester, Katharine and I collaboratively led a new UW affinity group, Allies Reflecting on Whiteness. Through participating in and leading these groups, I became more interested in the ways spaces can aid and affect those with marginalized identities, as well as the role of affinity groups in the greater ecosystem of writing centers.

After co-leading Allies Reflecting on Whiteness, I developed another affinity group curriculum, How to Be an Ally. The curriculum covered allyship more broadly, and it positioned allyship as an ongoing process of reflection, rather than a label. While working with affinity groups, I considered how my identity as a cisheterosexual white man affected my decisions as a leader and curriculum developer. I reflected on my allyship journey, and I sought to position myself as both an authentic listener and a person with lived experience.

Jonah’s Narrative Like many who grew up in the Deep South, I was raised in a religious home and culture that avoided conversation about LGBTQ+ identities. When conversation about these identities did occur, they were framed negatively. These limited and skewed representations of LGBTQ+ identities shaped my understanding throughout childhood, even throughout my first few years of high school. I’ll leave the details of this negative discourse out of the narrative to prevent perpetuating it.

In the back half of my time in high school, I got really into rap music thanks to a few friends of mine.

One of the artists who immediately grabbed my attention was Kevin Abstract, the face of the then upand-coming rap group and self-proclaimed boyband Brockhampton. He rapped very openly about his identity as a gay man, the pride he felt in his identity, and the discrimination he faced both then and growing up.

In “Star,” the second track of the first Saturation (a series of three albums all released in 2017), Abstract began his verse with, “Heath Ledger with some dreads / I just gave my ***** head.” The two lines are both confident and boastful, and I was enthused by how Abstract was so unapologetically himself. It was the first time in rap and in my personal life that I had heard someone exude pride in their identity as a gay man. In the Saturation II song, “Junky,” Abstract detailed hostility toward gay men in Texas while also explaining why he rapped about his identity so much. He puts it simply, “’cause not enough ****** rap and be gay.” Abstract’s raps and Brockhampton as a whole came to me at the right time, as I was still trying to find confidence in myself in late

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 25 high school. To see someone embrace a part of themselves that I had seen pushed to the side time and time again not only made me feel like it was okay to be myself, but it also made me question the avoidant and hostile framework that I grew up around.

As I got to college and met more people, I quickly learned how harmful the culture I grew up in was to people with LGBTQ+ identities. I began to reject a lot of the avoidant behavior I was accustomed to, but I had no idea how to be an ally. As I began working for UW, things changed. I learned more about identities and how they affect people’s experiences. When I heard that Katharine was piloting affinity groups, I joined the LGBTQ+ Allies to further my understanding of allyship. The group’s composition was very diverse culturally and in age, including members of both the student staff and administration.

During the first semester of the Allies affinity group, Katharine focused one of our conversations on representations of LGBTQ+ identities in media. This conversation was pivotal for me and my thinking about allyship. A lot occurred in this conversation, so I would like to describe some of the key moments and my takeaways from them. In that conversation, I mentioned how limited my exposure to LGBTQ+ identities was growing up and how media representations made up most of that exposure. I mentioned some shows from the mid-2000s that featured highly caricatured representations of these identities. Others mentioned representations in shows or movies that they felt were poor and shared ideas about what makes a representation “good.”

I offered up The Wire as a positive example, noting that Omar Little’s character felt powerful, and his identity as a gay man played a vital role in his empowerment. Omar’s actions drive the plot forward at several points in the story, and in a show that uses its seasons to focus on specific ecosystems within the city of Baltimore (often pulling in and out of certain character groups), Omar’s recurring presence stands in contrast.

As I left this meeting, I felt like I contributed to a moment of collective growth by telling stories about my experiences with media. In subsequent meetings, members contributed a piece of media and conversed about the strengths and weaknesses of its representations of LGBTQ+ identities. Pooling experiences with peers felt meaningful and nonisolating. One member offered to create a list of the media we discussed throughout the meeting and shared it with us afterward.

In retrospect, I do not believe a group of cisheterosexual people can fully define “good”

representation. The canonized definition of good LGBTQ+ representation should not come from a group of cisheterosexual people. However, the discussion of representation was one of the most valuable experiences in the Allies group. With media being largely present in many of our lives and presenting a window into unfamiliar cultures, it is crucial to compile and reflect on our shared experiences with it.

My current definition of a “good” representation in media is one that humanizes an identity without tokenizing it or positioning characters with the identity as constant victims. While I think it is important to include challenges characters face, if a character is placed in a cycle of fighting to overcome struggles because of their identity, it ultimately paints them as victims who react instead of acting with the agency one might expect from a cisheterosexual character. This ultimately leads to representation of disempowerment.

Through reflecting on representation, I began to consider my peer consultant work as a collaboration with storytellers with myriad identities. Through conversations with clients, I better understand who they want to be in their writing and can give them tools to aid their growth. As I think about my next steps as an educator, I recognize that sharpening and reflecting on what I identify as “good” representation will influence the texts I share with students. In my classroom, I aim to provide better representations of LGBTQ+ identities than I was given.

Conclusion As our narratives demonstrate, our affinity groups increased our sense of belonging and our knowledge of how we can create a more inclusive space for LGBTQ+ employees. Since our affinity groups’ priority is to foster wellbeing through queer worldmaking, these groups function differently than traditional professional development. Traditional professional development prioritizes the experience of clients rather than the wellbeing of staff, and it falls into the productivity-minded impetus that queer worldmaking pushes against. Despite this difference, writing centers should not forgo the “traditional” topics of professional development. Peer consultants should feel welcomed and nourished by the space they work in while also benefiting from the strategies presented in traditional professional development. Thus, we envisioned a space where both professional development approaches exist.

Our immediate goal was to create a more inclusive workplace for our LGBTQ+ employees, but

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 26 the ideas produced in affinity groups informed other areas of our writing center. Even though participation was not mandatory, group members were more equipped to center wellbeing in other professional development small group discussions by modeling practices from their time in affinity groups. Affinity groups did not ignore client experiences but rather created a space for all staff members to exist and grow together. In doing so, the client experience can be improved as a byproduct of a happier, more welcomed staff.

In the same way that affinity groups ask members with shared identities to create meaning and build wellbeing through storytelling, appointments in the writing center ask both client and consultant to approach the meeting as writers with unique identities and lived experiences. Through exercising queer worldmaking in affinity groups, peer consultants can be better positioned to reach and support clients. A common occurrence in writing appointments is that clients come in thinking they are not a “writer.” While traditional professional development aids peer consultants in reaching the client at several stages of writing, affinity groups empower peer consultants to discuss writing as a shared identity that people come to with different lived experiences. In our writing center, we work on the writer rather than the writing. In traditional professional development, consultants are given tools to view the client as a writer, regardless of field or ability. Through the addition of affinity groups, consultants are better equipped to aid the client in viewing themselves as a writer. Both approaches are necessary for a center and its people to thrive.

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LGBTQ+ Alliances and Allies • 28 intelligence-as-a-teachable-skill-how-empathybased-training-can-shape-the-writing-centerinto-an-activist-space/ Rihn, Andrew J., and Jay D. Sloan. “Rainbows in the Past were Gay: LGBTQIA in the WC.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 2013, pp.

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TAKE A BREATH: BUILDING AN EMOTIONALLY MINDFUL WRITING CENTER THROUGH MINDFULNESS EDUCATION FOR TUTORS Bree Johnson The University of North Carolina at Charlotte sjohn386@charlotte.edu Abstract

Emotions impact all aspects of tutoring work, including sessions with clients, tutor responsibilities, and tutoring philosophies. While emotions can make tutoring feel difficult, mindfulness strategies can be taught to tutors so they feel equipped to manage clients’ and their own emotions. While plenty of research on mindfulness theories exists, few studies integrate mindfulness into tutor education and examine the impact of mindfulness on tutoring. My study observes how teaching mindfulness strategies can support the emotional labor of tutoring and build emotional intelligence in tutors over time. I developed an emotional mindfulness training workshop for writing center tutors using mindfulness strategies proposed by scholars in writing center studies. I facilitated a training workshop with UNC Charlotte Writing Resources Center (WRC) tutors during the WRC tutor education course for new tutors and a WRC staff meeting for veteran tutors. Then, I followed the impact of this training on tutoring practices by collecting written journal responses from six tutors. In these journal responses, tutors wrote about client emotions, tutor emotions, and mindfulness strategies they used.

Tutors use and evolve the mindfulness strategies outlined in the training to benefit both clients and themselves, while also using mindfulness strategies to reflect upon tutoring practices. As one of the first writing center studies that analyzes the impact of mindfulness training, my research offers a reference to writing center administrators and tutors on the positive effects of implementing mindfulness into regular tutoring practices.

When starting as a tutor in the writing center, my original motivation for accepting the position was to speak to others. I did not fully understand what tutoring entailed, other than the technical definition of helping others with their writing. I was incredibly nervous to put my writing ability on display as an “expert,” not sure if I would actually help anyone. With my amateur perspective, I braved this new experience. As I took on my client’s nervousness, stress, and frustration, I began to understand the weight of my position. I was an unbiased ear and an optimistic light for my peers. Even if I did not know the name of a specific grammatical function, if I simply listened to my client’s feelings about their writing and reassured them, I helped. Between helping others find their confidence in their writing and finding my own confidence as a tutor, the weight of the two grew heavy. While I had support from my fellow tutors and writing center directors, I wondered if there was any way to lighten this load. In my tutor education course, I first started researching mental illness in the writing center, specifically anxiety. This led me to the growing field of emotional mindfulness in writing center studies.

Writing center scholarship on emotional mindfulness focuses on either eliciting tutor perspectives or proposing strategies (see Im, Shao, and Chen; McBride, Edwards, Kunter, and Thoms; Giaimo; Driscoll and Wells). Using survey research on tutors’ “engagement in emotional labor and work-related stress” (203), Hohjin Im found that “half of the tutors reported feelings of disappointment or stress during the most recent emotional taxing session” (215) and most tutors cope through these difficult sessions with “social sharing,” or speaking with other tutors about these sessions (Im 216). Maureen McBride et al. conducted a similar study regarding tutors’ emotional and empathetic responses in sessions. McBride created training using therapy approaches developed by Carl Rogers and analyzed how tutors used these strategies by distributing a survey before and after training. Two months after receiving the training, survey responses reported tutors using an empathetic Rogerian approach aligned with the training through “‘active listening,’ ‘attending skills,’ ‘body positioning,’ ‘validating,’ and ‘reflecting’” (McBride et al.). In the introduction of her book Wellness and Care in Writing Center Work, Genie Giaimo provides an overview and critique of theory and proposes research towards emotional mindfulness in the writing center. Giaimo outlines gaps in the literature, concluding that while mindfulness research has become more “empirically rooted” (9), she calls for research on specific lived experiences and the impact of mindfulness on sessions. Driscoll and Wells, in a post-COVID-19 environment, discuss the difficulties in facilitating emotional development alongside writing development.

Driscoll and Wells propose strategies from writing center studies and psychology to teach tutors to “tutor the whole person” when supporting writing development (26).

While these studies provide useful theories and data on tutors’ perspectives on emotional sessions, writing center scholars have yet to examine the direct impact of emotional mindfulness training on tutor practice.

Building on existing research on emotional mindfulness, particularly Driscoll and Wells’s article, I integrated emotional mindfulness practices in tutor education, then studied how this training impacted tutor and client interactions over an academic semester. In my study, I investigated two research questions:

Take a Breath • 30 1. What mindfulness strategies can be practically integrated into the writing center in order to teach and support the emotional labor of writing center work?

2. How can integrating mindfulness strategies build emotionally intelligent tutors over time?

In this article, I first outline and elaborate upon the training presentation I created to educate tutors on emotional mindfulness and how I gathered tutor perspectives after this training. Then, I analyze how tutors use these strategies to both aid client emotions during sessions and reflect upon their own tutoring practices and philosophies. Finally, I use tutor insights to inform my updated training presentation and future research for the field.

Methods Over the Summer 2023 semester, I gained research approval from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s (UNC Charlotte) institutional review board (IRB). I conducted my research in accordance with UNC Charlotte’s human research guidelines. With IRB approval, I developed a training presentation using the emotional writing development strategies explained in Driscoll and Wells’ article “Tutoring the Whole Person: Supporting Emotional Development in Writers and Tutors.” Using their practices, I split the presentation into six main sections: 1. Introduce the training and the presence of emotions in the writing center 2. Explain what emotions look like in the writing center 3. Introduce how to navigate emotions in a session 4. Introduce and practice mindfulness strategies 5. Introduce tutor self-care strategies 6. Conclude and reassure tutors Throughout the training, I incorporated multiple moments to pause and reflect, including written and verbal reflections. Written reflections primarily resided at the start and end of the training. This allowed tutors to reflect on their emotions regarding tutoring in a personal space, both preparing to discuss their emotions and to ease themselves out of emotional discussions.

Meanwhile, verbal reflections resided in the middle of the training, usually after interacting directly with a new strategy from the training. Verbal reflections also allowed tutors to directly connect any existing tutoring practices with these new strategies.

When introducing what emotions looked like in the writing center, I used Driscoll and Wells’s three emotional situations: generative, disruptive, and

circumstantial (Table 1). I then explained ways that sessions can become emotional, such as a client’s first time coming to the writing center, or frustration towards the assignment or professor.

To navigate these emotions, I explained the metacognitive strategies outlined by Driscoll and Wells: metacognitive planning, metacognitive monitoring, metacognitive control, and metacognitive evaluation (Table 2).

Then, I introduced specific metacognitive control strategies from Driscoll and Wells and my own experience that tutors could use during or after sessions to manage their emotions (Table 3).1 I additionally explained the mindfulness stances listed by Driscoll and Wells: beginner’s mind, self-compassion, and selfreliance (Table 4).

Finally, I highlighted the importance of tutor self-care and creating a safe emotional and physical environment in the writing center.

I administered the training to two groups: new tutors and returning tutors. New tutors received the training over two one-hour-and-fifteen-minute class periods in their tutor training course. The new tutors received this education during the first week they began tutoring in the writing center. For homework, the WRC Director and Associate Director (course instructors) assigned the Driscoll and Wells article, the paper I wrote for the tutor training course on emotional mindfulness, and a mock-session video between me and another tutor. This video would later be used in the training presentation to analyze mindfulness strategies. I split the training between sections one through three for the first day and four through six for the second. I began each day by letting tutors reflect on their first week tutoring, with the first day’s reflection being written and the second day’s being verbal. On the first day, tutors completed two additional reflections: a written reflection after introducing emotions, and a verbal reflection after introducing metacognitive strategies. On the second day, tutors completed three additional reflections: one verbal reflection after practicing a metacognitive control strategy, one verbal reflection after watching the mock-session, and one written reflection at the end of training.

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Take a Breath • 31 Table 1. Emotional Situations Emotional Situation

Definition

Examples

Generative Emotions

Emotions that positively impact the writing process

Confidence, enjoyment, excitement

Disruptive Emotions

Emotions that negatively impact the writing process

Boredom, hatred, fear

Circumstantial Emotions

Emotions that appear negative at first, but can aid in long-term writing development

Frustration, anxiety, confusion

Metacognitive Strategy

Definition

Examples

Metacognitive Planning

Preparing yourself before a session to avoid intense emotional situations

Agenda setting, proper work-life balance, organization

Metacognitive Monitoring

Labeling an emotion as it appears in Mentally labeling an emotion that either yourself or your client you or our client is feeling

Metacognitive Control

Controlling the emotional situation by using specific strategies

Taking a break, referral to campus resources, metacognitive control strategies

Metacognitive Evaluation

Reflecting on how the situation could have been handled differently

Journaling, discussing with another tutor and/or Writing Center Director after a session

Table 2. Metacognitive Strategies

Table 3. Metacognitive Control Strategies Strategy

Practice

Three Minute Breath

In the first minute, ask the client/tutor to breathe and focus on a question.

In the second minute, pay attention to your breathing. In the third minute, include this attention to how your body feels

Three Deep Breaths

The tutor allows the client to take three deep breaths with them

Grounding

Observing your surroundings and/or practicing grounding techniques such as 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 (five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste)

Mindfulness Stances

Changing your mindset as a tutor (specific stances are listed in the table below)

Active Listening

Paying attention to what a client is saying, withholding judgment, letting the client know their feelings are valid, and repeating back what a client has said

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Take a Breath • 32 Building Rapport

Asking clients questions such as how their say has been, agenda setting, and letting them know how the writing center works if it is their first session

Table 4. Mindfulness Stances Mindfulness Stance

Definition

Beginner’s mind

Consider where the client is coming from

Self-compassion

Being kind to the client or yourself

Self-reliance

Encouraging the client or yourself to trust themselves to handle their emotions

Table 5. Client Emotion Coding Scheme Client Emotion

Refers to when a tutor mentions client emotions generally, but no specific emotion is identified

“I don’t believe anyone explicitly stated any strong emotions”

Client Generative

Refers to when an emotion expressed by a client is perceived as positive, like enjoyment or excitement

“A lot of my clients have said to me that they are relieved to know I have been here to help them.”

Client Disruptive

Refers to when an emotion expressed by a client is perceived as negative, such as disinterest, anger, or anxiety

“I also had one client who seemed utterly indifferent or maybe even annoyed to be in the appointment.”

Table 6. Tutor Emotion Coding Scheme Tutor Emotion

Refers to when a tutor mentions their emotions generally, but no specific emotion is identified.

“I usually feel a range of emotions prior and during a session.”

Tutor Generative

Refers to when an emotion expressed by a tutor is perceived as positive, like relief, happiness, or confidence

“I was excited to see his improvement from session one to two.”

Tutor Disruptive

Refers to when an emotion expressed by a tutor is perceived as negative, like frustration, anger, or annoyance

“I felt pretty frustrated with the client who seemed annoyed.”

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Take a Breath • 33 For returning tutors, I presented an abridged version of the presentation during a 90-minute staff meeting with less reflection time. Throughout the presentation, I inserted four reflections, allowing tutors to process what they learned. At the beginning of the presentation, tutors completed a brief written reflection on their feelings regarding their tutoring abilities and practices. Tutors completed two additional reflections: one verbal reflection after introducing emotions and metacognitive strategies, and one verbal reflection after practicing a metacognitive control strategy. At the end of the presentation, tutors completed one brief written reflection.

After administering the training, I recruited a total of six tutor participants to complete three journal entries over the course of the Spring 2024 semester.

Participants completed journal entries at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. Each journal entry invited tutors to reflect on the same three questions: 1. Have you had a session (or sessions) where a client has expressed any particular kind of emotion (ex. Nervousness, uncertainty, relief, happiness, etc.)?

2. Have you had a session (or sessions) where you as a tutor have felt any particular kind of emotion (ex. Stress, nervousness, motivation, confidence, etc.)?

3. Do you recall any time during this time period in any of your sessions where you have used any of the emotional mindfulness training (ex. Labeling emotions in a session, metacognitive strategies, mindfulness stances, active listening, etc.)?

These questions drew out the tutors’ individual session experiences, including their personal observations on their clients’ emotions. Tutors wrote as needed when completing their journal entries, though most entries averaged around 50–200 words per question. Tutors completed their journal entries while working in the writing center. Any session details were recalled from the memory of the tutors.

I used Cheryl Geisler and Jason Swarts’s methods outlined in Coding Streams of Language to segment, code, and analyze my data. Geisler and Swarts’s methodology allowed me to break apart and categorize the specific emotional moves being made and resolved throughout segments, rather than analyzing whole journal entries. I broke down the journal responses from each tutor into individual t-units—a group of words used to make a move in language consisting of a principal clause and any subordinate clauses (Geisler and Swarts 73). I used t-units as my unit of segmenting to easily separate tutor and client emotions as well as individual mindfulness strategies. I additionally split some t-units due to having two emotions or strategies in one t-unit. After

segmenting, I gathered a total of 280 t-units between the six tutors’ journal entries, with some examples listed here: ● “Yes, I have had a client express to me that they were uncertain and nervous about their paper, due to their professor’s lack of instruction on the assignment” ● “I don’t believe anyone explicitly stated any strong emotions,” ● “but I definitely had a few clients who seemed a bit frantic and stressed coming into the appointment.”

I first created three initial coding schemes: one for client emotions, one for tutor emotions, and one for mindfulness strategies. I then coded for specific emotional situations in clients and tutors, as well as specific mindfulness strategies used by tutors. This nested coding scheme allowed me to first analyze emotions and mindfulness strategies more generally, then specifically through the second layer of the coding scheme. I revised the coding schemes with my writing center director to reach inter-rater reliability. The emotions coding scheme achieved a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.844 and the mindfulness strategies coding scheme achieved a Cohen’s Kappa of 0.877 on a scale of 0–1, indicating strong reliability for each scheme. In the next section, I will include brief descriptions of each coding scheme and provide the complete coding scheme in Appendix A. I will provide my results and discussion for each coding scheme individually.

Results and Discussion: Emotions Coding Scheme I created two nested coding schemes to unpack and categorize both tutor and client emotions using Driscoll and Wells’ emotional situations (Table 5).2 The nested coding scheme for clients has three codes.

Similarly, I created another nested coding scheme for tutor emotions (Table 6). I expected that disruptive emotions would appear in both clients and tutors during sessions, as well as be the most frequent emotion experienced. I also expected that any generative emotions exhibited by clients would appear during sessions. However, I was unsure when tutors would record any generative emotions.

Results Out of the 280 t-units, 147 t-units included an emotional response, whether it was from a client or the tutor (Table 7). I categorized sessions into three stages:

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Take a Breath • 34 the opening stage, the tutor assistance stage, and the closing stage (Mackiewicz and Thompson 15-16). The opening stage consists of the tutor introducing themselves to the client, building rapport, and creating an agenda for the session. The tutor assistance stage consists of the tutor and client working together, filling the majority of the session time. Finally, the closing stage involves any closing remarks and feedback from the tutor to the client. With these session identifiers, I identify in which stage these emotions fall. Additionally, I include a fourth option: outside of sessions, if emotions exist prior to or after sessions take place.

Table 7. Emotions Results Emotions

Percentages

Client Emotion

3

2%

Client Generative

19

13%

Client Disruptive

48

33%

Tutor Emotion

2

1%

Tutor Generative

16

11%

Tutor Disruptive

59

40%

Client generative emotions made up 13% (19 tunits) of the emotion data. Out of this 13%, 84% (16 tunits) of the generative emotions arose in the tutor assistance and closing stages. Words that came up in these situations were “relief,” “calm,” or “confident.”

One tutor stated that “a lot of my clients have said to me that they are relieved to know I have been there to help them,” while another tutor explained that through their tutoring practices, “the student is less self–critical and more conscious and confident in their ability to make decisions as a writer.”

The other 16% (3 t-units) of generative emotions appeared from clients beginning a session with an excited or eager demeanor. One tutor stated that they had a session “where [their] client was really excited to talk to [them] about the subject material, as both of [them] had good knowledge of the topic.”3 Client Disruptive Emotion (CD)

147 Client Emotion (C) General client emotions only made up 2% (3 tunits) of the emotion data. These t-units primarily consisted of a statement that a client did not show a particular emotion, a hard-to-label emotion, or an emotion that could be interpreted as either generative or disruptive. One example of this is a tutor recounting a client “who ended up crying by the end of a session” or another tutor noticing that a client’s “prior experiences with writing and teachers impacted her emotions towards the session and her writing.”

Client Generative Emotion (CG)

Client disruptive emotions made up 33% (48 tunits) of the emotion data. Out of this 33%, 88% (42 tunits) of disruptive emotions arose in the tutor assistance stage. Words that appeared in these situations were “nervous,” “uncertain,” “stressed,” “indifferent,” “annoyed,” or “frustrated.” One tutor stated that “I also had one client who seemed utterly indifferent or maybe even annoyed to be in the appointment,” while another tutor stated that “she [client] tended to be apprehensive in our conversations and overall uncertain about their writing.”

The other 12% (6 t-units) of disruptive emotions appeared during the opening stage. One tutor stated, “I’ve had students who express their nerves right away.” No disruptive emotions appeared at the end of a session. If a session did not end well because of a disruptive emotion, it was due to an emotion that appeared in the opening or tutor assistance stages.

I also examined client disruptive emotions to see which emotions got resolved (disruptive emotions turning into circumstantial) in the duration of the session and which ones did not. In this situation, I defined circumstantial emotions as disruptive emotions that changed to generative emotions as the session or proceeding responses progressed. I sought to find these circumstantial emotions to capture the full scope of how emotions change throughout a session rather than limit this ever-changing emotion to a single code. Out of the 33% of client disruptive emotions, 54% (26 t-units) were resolved, 10% (5 t-units) were not resolved, and 36% (17 t-units) were unclear how the session ended emotionally for the client.

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Take a Breath • 35 Tutor Emotion (T) General tutor emotions only made up 1% (2 tunits) of the emotion data. This mainly consisted of tutors either speaking about how they feel emotions during a session or taking care of their emotions without explicitly naming those emotions.

Tutor Generative Emotion (TG) Tutor generative emotions made up 11% (16 tunits) of the emotion data. Out of this 11%, 63% (10 tunits) surrounded a session. Words that appeared in these situations were “calmer,” “confident,” “proud,” “motivating,” and “better.” One tutor reflected that “a client and I just had decent chemistry for some reason,” while another tutor stated that after practicing metacognitive strategies at the end of a session, they “felt considerably better.” The other 37% (6 t-units) came from tutors reflecting upon their tutoring practices or experiences in sessions. One tutor reflected on their tutoring practices by explaining “This got better with time and an increased awareness that none of our tutors are all-knowing or experts, and that’s not something that our clients necessarily expect from us.”

Tutor Disruptive Emotion (TD) Tutor disruptive emotions made up 40% (59 tunits) of the emotion data. Out of this 40%, 66% (39 tunits) came from session-specific circumstances. From this 66%, 92% (36 t-units) appeared in the tutor assistance stage, 5% (2 t-units) appeared in the opening stage, and 3% (1 t-unit) appeared after a session. Some of the words that came up in these situations were “nervous,” “frustrated,” “overwhelming,” “embarrassed,” and “anxious.” One tutor stated, “I had been nervous from not understanding their paper’s topic very well due to being an English major,” while another tutor explained that “I get nervous before a session begins.”

The other 34% (20 t-units) came from anxieties regarding tutoring practices. One tutor reflected on their practices by stating “I still read up and practice my skills as a writing tutor but I just feel it is not enough sometimes.” Another tutor expressed concern about meeting the needs of their client: “I get really scared about the possibility of knocking [down] these student’s confidence with any possible corrections I might need to make.”

Similarly to the client disruptive emotions, I examined tutor disruptive emotions to see which emotions were resolved and turned into circumstantial

emotions and which were not. Out of the 40% of tutor disruptive emotions, 76% (45 t-units) were resolved, 7% (4 t-units) were unresolved, and 17% (10 t-units) were unclear if the emotion was resolved.

Discussion The results display the wide range of emotions and emotional processing that takes place during sessions, as 82% of emotions occurred during sessions, as opposed to prior to or after a session. More specifically, 63% (93 t-units) of emotions in both clients and tutors appeared during the tutor assistance stage, and client and tutor disruptive emotions appeared more often than any other type (42 t-units and 36 t-units respectively).

This finding supports the inherent emotional nature of sessions in the tutor assistance stage as emotions from the client or tutor about the writing tend to appear during the majority of a session. Additionally, this finding also stresses how addressing and discussing these emotions (with or without mindfulness strategies) will bring resolution to them. The results revealed that generative emotions not only involve tutors feeling good about their work but that these types of emotions can provide resolutions to problems that arise in sessions; for instance, during one tough session, a tutor and their client “[settled] into our emotions with sharing a needed laugh to the issues we were having.” Regarding disruptive emotions, the results suggest that mindfulness education had a positive impact on both clients and tutors (54% of resolved disruptive emotions in clients and 76% of resolved disruptive emotions in tutors were resolved). How specifically disruptive emotions were resolved and how emotions impact mindfulness strategies will be further examined in the next section.

Results and Discussion: Mindfulness Strategies Coding Scheme I created a nested coding scheme covering the mindfulness strategies that appeared in the data (Table 8). I decided to separate active listening from metacognitive control as active listening is taught outside of emotional mindfulness. Any other mindfulness strategy, specifically those associated with metacognitive control, will be analyzed below.

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Take a Breath • 36 Table 8. Mindfulness Strategies Coding Scheme Mindfulness Strategies

Refers to a tutor who states they used “I can't say I've consciously used any other mindfulness strategies generally rather mindfulness tools recently.” than specific

Metacognitive Monitoring

Refers to when a tutor labels a client’s or “I notice the clients feeling much more their own emotions before acting upon comfortable, confident, and expressing relief them by the end of the appointment.”

Metacognitive Control

Refers to when a tutor acts upon a client’s “After working with their writing processor or their own emotions and navigating resources to help them with their formatting, we got the paper to where it needed to be.”

Metacognitive Evaluation

Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their actions or feelings about a session, current tutoring practices, or past tutoring practices

Active Listening

Refers to when a tutor explicitly uses or “Active listening is a huge part of every single states that they used active listening appointment that I conduct.”

“I reassure myself that whatever progress I make is good progress because there is no such thing as accidentally teaching a client to unlearn the knowledge they came in with.”

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Take a Breath • 37 Results Out of the 280 t-units, 143 t-units involved mindfulness strategies that the tutor used to calm either a client or themselves (Table 9).

Table 9. Mindfulness Strategies Results Strategies

Percentages

Mindfulness Strategies

3

2%

Metacognitive Monitoring

27

19%

Metacognitive Control

67

47%

Metacognitive Evaluation

37

26%

Active Listening

9

6%

143 Mindfulness Strategy (M) General mindfulness strategies consisted of 2% (3 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. These tunits included tutors mentioning they used mindfulness strategies without naming specifics: “I did a few metacognitive strategies to help prepare me before the session and found that they really helped me feel focused at the time of the actual appointment.”

Metacognitive Monitoring (MM) Metacognitive monitoring made up 19% (27 tunits) of the mindfulness strategies data. I analyzed the language of how metacognitive monitoring was being used, first if the metacognitive monitoring was being used in reference to the client or to the tutor. Out of the 19% of metacognitive monitoring, 56% (15 t-units) was language labeling the clients’ emotions, while 44% (12 tunits) was language labeling their own emotions.

Next, I looked at the context of metacognitive monitoring, either in a session or with a tutor discussing their tutoring practices. I found that 52% (14 t-units) were employed during sessions, while 48% (13 t-units) were employed when discussing tutoring practices.

Then, I examined if the tutor consciously used

metacognitive monitoring by stating that they labeled their emotions, or if they simply “realized” or “noticed” how they were feeling. I found that 56% (15 t-units) of the time tutors were unconsciously using metacognitive monitoring, while 44% (12 t-units) of the time tutors were consciously using metacognitive monitoring.

Metacognitive Control (MC) Metacognitive control made up 47% (67 tunits) of the mindfulness strategies data. The metacognitive control strategies tutors used were metacognitive control itself, beginner’s mind, selfcompassion, showing kindness, breathing techniques, and self-reliance. Similar to metacognitive monitoring, I analyzed the language to see if the metacognitive control was used for the tutor or the client. I found that 55% (37 t-units) was language about the client, while 45% (30 t-units) was language about the tutors.

I then analyzed the kind of mindfulness strategies used for metacognitive control based on what I introduced in the training presentation. I found that 60% (40 t-units) of the time tutors used simple metacognitive control by combining their own strategies with controlling the situation by focusing on either the task or on the emotion at hand (further elaborated in the mindfulness strategies discussion).

As for the other mindfulness stances outlined

by Driscoll and Wells, 16% (10 t-units) of the time tutors used beginner’s mind (putting themselves in their client’s shoes) as metacognitive control. One tutor did this by “reminding myself that all clients are different.”

Another client calmed their frustration with a client by reminding themselves “I’ve been more behind on more important assignments.” 13% (9 t-units) involved tutors used self-compassion (being kind to their client or themselves) as metacognitive control. One tutor showed kindness to their client by explaining “I have a chance to let them know that this is a very okay, commonly [sic] experience, and best battled in a safe and comfortable space like the WRC.” 9% (6 t-units) involved tutors who used breathing techniques as metacognitive control.

One tutor in particular used the three deep breaths technique multiple times, such as this instance: “In the session I felt sick, I utilized the three deep breaths technique as a way to center myself and continue the session.” 1% (1 t-unit) involved tutors who used selfreliance (trusting themselves) as metacognitive control.

Finally, 1% (1 t-unit) involved tutors who used grounding techniques as metacognitive control.

Metacognitive Evaluation

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Take a Breath • 38 Metacognitive evaluation made up 26% (37 tunits) of the mindfulness strategies data. I analyzed when metacognitive evaluation involved reflecting directly on a session versus when a tutor is reflecting on their tutoring practices. I found that 84% (31 t-units) involved metacognitive evaluation of their tutoring practices, while 16% (6 t-units) involved metacognitive evaluation directly about a session. Some tutors reflected on their past tutoring practices: “When I started tutoring in 2020, I fully doubted my ability to help clients during all of my sessions.” Some tutors reflected on their current position as a tutor: “My role as a tutor is to make clients feel worthy of being cared for.” Some tutors reflected on the importance of representing the writing center: “The importance of the session is the association you are creating to represent the WRC among peers.”

Active Listening (AL) Active listening made up 6% (9 t-units) of the mindfulness strategies data. Any mention of active listening is a tutor stating they actively use it: “To me, I feel there’s an importance to active listening, as a person can get caught up into their own thoughts and completely miss what another person is saying.” A tutor also related their usage of active listening to their clients and tutoring practices: “I attribute a fair part of my success as a tutor to my ability to make most clients feel comfortable and heart.”

Discussion For clarity, these results will be further analyzed in order of the percentage breakdown from greatest to least of each metacognitive strategy.

a result, “I remember a few [sessions] where the student came back with gradually increasing confidence in future sessions.” With a tutor directing metacognitive control, clients feel at ease by knowing their tutor listens to and supports them.

The results also explain that metacognitive control strategies can be both taught through formal training and modified through a tutor’s learned experience.

The results provide additional metacognitive control strategies combined with technical tutor practices that can be taught to tutors. In the 60% of metacognitive control t-units, tutors used existing practices and related them to an emotional context. Tutors used what I defined as “task-related” or “emotion-related” practices. Task-related practices involve focusing on the task at hand, which is the written work, using more logical strategies to break down one larger task into several smaller tasks.

Emotion-related practices are more nuanced, as they pull away from the task to focus on the emotions instead. I observed two emotion-related practices: a tutor focuses on their own emotions to ground themselves while a client works, or they speak with their client about the emotions at hand to ground both of them. I further broke down these strategies with example segments from tutor journal entries (Table 10).

One tutor uses a combination of these practices, starting with an emotion-related practice and then following with a task-related practice: “I took some time from our appointment, but I spoke to them about the nerves they seemed to be feeling and worked to break down the huge task they had built up into smaller, more manageable tasks.” Ultimately, these adaptive metacognitive control practices focus directly on the matters of the session and are situational to the needs of the tutor and the client.

Metacognitive Control The results emphasize the usefulness of metacognitive control strategies to resolve client disruptive emotions. A combined 84% of resolved client disruptive emotions involved metacognitive control as the resolution method, such as one tutor reflecting how they use metacognitive control to let clients release their emotions: “Letting clients express their frustration of anxiety is something that helps, and I try to find ways I can alleviate that.” Another tutor uses metacognitive control to gauge a client’s feelings at the end of a session: “At the end of these sessions, I try to spend a minute or two asking about how the client feels about what we worked on.” In these situations, this same tutor additionally offers campus resources, and notes that as Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025) www.praxisuwc.com

Take a Breath • 39 Table 10. Tutor-Created Metacognitive Control Strategies Task-related: Tutor breaks down one larger task into one or several smaller tasks for client

“I noticed the student became more calm as we broke down each comment’s blunt complaint to translate it into a constructive point.”

“Instead of revising the content, we came up with ideas and wrote sentences to jumpstart bigger paragraphs.”

“We went through each page and sorted the scholarships by which had similar requirements for their essays.”

“After working with their writing processor and navigating resources to help them with their formatting, we got the paper to where it needed to be.”

“I first reassured the client by suggesting we take a look at the rubric and I would walk them through step-by-step the instructions.”

Emotion-related: Tutor focuses on their emotions to help them focus on the session

“Once I took notice of that feeling [frustration] and accepted it, I felt my mind relax and continued the session the best I could.”

“I needed to pull away from reading the instructions over and over.”

“I was also grounding myself in moments where the student was busy typing or reading in order to make sure my nerves didn’t surface.”

“Having the moment by myself to read without their face on me helped me think of things to help fix when they got back on the call.”

Emotion-related: Tutor pulls the client away from the task to focus on emotions

“Tell her that I was just as lost and confused as her and express my vulnerability with not understanding what she needed clarification on.”

“There are a lot of times where I do find myself noticing a student becoming overwhelmed and asking if we can take a moment to breathe.”

“I can usually get to a point in my sessions where the client opens up and tells me about their nerves, reservations, or anxiety.”

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Take a Breath • 40 In addition to these practices, the other 40% of metacognitive control strategies included Driscoll and Wells’s mindfulness stances (Table 4). For example, one tutor used beginner’s mind (considering the client’s perspective) to fully understand their client’s emotions: “I was frustrated but I reminded myself that this is what the writing center is for, and that I’ve been more behind on more important assignments.” Another tutor reported that, when using breathing techniques, “I was able to calm myself and my emotions to continue the session.” Tutors used these mindfulness stances towards understanding a client’s perspective or giving themselves time to process their own emotions, rather than progressing the session. These stances can also be used with the tutor-created mindfulness strategies, giving tutors a wide range of tools to address emotions.

Metacognitive Evaluation Metacognitive evaluation is important for tutors to reflect on their tutoring practices and not only sessions (as 84% of metacognitive evaluation involves tutoring practices). Metacognitive evaluation allows tutors to give themselves compassion and understand that they did their best regardless of how the session ends, especially regarding resolved tutor disruptive emotions. One tutor reflects on the outcome of one session with their relationship to working in the writing center: “You aren’t ever going to hit every point that’s needed on a paper, but the importance of the session is the association you are creating to represent the WRC among your peers.” One tutor reflects on their perspective of the nature of their sessions: “These 45minute sessions I get with clients are a secret dialogue of shame. What differentiates my shame from the client’s is that I actively work on conquering that shame and have come up with strategies to help. My role as a tutor is to help my clients do the same.” This tutor also reflects on struggling with their self-confidence as a tutor: “Tutors who lack confidence will doubt their skills and focus on local issues which is a key difference between specialized tutors and general tutors. So, even if I don’t believe it, I tell myself I am a good tutor and I pretend as if I believe I am.” By reflecting on and processing their nervousness regarding sessions or their tutoring practices, tutors understand their ideologies as tutors and how these ideologies pertain to helping their clients. This finding highlights the importance of implementing reflection, particularly emotional reflection, in tutoring practices through journal entries or building a culture of reflection in the writing center, written or verbal.

Metacognitive Monitoring The results display that mindfulness education can be used to emphasize unconscious and conscious processes regarding metacognitive monitoring. While metacognitive monitoring was the least used out of the three metacognitive strategies (19%), tutors still actively labeled both theirs and their client’s emotions.

Furthermore, the process of metacognitive monitoring (or “labeling emotions”) is explicitly mentioned 44% of the time, such as one tutor here: “I find myself attempting to label emotions more often when speaking with clients, both to gauge how we’re feeling about their writing before and after appointments, and also to acknowledge how emotions can slip into writing.” The other 56% is tutors simply writing what they observe in clients and themselves, such as one tutor reflecting on their self-doubt when tutoring: “I recognize that when I am feeling nervous and acknowledge it comes from my fears of being an insufficient tutor.” One tutor uses metacognitive monitoring at the end of an appointment, when, after creating a “judgment-free zone” for the client, they “notice the clients feeling much more comfortable, confident, and express relief by the end of the appointment.” Training can be used to turn this unconscious process of labeling emotions in themselves and others into a conscious one, especially with a process that tutors already actively do. Further emphasis on metacognitive monitoring can create more relaxed tutors that monitor what they or their clients are feeling at a given moment.

Active Listening The results support the already effective nature of active listening as a tool commonly taught to tutors.

However, the results also support the emotional implication of active listening to make a client feel seen and heard in their words. Whether related to emotional mindfulness or not, active listening is a strategy tutors already actively employ: “Active listening is a huge part of every single appointment that I conduct.” However, tutors also describe their use of active listening for their own engagement, such as one tutor stating, “I try to use active listening in all of my appointments because I will get distracted and stop listening to them.” Another tutor shows a balance of both by explaining “I try to ensure that I’m employing active listening during all of my appointments nowadays, and hope to make it clear to clients with my body language and comments that our sessions will follow their lead.” The results show a further implication of active listening not being used

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Take a Breath • 41 only for a client’s benefit, but also for a tutor’s personal benefit.

Updated Education Presentation After analyzing my results, I modified my training presentation to both reflect my findings and support the benefits of emotional mindfulness using the voices of my fellow tutors. With these changes, I wanted to create a more personal feel to the presentation while also providing more context and examples of exactly how these strategies can be used by using tutor responses from their journal entries.

I first reformatted the presentation to make it visually attractive. I then emphasized the practices tutors have already learned and are currently using to link with prior knowledge and experience, such as providing examples from tutor journal entries after introducing a metacognitive strategy. For metacognitive monitoring, I emphasize the conscious and unconscious process of labeling emotions with examples. For metacognitive control, I explain the task-related and emotion-related strategies tutors used with journal entry examples. For metacognitive evaluation, I use journal entry examples to outline the versatile usage of reflecting on tutoring.

Additionally, I use my data to contextualize how many and what kind of generative, disruptive, and circumstantial emotions appear when tutoring. I also use journal entry examples when explaining mindfulness stances, such as beginner’s mind and self-compassion, and use my results to emphasize what strategies tutors in our writing center used. Throughout the presentation, I made the moments of reflection more specific rather than basic questions asking what tutors were feeling and learning.

Limitations My study had several limitations. First, the emotional mindfulness education was only conducted at one university, so the presentation may not fully meet the needs of other institutions. Second, there is no control group in the study, as I wanted to administer the training to all tutors in our writing center. A control group would allow an examination of the use of mindfulness in untrained tutors versus trained tutors.

Third, I originally planned to include session observations and transcripts in this study. However, due to time and resource limitations, I was unable to gather these. Additionally, these means of data collection would have allowed for clients’ voices to be included in this study. Finally, my study focused primarily on tutor experiences and written words regardless of experience

at the writing center (new versus experienced tutors), which could have influenced how tutors received the training.

Conclusions and Future Research This project allowed me to directly examine the impacts of emotional mindfulness education on tutors through their journal responses. The results ultimately proved that the presentation was not only successful in educating tutors about emotional mindfulness but supported that tutors already actively employ their own emotional mindfulness strategies, consciously or unconsciously. Furthermore, the results displayed the adaptive nature of tutors through task-related and emotion-related metacognitive control strategies.

Providing formal emotional mindfulness training facilitates growth in a tutor’s strategies by labeling what a tutor already practices and provides a tutor with new tools in their tutoring toolbox. The results also stressed the importance of implementing tutor reflection into writing center practices so tutors can process their emotions regarding sessions and their abilities as tutors.

The journal entries gave tutors a chance to actively employ metacognitive evaluation by venting and reflecting on their emotions regarding their tutoring, allowing them to be conscious of their own tutoring practices moving forward.

More importantly, this project gave me additional insight on how to improve my presentation through tutor insights and practices. By learning from my fellow tutors, I improved the presentation by using examples from my research. With this updated presentation, future new tutors have tangible and direct examples from their own writing center to help process their nerves about tutoring and eventually handle emotional sessions with confidence. I plan to give the presentation again to the new batch of incoming tutors, and the training presentation I created will continue to be used by my writing center administrators once I graduate.

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Take a Breath • 42

Figure 1. Original Emotional Mindfulness Education Presentation

Figure 2. Updated Emotional Mindfulness Education Presentation

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Take a Breath • 43 I hope that writing center professionals can extend and expand upon the emotional mindfulness training I created. However, I am happy with the amount of data I received from my study, and future research could examine usage of mindfulness strategies through session observations or session recordings. Further research could examine the effectiveness of mindfulness training for clients and elevate client voices alongside tutors. Future research could also examine different theories and research outside of Driscoll and Wells to implement in training. This presentation can be adjusted to the specific needs of different writing centers, such as added onto any existing training on emotional situations. I highly encourage writing center professionals to use my presentation and results as a resource or starting point when implementing emotional mindfulness into writing center training for tutors.

Appendix: Coding Schemes Client Emotion (C) - Refers to when a client expresses an emotion (“They were uncertain and nervous about their paper”) - Refers to when a tutor observes that a client has not expressed any explicit emotions (“I don’t believe anyone explicitly stated any strong emotions”) Generative Emotions (CG) - Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a client that is perceived as positive and helps the progression of a session, like enjoyment or excitement (“This helped ease the student’s worries”) - Refers to when words such as “relief,” “calm,” “happiness,” or “excitement” are used referring to a client - Refers to clearly positive emotions, such as a client being relieved at the end of a session or excited during a session Disruptive Emotions (CD) - Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a client that is perceived as negative and hurts the progression of the session, like disinterest or anger (“She became frustrated with me for saying we could exclude a particular piece of information”) - Refers to when words such as “disinterested,” “indifferent,”

“distracted,” “frustrated,” or “annoyed” are used referring to a client - Refers to clearly negative emotions, such as anxiety from a client or disinterest during a session *Note: Label emotions associated with Circumstantial Emotions (CC) as CD due to the emotions being unclear if they turn into circumstantial emotions in the individual segment.

Tutor Emotion (T) - Refers to when a tutor expresses or mentions an emotion (“I felt myself wanting to be uncandid”) - Refers to when a tutor feels they have not expressed any explicit emotion - Refers to when a tutor expresses an emotion that is hard to label (“I was grounding myself… in order to make sure my nerves didn’t surface”) Generative Emotions (TG) - Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a tutor that is perceived as positive and helps the progression of a session or the tutor’s emotional processing towards their work, like enjoyment or excitement (“I was excited to see his improvement from session one to two”) - Refers to when words such as “relief,” “calm,” “happiness,” “confident” or “excited” are used in reference to a tutor - Refers to clearly positive emotions, such as relief a tutor feels after a session or excitement about a topic during a session - Refers to when a tutor states they feel a positive way (“I felt relieved at the end of the session”) Disruptive Emotions (TD) - Refers to an initial emotion expressed by a tutor that is perceived as negative and hurts the progression of a session or the tutor’s emotional processing towards their work, like frustration, anger, or annoyance (“I felt pretty frustrated with the client who seemed annoyed”) - Refers to when words such as “frustrated” “resistant,” “unconfident” or “annoyed” are used in reference to a tutor

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Take a Breath • 44 -

Refers to clearly negative emotions, such as a tutor getting frustrated at a client or an unresolved emotion - Refers to when a tutor states they feel a certain negative way (“Whenever I feel unfit as a tutor”) *Note: Same as CD. Mindfulness Strategies (M) Refers to when a tutor uses a mindfulness strategy, either described during a session or used outside a session (“I utilized the three deep breaths technique as a way to center myself and continue the session”) - Refers to when a tutor states they did not use any mindfulness strategies (“I can’t say I’ve used any mindfulness strategies recently”) Metacognitive Monitoring (MM) - Refers to when a tutor labels a client’s emotions before acting upon them (“I noticed that my client was getting frustrated over not understanding the instructions”) - Refers to when a tutor labels their own emotions before acting upon them (“I realized I was frustrated and ignoring that emotion”) - Refers to when a tutor notices a moment involving emotions is happening before acting upon it (“There were moments of long pauses I noticed was happening”) - Refers to when a tutor states explicitly that they labeled their emotions (“During the session, I tried to label my emotions”) Metacognitive Control (MC) - Refers to when a tutor acts upon a client’s emotions after labeling and helps them through the session (“I spoke to them about the nerves they seemed to be feeling”) - Refers to when a tutor acts upon their own emotions after labeling them (“I took a step back”) Metacognitive Evaluation (ME) - Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their actions or feelings about a session (“I have had multiple sessions with clients where I feel as though I am not smart enough”) - Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their current tutoring practices (“I

attribute a fair part of my success as a tutor to my ability to make most clients feel comfortable and heard.”)

- Refers to when a tutor reflects upon their past tutoring practices (“When I started tutoring in 2020, I fully doubted my ability to help clients”) Active Listening (ML) Refers to when a tutor uses active listening to listen to or explicitly address a client’s emotions (“I try to use active listening in all of my appointments”) Other (O) - Use Other (O) when the tutor is describing information too general to fit into any code, or if the tutor explains any session context Notes 1. Driscoll and Wells refer to these strategies as mindfulness techniques. However, for clarity, I refer to them as metacognitive control strategies.

2. My original coding scheme included a code for client circumstantial emotions and tutor circumstantial emotions. However, coding for these emotions as individual t-units became difficult as most of the circumstantial emotions were not clear in a single t-unit, and instead usually appeared disruptive, which did not capture the full scope of that emotion or situation. Because of this, I changed the coding scheme to later analyze circumstantial emotions by first coding for seemingly disruptive emotions.

3. 2 t-units noted both the client and tutor feeling some kind of generative emotion together. Because the journal entries consisted of tutors reflecting on these emotions, those 2 t-units were labeled under Tutor Generative Emotions.

Works Cited Driscoll, Dana, and Wells, Jeniffer. “Tutoring the Whole Person: Supporting Emotional Development in Writers and Tutors.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, 2020, pp. 16-28. https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/

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Take a Breath • 45 handle/2152/82567/396_Driscoll_Wells_Pro of_8_10.pdf?sequence=2.

Giaimo, Nicol, et al. “A Matter of Method: Wellness and Care Research in Writing Center Studies.”

Wellness and Care in Writing Center Work, Press Books, 2021, pp. 7-28.

Geisler, Cheryl and Swarts, Jason. Coding Streams of Language: Techniques for the Systematic Coding of Text, Talk, and Other Verbal Data, University of Colorado Press, 2019.

Im, Hojin, et al. “The Emotional Sponge: Perceived Reasons for Emotionally Laborious Sessions and Coping Strategies of Peer Writing Tutors.”

The Writing Center Journal, vol. 38, no. 1, 2020, pp.

203-230. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1925&context=wcj.

Mackiewicz, Jo and Isabelle Kramer Thompson. Talk about Writing: The Tutoring Strategies of Experienced Writing Center Tutors, Routledge, 2018.

Mannon, Bethany. “Centering the Emotional Labor of Writing Tutors.” The Writing Center Journal, vol.

39, no.

1, 2021. https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent. cgi?article=1962&context=wcj.

McBride, Maureen, et, al. “Responding to the Whole Person: Using Empathetic Listening and Responding in the Writing Center.” The Peer Review, vol.

2, no.

2, 2018. https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue2/responding-to-the-whole-person-usingempathic-listening-and-responding-in-thewriting-center/.

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TRACKING DISPOSITIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN TUTOR EDUCATION: AN EXPERIMENT IN TUTOR-LED ASSESSMENT Tyler Gardner Brigham Young University tyler_gardner@byu.edu

Madilyn Abbe University of California, Berkeley madilyn.abbe@gmail.com

Gabbie Schwartz Brigham Young University gabriellals6251@gmail.com

Olivia Drew Swasey University of Wisconsin – Madison 1oliviadrew@gmail.com Abstract

Building on discussions of liminal threshold concepts and sensemaking in the writing center, this article engages the way tutor training extends beyond skill acquisition to involve dispositional development—specifically exploring how tutor education fosters collaborative dispositions in new tutors. Experimenting with tutorled assessment, this article provides three tutor-conducted case studies that track the experience of new tutors in their first semester of writing center training and identify key training elements that contribute to dispositional development. While these case studies reveal the development of collaborative dispositions to be a nonlinear and subjective process, they highlight the value of metacognitive and interpersonal training activities that help new tutors bridge practical experience with theoretical understanding.

“I didn’t know before accepting the job how I would feel invested in students, or that demonstrating empathy with them improves the relationship and their perspective on writing. Overall, tutoring is much more than pulling out a red pen. This job has become much more to me than improving writing. I now feel that the point is connecting with others!”

– Writing tutor at the end of their initial training The above epigraph reflects the enthusiasm and focus that a writing tutor can gain from developing a pronounced orientation to who they are and the work they do. Initial tutor education in the writing center is as much about facilitating this orientation as it is about developing specific knowledge and skills. Mike Mattison points to this when discussing his initial hesitancy to leave Stephen North’s essay “The Idea of a Writing Center” off his writing center course syllabus and lose that forceful articulation of what it is we think we are doing in the center (5). In omitting North’s identityforming polemic that operated for so long as a “special handshake for the initiated” (Boquet & Lerner 171), Mattison recognized the need to “work harder, and more deliberately, to help [tutors] establish a sense of

themselves as [tutors]” (5). In Sensemaking for Writing Programs & Writing Centers, Rita Malenczyk et al. draw on sensemaking theory to consider what the “micro interactions of faculty, tutors, and others—show us about attitudes and orientations toward program and center work” (1). In that same vein, this article explores how tutors develop a sense of themselves, specifically the kind of collaborative disposition displayed in the epigraph above.

Descending from John Dewey’s work on habits of mind, dispositions have become a staple of teacher development discourse, while remaining difficult to define and even harder to assess (Choi; Rike; Wayda).

While not using the language of dispositions, discussions of peer tutor training have long engaged the realm of dispositions in terms of considering “cognitive and affective attributes that filter one's knowledge, skills, and beliefs and impact the action one takes in classroom or professional settings” (Thornton 62). In framing peer tutoring as “the systematic application of collaborative principles” (334), Kenneth Bruffee made the case for deliberate tutor training “based on collaborative learning” as opposed to “merely selecting good students and giving them little to no guidance, throwing them together with their peers” (334). Advocating for tutors to be trained in collaboration, Bruffee saw the peer tutor role as practicing “a set of behaviors” (Holt 102).

Rebecca Nowacek and Brad Hughes point to how adopting these behaviors involves “liminal threshold concepts, views that require not just cognitive understanding but sometimes profound reorientations of worldviews and even identities” (175). They describe the planning of initial tutor education as a process of identifying “which beliefs are the necessary building blocks for the rest of our work” and which “can be further explored during longterm professional development” (175).

Part of the challenge of tutor training, as Nowacek and Hughes acknowledge, is that

Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 47 understanding some of the necessary building blocks is “not simply a matter of flipping a light switch from off to on; rather, it is a cognitively (and sometimes emotionally) complex emergent understanding” (182).

Mark Blaauw-Hara et al. point to this complexity in pushing for alternatives to the threshold metaphor that rely less “on the relatively quick transition between one space and another” (6). Regardless of the language or metaphor employed—habits of mind, a set of behaviors, or liminal threshold concepts—this discourse reflects the contention that tutor education should consider a tutor’s orientation to the work alongside the development of skills.

Adding to this discussion, we use the term disposition to emphasize the “cognitive and affective attributes that filter one's knowledge, skills, and beliefs and impact the action one takes” as a tutor. Lisa Cahill et al. persuasively demonstrate the value of a writing tutor training program that offers deliberate instruction in the realm of dispositions, or what they call “core principles” made up of both core beliefs and habits of mind. Cahill et al. identified habits of mind and core beliefs they wanted tutors to demonstrate and be guided by in their work and then revamped their tutor education program to directly address these habits and beliefs. They found that making these core beliefs explicit helped tutors think more critically about their work, guided them in challenging moments when working with writers, and provided shared language with which to discuss writing together.

Our study extends out of this premise that dispositions influence effective tutoring and that tutor education programs should be mindful of the dispositions they yield. Yet, we also recognize the challenge of assessing dispositional development. As Bruce Bowles reminds us, “assessment tells us as much about what we value in our programs as it does about the performance of our programs” (7). As we considered revisions to our own program, we wanted to first understand the connection between training activities and dispositional development. Of course, this connection is not always as straightforward as it might seem—assessing self-efficacy can reveal a “strange loop,” where “effects [can] appear disproportionate to their causes” (Comstock 17). Rather than articulate the dispositions we wanted tutors to develop and reorienting our program around that, we sought first to identify the effective dispositions tutors were already demonstrating by the end of their initial training and then attempt to track the training experience and determine which components of our current program seemed to influence that development. Essentially, we set out to identify what parts of our existing training

program helped tutors develop dispositions that made them compelling collaborators. How did the tutor in the above epigraph, for example, come to see themself as first and foremost “connecting with others”?

Method To identify tutors who seemed to successfully adopt a dispositional focus on writers, we turned to the culminating assignment of our initial training experience: a tutoring philosophy statement articulating the what, how, and why of their approach to tutoring.

As the written product of our training program, this tutoring philosophy statement provides a residual artifact that we could use to consider the dispositions tutors possessed at the conclusion of their initial writing center training. While the articulation and execution of a philosophy are separate, the articulation is a start—a clear picture of what the tutors are aspiring to at the end of their initial training. Using the philosophy statement to identify tutors who appeared to have developed a compelling disposition, we could then consider additional written artifacts that the identified students created throughout the program to further track what parts of their training experience seemed to cultivate these dispositions.

In “Ongoing Writing Tutor Education: Models and Practices,” Julia Bleakney suggests that assessment of tutor education “should address everything tutors experience (including working in the writing center, as well as attending meetings, being observed, etc.) that helps build their expertise.” Given the range and abundance of reflective writing assignments throughout our training program, this archive of reflections provided the closest thing to a real-time record of “everything tutors experience.”

The next question was how to, or rather who should, conduct the assessment of these written artifacts. While the virtues of assessments that “privilege student perspective” are well established (Buck), there is a surprising lack of tutor involvement in assessment projects beyond reporting on their own experience.

Typically, student perspective is ascertained through self-assessment tools like tutor surveys (Bleakney).

There are far fewer published instances of tutors actually conducting assessment efforts themselves. However, in many cases, peers are best equipped to track and understand the experience of their colleagues (Topping 22).

As the writing center director, I (Tyler) was aware that my own experience facilitating the training might get in the way of grasping the tutors’ perspective on and experience in the training program. I was

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 48 intrigued by the potential insights a tutor-led assessment of our training program might yield. I share Andrea Rosso Efthymiou’s sense of often feeling “taken aback by the keen way undergraduate staff make sense of their work without access to the same language and frameworks that we [administrators] have” (14).

Efthymiou makes a case for considering “what knowledge a writing center administrator can gain from paying attention to tutors' frameworks for sensemaking alongside writing center administrators' own researchbased frameworks” (14). The project described here begins with this same logic, using tutors’ language in tutor philosophy statements and written records to better understand their sensemaking journey. However, it extends that focus on tutor sensemaking to also include the interpretive assessment process itself. What knowledge is revealed by tutors paying attention to their fellow tutors’ frameworks for sensemaking?

I realized that experienced tutors, who had all gone through the training themselves, would be especially informed readers of their peers’ training experience. Attempting to center student perspectives in the assessment of our program, I chose three undergraduate tutors of varying experience—two years removed from their initial training, one year removed, recently completed—to conduct the assessment. After they each identified a compelling tutor philosophy statement, they then tracked the archive of their chosen peers’ journey to discern the elements of our tutor training program that seemed most significant to that specific tutor’s development. What follows is the record of their assessment and results. The insights gleaned from these case studies collectively exemplify the valuable contribution tutors can make in the assessment process by illuminating the experience of their peers.

This research received IRB approval and was conducted in accordance with our institution’s human research guidelines.

Creating the Case Studies We three undergraduate tutors (Madilyn, Gabbie, Olivia Drew) were presented with thirty deidentified philosophy statements written by thirty tutors enrolled in the training program from the previous academic year. We were tasked with reading through all of them to choose one that stood out in terms of its resonant portrayal of a tutor who possessed compelling writing center dispositions. Or in the words of the writing center director: which of these writers seems like a tutor you would want to work with if you were coming into the writing center with your own work? Once we selected a tutor based on their philosophy statement, we

were provided with the rest of the chosen tutor’s written record from the 15-week training program, which included weekly reading/reflection summaries and weekly work reports.

The expertise we brought to the table was not only our proximity to the training program we were evaluating, having gone through it ourselves, but also our daily operations in the center and what type of dispositions we recognized as valuable on the tutoring floor. As students trained in literary analysis, we elected to employ a close reading approach to evaluate the tutors’ evidence trail. Like Harvey Kail’s reading of writing center manuals “as if they were narratives,” we similarly read the paper trail left by new tutors in training, focusing on “their story rather than focusing exclusively on their exposition and advice” (74). We scrutinized moments of triumph—where the tutor seemed to grasp writing center pedagogy and evince self-efficacy—and moments of struggle—where the tutor expressed concern and a disconnect seemed evident. Our inquiry was guided by a careful focus on what aspects of our training program facilitated epiphanies. Additionally, we looked for comparisons between the ideas articulated in the philosophy statement and these same ideas in the written record, trying to see how these various concepts developed and evolved throughout the entirety of the training program.

Ultimately, we tried to track the tutors' growing sense of self-efficacy throughout their training and identify which parts of the training program facilitated their dispositional development.

The product of our analysis is ultimately three separate case studies that narrate distinct journeys throughout our training program. The tutor journeys depicted in these case studies are not representative of any larger whole in the sense of being picked according to demographic background, pre-existing preparation, or any other criteria along these lines. Rather, they were selected on the basis of their de-identified philosophy statements that seemed representative of tutors who exited the training program with a compelling approach to tutoring. One limitation of focusing on successful tutors is the potential to overlook what struggling tutors can tell us about ways to develop our training program.

However, we wanted to first identify which parts of our training program prove effective at developing collaborative dispositions and therefore should be included in future iterations.

The three case studies below identify those parts of the training program by synthesizing and detailing the experience of new tutors. In narrating individual experience, case studies are well-suited for communicating the subjective nature of dispositional

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 49 development because they “examine the experience of particular people in particular contexts as they engage in authentic activities” (Severino & Deifell 32). In addition to identifying training components that help develop dispositions, these case studies are also beneficial for the insight they provide into how these tutors navigate the training experience generally. The case studies reflect the rich intricacies of the new tutor experience while highlighting which elements of the training program prominently influenced these tutors’ dispositional development. In particular, these case studies reveal the value of combining practice with theoretical instruction, the importance of creating a community of practice, and the significance of metacognitive exercises.

BYU’s Training Program To contextualize the case studies, here is a brief overview of the training program we are assessing. At BYU’s Writing Center, new tutors are trained in a 15week program (see fig. 1). The first few weeks of this training include new tutors observing and then coconsulting with more experienced tutors. Beginning around week 5, new tutors are then observed in a solo consultation by the writing center director, who confirms their preparation to tutor independently.

Throughout this process, new tutors attend weekly staff meetings and class meetings as they acquire familiarity with fundamental tutoring skills such as scaffolding, in addition to training centered on working with alternative genres, writing courses specific to BYU, multilingual writers, and other various student identities.

As shown in Figure 1, new tutors complete a number of assignments over the course of their training, such as weekly reading responses, weekly work reports, and various observations. These assignments encourage new tutors to engage with tutoring material, account for the time they spend in the writing center and offer a space for metacognitive reflection regarding the development of their tutoring practices.

New tutors conclude their training by synthesizing the tutoring knowledge they have acquired, relying on informative readings, classes, reflections, work reports, or other discussions they have had with peers in order to articulate their personal approach to tutoring. These tutoring philosophy statements are then shared with their fellow new tutors at the conclusion of their training.

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 50

Figure 1. BYU’s 15-Week Training Tutor 10: Case Study by Madilyn Abbe Justification Although I’m three years removed from my own training program, I’ve been fortunate to continue inhabiting the new tutor sphere. At our writing center, our student administrator position pairs a seasoned consultant with new interns to train, mentor, and guide them. Working in this position, I’ve repeatedly witnessed individual tutor growth throughout the process of the training program. After reviewing thirty philosophy statements, I selected Tutor 10. I felt drawn to this philosophy statement because the tutor aptly articulates the purpose of the writing center and the writing tutor, capitalizing on the trope of being so much more than a red pen. With this metaphor, Tutor 10 emphasizes tutors as conversationalists, something much more than mechanical instruments. Their philosophy articulates the ways that tutors must engage students through meaningful conversation. As Tutor 10 acknowledges, oftentimes college students struggle with writing because they can’t conceive of an audience other than a professor. For Tutor 10, the tutor fills the space of the audience, bridging the missing gap. By focusing on peers over final products, students are no longer alone. Collaborating with a tutor ultimately facilitates their development as writers.

Tutor 10’s philosophy statement intrigued me to learn more about what enabled them to illustrate the dichotomy between the “red pen” and the writing tutor.

I was interested to discover what memorable moments of collaboration taught them how to effectively work with student writers. Tutor 10’s dispositional focus on student writers primarily developed out of their experiences balancing their enthusiasm for writing center theory with the challenges of tutoring actual humans and all the variability they present.

Narrative Preparation Stress and an eagerness for writing center theory characterizes Tutor 10’s preparation phase. The underlying stress is understandable considering that the preparation phase introduces myriad tips to navigate a completely new work environment. In the midst of newness, Tutor 10 finds comfort in theory. Their eagerness for pedagogy’s theoretical grounding includes different approaches to tutoring and ways to conceptualize the space. For the first week of the training program, it’s evident that Tutor 10 feels overwhelmed and self-conscious. Their comments emanate a layer of stress as they mention the initial difficulty of “figuring out how to clock in” and the overwhelm of digesting a “copious amount of

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 51 information.” Yet, it is the human interaction with other writing center tutors that provides some relief. In addition to “a familiar face who answered a lot of my questions,” Tutor 10 notes how “all of my interactions with consultants were positive.” Hearing about other tutors’ trials and triumphs in the training program assuages their feelings of inadequacy.

One thing that stands out from the preparation phase is how eager Tutor 10 is about the theory readings and discussions. During this phase, these readings primarily conceptualize the purpose of the writing center and the writing tutor as well as introduce new tutors to scaffolding methods. Phrases like “I wholeheartedly agree” indicate the extent to which theory coincides with Tutor 10’s own viewpoint. Tutor 10 even directly quotes and names theorists in their personal reflections. They also attempt to incorporate concepts learned from theory readings into practical application with their weekly goals.

While conducting observations, Tutor 10 takes a magnifying glass approach. Before independent tutoring, new tutors observe seasoned consultants during a session. New tutors take notes during the consultation and later interview the seasoned consultants about what strategies they chose and why.

Most of Tutor 10’s notes from observations highlight concepts from theory readings. Yet, rather than hoping to apply the theoretical approaches they’re witnessing in action, Tutor 10 seems to highlight whatever is already familiar to them. Observations seem to be a way to identify theoretical concepts more than learning skills for their own tutoring.

The synthesis of theory and practical observations lead Tutor 10 to eloquently articulate an early conception of what they believe will be helpful to the students they work with: “Not every student is going to desire help with the composing process and strategies of cognitive/motivational scaffolding may not change a student’s life, but theory helps guide us to make beneficial choices.”

Tutoring Tutor 10 leaves the preparation phase with excitement for the theoretical part of the writing center.

This excitement stays strong into the tutoring phase as Tutor 10 seems to hold tightly to theory as they begin tutoring for the first time. Additionally, in the tutoring phase, the stress Tutor 10 exhibited at the beginning of the training transfers into a different kind of stress.

Now, instead of stressing about clocking in and navigating the writing center, Tutor 10 expresses

concerns about tutoring approaches and the limits of theory.

While in the tutoring phase, theory still functions as a significant factor for learning and development. Tutor 10 often mentions how a theory reading dispels fears or how they frequently reflect on theory readings during the week. Sometimes Tutor 10 even wishes for extra time to reread theory because “so many of the students I meet with could be benefited by instruction on these chapters.” Tutor 10 also expresses an acute and insightful awareness of the role of writing center pedagogy: “In my reading, it stressed the fact that writing center pedagogy allows for us to tailor our time to the individual needs of students.” These comments indicate how Tutor 10 sees a direct correlation between theory reading and writing center work.

Interestingly, it's during this stage that Tutor 10 begins to push back slightly against theory. When I read this, I was surprised because theory seemed to be Tutor 10’s foundation up to this point. As Tutor 10 begins their own independent tutoring, it seems they’re beginning to realize the discrepancy between the ideal (theory readings) and the real (in-center practice). Now that Tutor 10 has emerged from the bubble of just discussing theoretical tutoring, Tutor 10 begins to question the universality of theory. In response to a reading about the theory of asking questions, Tutor 10 posits, “Is there a limit to asking questions? When can you tell if asking questions is frustrating a student?”

Here, Tutor 10 recognizes that while theory offers an approach, the student doesn’t always respond in the way that theory anticipates. Perhaps as a result of the experience they’ve had on the tutoring floor, Tutor 10 is beginning to realize that theory isn’t a panacea.

Having the writing center director observe Tutor 10 was a breakthrough for them. Before students are cleared for independent tutoring, the writing center director observes one of their consultations. Afterward, a discussion allows the new tutor to metacognitively express their rationale behind tutoring choices.

Additionally, the writing center director offers the new tutor advice about how to improve. Tutor 10 “really enjoyed” getting observed, and it seems this observation was instrumental in filling in gaps and learning new things. Interestingly, while we might expect Tutor 10 to use theory language to articulate what they learned, Tutor 10 recounts the experience in solely strategic, practical terms. This may indicate that, at this stage in their journey, Tutor 10 hasn’t successfully integrated theory into practice and vice versa. Tutor 10 can read theory and identify what aspects they enjoy and want to incorporate as well as observe other tutors and recognize how theory intersects with their practices. But

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 52 when it comes to Tutor 10’s own tutoring practice, there’s a disconnect. The two halves of the divide, incenter practice and theory, are still separate. While Tutor 10 has conceptualized how theory fits into in-center practice, they have yet to connect the dots.

Growth The growth period was a crucial week for Tutor 10. In this period, Tutor 10 strongly pushes back against theory, more than we saw in the previous phase. In one instance, Tutor 10 questions, “I understand that this is the ‘theory’ of asking questions, but what if a student fails to respond to social-coordinating questions?

Should we become more direct to facilitate the consult?”

Here, Tutor 10 continues to navigate between the push and pull of the ideal vs. the real world. Yet, this pushback becomes helpful in navigating the practical tutoring experience of the writing center.

During this period, Tutor 10 vocalizes a heightened level of confidence. The significance of Tutor 10’s professed self-confidence is augmented by the fact that Tutor 10 mentions having a frustrating consultation. I was impressed by this positive attitude considering that this was the first time Tutor 10 had ever admitted to having a bad consultation, yet the negative interaction becomes a learning experience rather than an event that dampens their confidence. Tutor 10 identifies what factors made the difference: their increased selfefficacy comes from both a synthesis of theory (“After reading through some genre guides I feel a lot more confident jumping into consultations'') and real-life experience (“I feel like I am beginning to feel a lot more comfortable in the writing center the more consultations I get under my belt”). Thus, the combination of prior theory readings and practice is crucial for Tutor 10.

Additionally, Tutor 10 was observed by a student administrator. Compared to the writing center director observation where Tutor 10 completely omits theory when describing what they’ve learned, this time Tutor 10 integrates theory into their reflection. Tutor 10 is now able to not only see the connection of theory to practice but look at their own practice and explain their choices in terms of theory. At this moment, theory becomes not just theory in and of itself. Instead, theory is a tool that helps tutors recognize the student and help them in the way that they need it the most. Tutor 10 closes out the tutoring phase by commenting that writers are much “more than a red pen.” Their takeaway message of the training process puts it simply: “just have a conversation.”

Results

Tutor 10’s journey exemplifies the oscillating eagerness new tutors experience when interacting with theory. Tutor 10 starts the training program with heightened attunement to theory discussion. Yet once they have to apply this theory to real writing center sessions, Tutor 10 begins to push back against theory, having learned that consultations can’t always be encapsulated or diagnosed by the pages of a theory textbook. In the end, Tutor 10 is able to return to their theory eagerness, but this time with newfound nuance for the purpose that theory holds in the context of writing center practice—namely that rather than being prescriptive, theory suggests diverse practices to help a tutor collaboratively engage with a student. Tutor 10’s training experience demonstrates the value of combining practice with theoretical instruction in helping new tutors develop a collaborative disposition.

As Tutor 10 contextualized theory through their deliberate practice, they gained a sense of themselves as a thoughtful conversation partner making informed choices in response to the student’s needs.

Tutor 12: Case Study by Gabbie Schwartz Justification Being only two years removed from my training, it’s easy to recall the enthusiasm I had as a new tutor and my rigorous determination to ensure each of my sessions became a collaborative wonder. But as time passed, I found my original vigor tempered by the realization that some sessions do not always go according to plan. I uncovered similar sentiments in Tutor 12’s philosophy statement and became drawn to their vision of tutoring as “intellectual friendship,” a term they borrowed from the Dutch philosopher, Desiderius Erasmus.

In applying intellectual friendship to the writing center, Tutor 12 emphasized the unique peer-to-peer position tutors have with students. As much as tutors are teachers, they are simultaneously students themselves, constantly learning from those they teach.

But Tutor 12 also recognized the difficulty of realizing this theory, hence their philosophy statement explained how they maintained the delicate equilibrium between their theoretical aspirations and the occasionally hectic nature of the lived tutoring experience. For Tutor 12, this became a matter of collaboration, conversation, and connection. Collaboration referred to “moments of mutual learning,” conversation focused on discussions that fortified the learning experience (this could include instruction, questions, or encouragement), and

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 53 connection was the process of helping students see the links between themselves and the skills they acquired in the consultation.

With these definitions in mind, I analyzed the reading responses and work reports Tutor 12 had produced, looking for experiences which informed their understanding of collaboration, conversation, and connection. In short, my goal was to understand how Tutor 12 came to see and treat students as intellectual friends. It seemed interpersonal opportunities— moments of interaction with their fellow tutors, the writing center director, and the students they tutored— proved most valuable to Tutor 12. These interactions helped them practice tutoring as a form of intellectual friendship.

Narrative Preparation It was clear that Tutor 12 entered the training program with an initial understanding of intellectual friendship, even if it was never directly named. They made it their goal to engage with other tutors and observe how they “put the readings… into practice.” As such, they constantly engaged with other tutors, seeing each of them as thought-partners—people they were enthusiastic to collaborate with and learn from. This collaborative desire only continued throughout their training, as many tutors and their advice make guest appearances in Tutor 12’s reflections. One tutor informed Tutor 12 that writing consultants strive to “help writers first and writing second.” Tutor 12 interpreted this to mean that tutoring sessions were to be treated as “team-like experiences,” but they believed their role in this experience was not necessarily to view students as peers they could collaborate with, but rather to teach students how to write by focusing on filling their knowledge deficits.

Tutor 12 understood intellectual friendship when applied to their fellow tutors, but they had yet to apply that theory to student writers. They could not yet understand how they should be interacting with students, as evidenced by the litany of “how” questions featured at the end of their reflections: “How do consultants not get stuck in a rut of asking the same questions… How can I really make every day feel different even if the papers or the issues are repetitive?”

The “information overload” was of increasing worry for Tutor 12. They wrote, “I’m going to be honest, this information has been a bit overwhelming for me to imagine putting into practice. How are we supposed to juggle all of these thoughts… What’s theory and what’s

applicable.” Much like Tutor 10, there was a clear distinction between the ways Tutor 12 wished to tutor— an idealized theory—and having to actually tutor—the application and practice of that theory.

Within this same week, however, Tutor 12 found solace from another tutor who told them, “Your goal isn’t to diagnose the writer’s problems.” This reminder resolved Tutor 12 of feeling “overwhelmed by the idea of someone coming in with a paper that doesn’t meet the rubric in the way I would write it.” It appeared that Tutor 12’s worries were partially self-imposed.

Their early conceptualization of tutoring led them to believe that they needed to fill in knowledge deficits, and they would do so by teaching student writers how to think and write like them. But as Tutor 12 was beginning to understand, teaching student writers to respond to the rubric by thinking and writing in ways not their own could hardly be called tutoring. While this realization did not provide an immediate resolution to the seemingly disparate elements of theory and practice, it did help Tutor 12 solidify what a tutor might not be and what a tutor might not do.

Tutoring In the tutoring period, Tutor 12 began to navigate the divide between theory and practice as they tested their understanding of theory during their consultations on the tutoring floor. They were now free from the belief that they had to teach student writers to write like them, and this allowed them to glean an important insight: “my attention has shifted from memorizing theory and bullet-pointing session agendas to attempting to identify, work with, and improve upon the writing processes of the student in front of me.”

Tutoring was no longer about finding a way to produce the perfect writer, whose new writing style would be modeled after Tutor 12’s. Instead, Tutor 12 began to actualize collaboration—learning how to see and work with the student in front of them.

This change in perspective was not entirely smooth, however, as Tutor 12 admitted to several of their consultations being “a little shaky.” After being observed by our writing center director, Tutor 12 brainstormed some potential solutions, realizing that their issue centered around question usage: they could be asking more questions to help “the cognitive connections flow even stronger” and “have the student come up with their own ideas.” Their commitment to this strategy was reinforced following the student administrator’s observation of Tutor 12 and their subsequent debriefing. Tutor 12 asserted that “by making themselves an active participant in the

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 54 questioning[,] the tutor can better help the student try to say what they want to say and then move them through their thinking ‘slowly and incrementally.’”

Drawing on their own intellectual friends, Tutor 12 began to deepen their understanding of intellectual friendship as a theoretical approach while grounding that theory in actionable practices. Questions were a helpful tool for placing the student at the center of the consultation because questions encouraged the students’ own metacognitive process. As Tutor 12 engaged students with these questions, they discovered that students were insightful peers, able to think and write on their own terms.

Growth Tutor 12 was beginning to truly understand tutoring as a form of intellectual friendship, but there was still more to learn. One consultation in the growth period proved especially formulative, as it would make its way into Tutor 12’s philosophy statement. Tutor 12 initially struggled to discern how best to work with the student in front of them. The questioning strategy they had been successfully developing before was met with silence, and—taking note of this—they realized they had to adjust. The shift was subtle, as they began using “words such as ‘we’” while “providing an emotional support behind the questions” they asked. But this slight change drastically improved the session and led Tutor 12 to another important insight, one that reflected a more nuanced understanding of intellectual friendship.

They stressed that tutors had “to learn alongside the student” with “humility and willingness.”

Despite the initial difficulty of the consultation, Tutor 12 had successfully enacted Erasmus’s theory insession. This was quite different from the beginning of their training, where they focused primarily on how to develop student writers in accordance with their own writing standards rather than work with student writers as peers that had ideas and abilities of their own.

The following week, Tutor 12 read Steve Sherwood’s article, “Censoring Students, Censoring Ourselves: Constraining Conversations in the Writing Center.” They admitted, “I do worry about this idea of the right kinds of censorship and that I’m creating machines out of human beings. It’s probably my biggest fear about being a tutor, actually.” Over the course of their tutoring journey, Tutor 12 had become afraid of unintentional censorship, afraid of becoming a teacher who created robotic pupils that spat out carbon-copies of Tutor 12’s own writing style. They instead believed that a tutor should work alongside the student, prompting them with questions and encouragement,

thereby allowing them to have their own “lightbulb moments.”

Reflection In the final week of their training, Tutor 12 reflected on their time in the writing center through William Cronon’s “Only Connect” and Kenneth Bruffee’s “Peer Tutoring and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” Tutor 12 had been learning that intellectual friendship rests in a relationship where both tutor and student work as equals toward a common goal. As a result, tutors should “generate good thinking through good conversation[,] and good conversation comes from good community.” This was the role they imagined for themselves—a tutor who could facilitate a community founded on collaboration, communication, and most importantly, connection.

It had been connecting with peers and advisors that helped Tutor 12 understand writing center work.

They realized that when tutors extended this same connection to the students they worked with, they could simultaneously “nurture human freedom and serve the human community. We make scholarship practical for new learners, bring voice to new ideas, and help new minds contribute to unending conversations—and we do so as peers.” This was, in effect, the true distillation of their philosophy statement. The pieces I had seen from the beginning had—funnily enough—connected with one another when Tutor 12 entertained the role of connection itself.

Results Tutor 12 had an inkling of intellectual friendship when they began their training, often learning from other tutors and administrators. But in many ways, they did not yet see how a student could teach them.

After all, they were the writing tutor with writing expertise. It was not until they were placed face-to-face with the student that they began to realize how much the student could teach them and that they were developing “a network of intellectual friends… who always feel comfortable coming back to teach me as much as they expect to be taught.” As Tutor 12 connected with student writers in the same way they had already connected with their fellow tutors and administrators to improve their tutoring, they developed a more expansive understanding of their role as a tutor.

The writing center and the connections formed therein became a vibrant network of collaboration and intellectual friendships between tutors and student writers alike.

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 55 In considering Tutor 12’s development through the initial training, the most significant component of that training which developed their collaborative disposition was the consistent opportunities they had to interact with others.

These interpersonal opportunities—between their fellow tutors, student leaders, administrators, and eventually the student writers they worked with—helped Tutor 12 gain a sense of themself as a tutor. Like Tutor 10, Tutor 12 took their engagement with theory seriously, but they made sense of implementing theory and practice through their conversations with colleagues. Their experience speaks to the value of creating opportunities for tutors to interact with each other and build a community of practice where they “talk shop,” digesting together both what they are reading and the experiences they are having on the tutoring floor. As Tutor 12 puts it, “The more I learn, the more I realize is left for me to learn… the more you know, the more you know what you don’t know. You know?”

Tutor 22: Case Study by Olivia Drew Swasey Justification As the most recent graduate from our tutor training program, I felt the lack of removal while selecting my fellow tutor, Tutor 22. Tutor 22 skillfully developed their own personal philosophy, drawing inspiration from the theme "The Road to El Dorado," derived from the popular DreamWorks film. In their metaphorical framework, Tutor 22 positioned themselves as a knowledgeable guide, adept at assisting others in their pursuit of valuable insights. Essentially, Tutor 22 recognized, upon crafting their philosophy statement, that the key to a successful writing center lies in prioritizing the needs of others, rather than relying solely on a prescriptive or map-style approach.

However, I was intrigued by how Tutor 22 managed to develop such a nuanced understanding of the subject matter, despite appearing to have devoted minimal introspection to the assigned readings. This curiosity prompted me to explore Tutor 22's journey through the training program and unravel the elements of the training program which did influence their reflection.

Upon careful examination of the training components emphasized by Tutor 22, it became evident that they acquired their personal philosophy through purposeful activities deliberately designed to teach the underlying theory, rather than solely relying on theoretical study.

These activities, when integrated with deliberate practice, interpersonal engagement, and metacognitive

exercises emerge as essential elements of their tutor training experience.

Narrative Preparation Tutor 22’s El Dorado analogy was in the making from week one of the program. They described consulting as a “method of connection to the writer through discourse over the writing” (1). This is their first reflection in the course, and they are already showing signs of their personal commitment to collaboration and process-oriented tutoring. However, directly following this statement is this question: “Is there a way to prioritize edits if I run too short on time to get the writer’s paper where it needs to be?” Questions like this frequent Tutor 22’s reading reflections, hinting at how the insights they gain from theoretical readings never quite overshadow their sense of themself as an editor of student writing.

In contrast, their work reports (which feature mainly activities and consultations) offer a much better reflection of how they ultimately came to understand their role in a more collaborative sense. The activities that Tutor 22 reported on in their work reports were accompanied by worksheets of questions designed to facilitate reflection. These metacognitive exercises seemed to most significantly alter Tutor 22’s preconceived notions of tutoring and forge a desire to replace their editorial mindset with collaborative experience, as they’ve seen more experienced tutors do.

This is not to say Tutor 22 overlooks the theoretical readings completely; they are aware of the value theory has in the writing center space to a certain degree. However, they recognized the importance of writing center literature only after being presented with an activity designed to apply the principles in low-stakes scenarios. Tutor 22 did not maintain, in other words, the enthusiasm or proclivity for theory that both Tutor 10 and Tutor 12 seemed to bring to their initial training.

Once they developed an appreciation for the value of theoretical understanding, they had to learn how to harmonize theory with application.

Tutoring Before starting their time on the floor, each new tutor must have a session observed by the writing center director. After the session, the director will point out points of connection between theory and their application and help the new tutor create goals. Tutor 22 clearly valued their director's observation, saying

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 56 “[the director] helped me…better teach transferable writing skills.” This activity and the following metacognitive exercise unpacked theoretical concepts and refocused Tutor 22 on collaborative goals.

I anticipated that this reflection would be the tipping point for Tutor 22, as it mirrored the same sentiments they express in their philosophy statement; however, this activity was the only activity during this tutoring period that included a metacognitive exercise, and therefore the only moment of connection. Instead, Tutor 22 turned their focus to correction due to the structural-based readings they were introduced to. They viewed readings on grammar and style as personally informative rather than helpful to their tutoring experience, stating “By understanding the patterns that create cohesive writing, I’ll be able to better advise on…my own work.” This quote summarizes Tutor 22’s focus on learning grammar and how they used every reading involved in it to discuss how it would improve their own writing. While it never explicitly appears in their final philosophy statement, Tutor 22 believes selfcorrection, or their own knowledge, is a vital responsibility of the writing center and thus cannot help to overemphasize it when faced with possible knowledge gaps.

They also let the editorial mindset take over their tutoring of others. While Tutor 22 determined that the “two main responsibilities of a writing consultant” are connection and correction in Week 2, in Week 7 they choose to focus on only one of those responsibilities, stating: “...after all, half the point of the Research and Writing Center is to help student writing become more concise and understandable.” Five weeks later connection has become a concept, rather than an outright responsibility of the tutor. Thus, correction overcame connection, and Tutor 22 returned to their editorial mindset.

Growth Tutor 22’s growth advanced in large part due to one specific metacognitive activity: the videotaped session. This videotaped session was the most formative activity Tutor 22 experienced during the course of the training. The assignment’s inherent position, as the trainee’s first experience watching how they connect theory and on-floor application, helped Tutor 22 bridge the gap between their strong inclination towards correction and their earlier goal of connection so quickly.

One signal of the videotaped session’s importance to Tutor 22 was their choice to include its impact in both their work report and reading reflection;

they discussed the results of their review of the footage, taking full advantage of this metacognitive exercise.

After reading Mackiewicz & Thompson, “Questioning in Writing Center Conferences,” Tutor 22’s reflection featured the clearest connection between their reading and real-world sessions. Referring to their videotaped session, they noted: “I’m really glad we read this essay this week because…I did not even realize I was employing these strategies after the fact…sometimes not sure if I’m absorbing the advice from our reading. I think I am, though I can definitely do better.”

Mackiewicz & Thompson’s article is featured early in Tutor 22’s philosophy statement; this signals its importance in Tutor 22’s understanding of writing center praxis and their own competency.

After realizing their competency, Tutor 22’s entire demeanor changed. Their self-corrective tendencies all but disappeared after they noticed that the skills they were trying to develop were “within them all along,” and their focus landed on helping promote that same understanding in the students they tutored. In their words, their goal shifted to “[becoming] more student-oriented”; they started calling their work fulfilling and motivating, and they expressed finally feeling settled in the writing center. They got enthusiastic about their work in a way they never had before, saying “I [want to] help writers be proud of their work and help them recognize the value of their writing.”

Reflection After this breakthrough moment, Tutor 22 was left open to consider their training trajectory through the lens of a philosophy statement. Tutor 22’s choice to answer this question by comparing the writing center to the mythical city of El Dorado is compelling. First, they compared the community's interest in writing to a search for lost treasure, a parallel that highlights their mastery over the common “initial terror” between process and product that many new tutors face. Their philosophy statement condemns this correction perspective: “Often, the only connection [students have] seen their words make is with a professor’s ruthless red pen. In a sense, getting a graded essay back is a lot more like receiving a verdict than feedback.”

Tutor 22 understands what parts of theory and practice “encourage the collaborative atmosphere of a consultation, assuring the student that their thoughts and voice matter.”

It is the second comparison to El Dorado, however, that reflects the collaborative disposition Tutor 22 developed by the end of their training. The

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Tracking Dispositional Development in Tutor Education • 57 journey to the writing center is a journey to a treasured community, yes—but it is also a journey to a person, as El Dorado was recently discovered to be. Tutors are roadside opportunities for connection and tools for helping students see their writing potential inside themselves. Essentially, each student’s journey to and through the writing center is centered on discovering the ultimate treasure: their future writing talent, and Tutor 22 wants to be a facilitator of that knowledge: “I work at the Research and Writing Center to help students. I don’t think that was my initial reason for coming to work here, but it is now.”

Results One of the most interesting things about Tutor 22’s training is the contrast between different dispositions that the tutor displays throughout their experience. As they develop a disposition of collaboration, they are led to confidence and focus.

Within this, the most helpful things for this tutor seemed to be the metacognitive exercises and activities that encouraged them to consider alternative ways to make use of and apply the theoretical formulations they were encountering in their reading. Tutor 22’s early emphasis on fixing a student’s paper over seeking to understand a student’s perspective reflects in some ways a desire for a tangible practice that simplifies the tutor’s role. Although writing center theory aims to expand a tutor’s sense of that role, the editor mentality remained alluring for Tutor 22. It took more than reading exercises to orient them to a more expansive understanding of their role as a tutor. Their experience suggests the value of metacognitive activities in initial tutor training. These activities helped Tutor 22 branch out into the possibilities of their position. Their final philosophy statement reflects the disposition of a tutor who is confident in exploring different ways to effectively engage with student writers, ultimately pointing them towards an increased love of writing, something we can all agree is a true treasure.

Conclusion The above case studies reveal the range of experiences that tutors have in their initial training and effectively demonstrate that dispositional development is, to borrow Nowacek and Hughes’s language, a “cognitively (and sometimes emotionally) complex emergent understanding” (182). While we do not wish to overgeneralize the applicability of these case studies, we do want to emphasize their value in helping us understand how dispositions are developed. Though

these tutors had overlaps in their experiences, and none of them had a linear development, they each had triumphs and setbacks at different periods in their training that makes the training process seemingly impossible to predict and therefore mechanize. The individualistic nature of each tutor’s journey reiterates the subjective nature of dispositional development.

In terms of identifying potential connections between training activities and dispositional development, the tutors studied here seemed particularly aided by opportunities to wrestle with theory in the face of real-world practice, the chance to integrate themselves into a broader community of practice, and the utility of deliberate metacognitive exercises. While we can’t generalize from these three case studies to suggest that these prominent components always influence dispositional development, we are convinced that these are components we’ll continue to emphasize in our own training program. Part of the reason is that, based on the experience of these three tutors, metacognitive and interpersonal opportunities along these lines seem to push tutors into the realm of dispositions, where they must think about the ways they filter their knowledge, skills, and beliefs to accomplish the task before them. This then might be the larger takeaway of our study for writing center administrators involved in tutor training. These case studies convincingly suggest the value of training activities designed to place tutors at the intersection of their practical experience and conceptual understanding. It is in learning to navigate that intersection that tutors blend cognitive and affective attributes that shape their sense of themselves as tutors. These developed dispositions then filter their knowledge, skills, and beliefs in ways that help them effectively collaborate with student writers. As the enthusiasm of the tutor in the opening epigraph suggests, this job becomes “much more” when tutors come to feel that they understand “the point.”

Works Cited Blaauw-Hara, Mark, et al. “Thinking Past the Portal: Threshold Concept Metaphors for Diverse Learners in Disparate Disciplines,” Currents, vol. 16, no. 2, 2025, pp. 6-21. https://webcdn.worcester.edu/currents-inteaching-and-learning/wpcontent/uploads/sites/65/2025/01/Thinking -Past-the-Portal.pdf.

Bleakney, Julia. “Ongoing Writing Tutor Education: Models and Practices,” How We Teach Writing Tutors: A WLN Digital Edited Collection, edited by Johnson, Karen G. and Ted Roggenbuck, 2019,

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71, no. 2, 2008, pp. 170-89. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472314.

Bowles, Bruce Jr. “When a Measure Becomes a Target: The Dangers of Using Grades in Writing Center Assessment.” WLN, vol. 49, no. 2, 2025, pp.

3-8. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/v49n2/v 49n2.pdf.

Bruffee, Kenneth A. “Peer Tutoring and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” The Oxford Guide For Writing Tutors: Practice and Research, edited by Lauren Fitzgerald and Melissa Ianetta, Oxford UP, 2016, pp. 325-335.

Buck, Elisabeth H. “From CRLA to For-Credit Course: The New Director’s Guide to Assessing Tutor Education.” How We Teach Writing Tutors: A WLN Digital Edited Collection, edited by Karen G. Johnson and Ted Roggenbuck, 2019, https://wlnjournal.org/digitaleditedcollection 1/Buck.html.

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A GUIDE OF ONE’S OWN: HOW WRITING CENTER TRAINING MANUALS FAIL TO SUPPORT WRITING FELLOWS’ NEEDS Alex Drozdoff University of Nevada, Reno alexandradrozdoff@gmail.com

Maureen McBride University of Nevada, Reno mmcbride@unr.edu

Abstract

This article examines how writing fellow programs’ distinctive purpose and structure lack support from published guides, such as those used by writing centers, to inform programmatic decisions and fellows training specifically. In this article, the three authors use their unique programmatic perspectives to explore the benefits and hindrances afforded by existing writing center and supplemental instruction scholarship to claim the need for a fellows-specific guide.

The authors call for the creation of a distinct scholarly space for fellows programs to centralize, contribute to, and challenge claims and practices.

Introduction What is a writing fellows program? This question directs our work in this article, foregrounding an identity and distinction that we posit has been blurred and not fully developed. Critical to our exigence here is the seemingly simple but important recognition that a fellows programs—a course-embedded model in which peer consultants work closely with both students and faculty—is distinct from the work of writing centers (WCs) and writing tutors. However, we note that this distinction is largely elided in the literature, especially in writing support training manuals, limiting the unique power and identity of fellows programs.

The impetus for our work comes from our experiences starting a writing fellows program at our university and the challenges we encountered. In this article, we provide vignettes from each of our perspectives reflecting on our program’s potential and challenges as they relate to the scholarly materials we wanted to help us develop the fellows program at our institution. After identifying gaps in fellows-specific literature and training materials, we provide an analysis of WC literature related to fellows and discuss how several popular WC training manuals may support and hinder fellows programs. Finally, we briefly analyze Supplemental Instruction (SI) guides as materials that could assist in training for fellows programs and close with a call for the development of fellows-specific literature and guides to bolster the unique growth of these important programs.

Program Context

Elisabeth L. Miller University of Nevada, Reno elisabethmiller@unr.edu

Our Writing & Speaking Initiative (WSI) Fellows program at University of Nevada, Reno—a large public research university enrolling approximately 21,000 students—emerged from collaboration between the University Writing and Speaking Center (UWSC) and the Writing and Speaking in the Disciplines (WSID) programs. It pairs experienced fellows, who are undergraduates trained in our UWSC to consult on writing and speaking assignments, with students in courses across disciplines. We support one writing or presentation assignment in our partner courses; courses we support are typically smaller courses ranging from 20-60 students. We usually support the assignment with two meetings (one in the brainstorming phase, one in the drafting phase); however, we pride our program on adapting to instructors’ needs by offering options for group sessions, including presentation support, and sometimes accommodating large courses (up to 130 students thus far). We have paired with undergraduate, graduate, online, and in-person courses in disciplines including biology, education, English, public health, psychology, marketing, and more. Given the tailored nature of our offerings, we typically support three to five classes each semester.

Our fellows program is supported not only by the UWSC and WSID directors but also two graduate student assistant directors, typically MA or PhD students in our Rhetoric and Writing Studies program, who do much of the program coordination and fellows training and support. We are constantly grappling with what our fellows programs can (and should) do and the kinds of training fellows need and benefit from.

Vignettes: Telling the Story of Our Program Our analysis stems from the authors’ multiple perspectives, experiences, and programmatic resources.

We leverage the history of our UWSC and the dynamic innovation of our newer WSID program to ensure that emerging leaders, like graduate students, are included in each stage of fellows program development. Our program, therefore, was born in partnership, and that partnership proved critical both for development of our fellows work and for the genesis of this article. Our thinking and framing have shifted as we have gained

A Guide of One’s Own • 60 experience with operating the program. To better understand these shifts, as well as our motivations for this article, we begin with the following narrative vignettes, which set the stage for our excitement and our challenges.

Elisabeth: Writing and Speaking in the Disciplines Director Sharing a passion for supporting students and faculty with writing and speaking in the disciplines, Maureen and I collaborated in Spring 2021 to begin planning an embedded course tutoring program: a Writing & Speaking Fellows program.

We began with a small focus group of engaged faculty across disciplines and roles (adjunct, teaching, and research track) to think out writing/speaking needs on our campus and to get ideas for how a fellows program might best support faculty and students here at UNR. While a couple of our faculty had some familiarity with fellows, we first struggled to find resources and readings to succinctly provide a window into what fellows programs are and what they can do. Even at this earliest point, which was well before considering readings that would form the basis of our training for new fellows, these gaps in the literature regarding fellows programs were apparent.

We had faculty skim Brown’s and UW Madison’s pages on fellows programs, as well as a couple of fellows handbooks we found online. We also had them read Hughes, Gillespie, and Kail’s “What They Take with Them” article, offering extensive survey and interview results on the benefits that former fellows purport to take from their time serving in a fellows role.

This resource undoubtedly got faculty excited about what fellowing can do for the fellows themselves, but we were still left with clear gaps around more pragmatic sources for fellows: how the programs might look, the history, how fellows may collaborate with faculty, and most importantly, what training should look like.

Maureen: University Writing and Speaking Center Director When Elisabeth approached me about collaborating to provide specialized support to disciplinary courses by creating a fellows program, I was ecstatic. My enthusiasm stemmed from my respect for Elisabeth’s personal values as well as her professional acumen and my commitment to provide peer support to students on our campus. The proposed fellows program seemed like a perfect combination of opportunities to work with people I admire and to provide effective support to our campus community.

Our fellows program has fulfilled these opportunities and more. However, looking back, I can see how I leaned too far into my familiarity with Writing Center (WC) studies and did not consider enough how the unique circumstances of both a fellows program and of each course we supported with our fellows required a more customized approach to who we hired to do this work and how we trained them. At the time though, we leveraged the resources we had immediately available to us to get our fledgling program off the ground.

We started with Elisabeth’s expertise since she had served as a fellow in a well-established model at a university during her undergraduate and graduate programs. We also had the motivation, attention to detail, and the work ethic of a brilliant graduate student, Alex. We combined this with my experience as the UWSC director as well as my access to our trained consultants. We knew that the training provided to UWSC consultants prepared them to be effective consultants in that center, so we thought we could supplement that training with some disciplinary specific articles, individualized reviews of the assignments we were supporting, and access to program coordinators for guidance during the process. This was actually a pretty good place to start for the pilot of our program.

When we looked for materials to supplement the WC training, we found very few articles and no books that felt like the focused training manuals and articles we were using for our writing center consultant training from WC scholarship. Instead, there were articles about how to start up a fellows program, but not necessarily the direct training that should be provided.

But, we used what we had and ended our first pilot semester successfully having supported students in two different disciplinary courses. While successful, we had also learned along the way that we wanted to find more focused materials or create a more intentional approach to training our fellows.

Alex: Writing and Speaking Fellows Graduate Student Assistant Director At the start of the fall 2021 semester, I began working with the UWSC and WSID to implement the WSI Fellows Program. At that point, my exposure to fellows programs was relatively minimal: I had read about them in WAC/WID work, and I had peers and instructors who had worked as or with fellows in other programs, but I had never been a fellow myself, nor had I come across them in my education.

Given my lack of expertise in this area, I took the same first step that student researchers, trivia enthusiasts, and home project DIY-ers often start with,

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A Guide of One’s Own • 61 and turned to Google—“How do you start a fellows program?” And unlike the clear answers that pop up when you ask for the capital of Angola or the correct steps to replace a flush valve, my inquiry was met with vague results. “Become a Fellow!” Google told me, highlighting various program applications at universities around the country. I found YouTube videos welcoming me to different programs, overview pages with links for interested students and faculty, and even a Wikipedia entry, but no “how-to” guide: no handbook on what to do if you were starting at the beginning. I perused everything I could find, looking for answers on how to train prospective fellows in the unique work of collaborating with both students and faculty to support a specific course to which they may have limited or no previous exposure.

I found some answers—programs that utilize semester-long courses to train fellows and articles that highlighted some of the readings and conversations that coordinators reviewed with new fellows—but again, no comprehensive guide that a new program could take up.

Ultimately, working with Elisabeth and Maureen, we put together our own fellows trainings, deciding on readings, outlining discussion questions, and identifying other materials that we collaboratively appraised. Our trials and errors were informative and productive, but routinely, we came back to the same discussion of how helpful it would be if some sort of guide, like those available for WC tutors, existed.

Upon attending the 2023 International Writing Across the Curriculum conference, I learned that I was far from alone in wanting but not finding support to help start a fellows program. I participated in several breakout sessions where attendees discussed how they were in the early stages of starting a fellows program, or perhaps wanted to start one, but did not know how or where to begin. They recognized the value of this work but were overwhelmed by how little practical and structural guidance they could find. Ultimately, it seems clear to me that lack of fellows training and guides in our field might easily dissuade institutions from seeking to initiate them or create a burden for faculty to create materials for individual programs.

Our Questions As our narratives demonstrate, we encountered similar challenges and frustrations across our experiences with our fledgling program. We repeatedly returned to and grappled with the following questions: ● What is the history and underlying theory of fellows?

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How do we communicate the value of fellows and the program to instructors and students?

How do we reference but differentiate fellows and the WC? How do we explain to new fellows what their role is? How do we explain how fellows are distinct from WC consultants, especially in their work with faculty?

How do we structure faculty-fellows meetings for the highest value add?

How do we best prepare fellows to work in this more assignment- and discipline-specific environment?

Reviewing Fellows-Related Literature In what follows, we demonstrate that while a range of literature establishes the unique potential of fellows programs, a gap exists in scholarship theorizing how fellows can and should be prepared for this important work.

As writing programs continue to proliferate in higher education, it is integral to understand the specific positioning, applications, and opportunities of each type of program. Fellows programs offer a particular type of support that necessitates interfacing with both students and faculty and managing general and disciplinary writing support; recognizing this uniqueness is critical to supporting fellows programs. Jennifer Corroy, for example, claims that “writing fellows are a unique brand of peer tutors who work closely with both university faculty members and other undergraduates” (205). Joan Mullin, et al., echo this point, explaining that fellows “collaborate uniquely with students and faculty, modeling for both groups how to enter others’ discourse, how to exchange ways of constructing knowledge, and how to enter a disciplinary conversation, creating an appropriate ethos while maintaining a personal voice” (2). Hall and Hughes, too, outline the complexities of writing fellows, asking: How, after all, can undergraduate Fellows motivate students to care about their writing, persuade student-writers to work collaboratively with peers outside of class, cross all sorts of disciplinary boundaries, earn trust and acceptance by faculty as partners in teaching, satisfy understandable faculty desires for stronger writing from students, earn strong evaluations from appropriately critical faculty, and convince experienced faculty to examine and even change their pedagogical priorities and practices? (22-23)

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A Guide of One’s Own • 62 These descriptions clearly mark the role and work of fellows as unique and complex, with its own set of considerations and complications.

Additionally, publications, such as Praxis itself, recognize the uniqueness and interest in fellows-type work, as is reflected in its 2014 special double issue on course-embedded writing support programs that examines the roles, contexts, and needs of such programs. In their description of in-class tutors, who bear a strong resemblance to fellows, Scott DeLoach et al. remark upon their unique positioning between students and instructors, and note their impacts on authority in the classroom. Tara Parmiter and William Morgan draw a distinction between WC tutors and course-embedded tutors, noting the latter are “part of the writing community of the class” (68). Furthermore, in his discussion on preparing fellows, William Macauley Jr. explains that “clarity is doubly important for [writing fellows] because they often operate outside of the writing center, often in isolation, and their responsibilities are to at least two people who may not be on the same page” (47). Ben Ristow and Hannah Dickinson, too, note that fellows preparation must consider the different audiences with whom fellows interact. Thus, in recognizing the applications of a fellows program, the unique needs of such programs become apparent, especially fellows training and preparation.

With this in mind, training remains a question and somewhat obdurate obstacle in fellows literature.

Dara Rossman Regaignon and Pamela Bromley discuss the limited training their fellows receive: “some basic training working in the writing center and taking courses in this specific discipline” (52). They call for a greater exploration of the connection between fellows’ training and performance (52-54). Terry Myers Zawacki, too, includes an excerpt from a fellow highlighting how expectations of fellows’ work, such as respecting professor expectations, can run counter to tutor training (8). This emphasis on professor interactions and collaboration is an important point of distinction for fellows programs, and it emphasizes the way in which training and consideration of fellows may differ from writing tutors. As Corroy explains, “In peer tutoring programs that remove the professor from the process, opportunities to learn from an instructor are lost to peer tutors” (217). Learning and interacting with collaborating faculty is a key component of fellows work, demonstrating the need for individual training and frameworks to support these types of interactions.

Distinctions in disciplinary and training practices in writing program work are not new. David Stock, discussing his university’s attempt to create an

integrated training program for WC tutors and writing fellows, illuminates the complications that arise from such collaborations. While more centrally focused on administrative and programmatic conflicts, Stock’s work also clarifies the dangers of blurring the boundaries between similar, though also distinct, programs. He discusses Melissa Nicolas’s work describing a peer consulting program and how the program was hampered by the “uncritical collapsing of the boundaries between curriculum-based tutoring and writing center tutoring” (113). Nicolas explains the importance of distinctions between types of tutoring, clarifying that “while these activities are all collaborative, the nature of the collaboration in each model is fundamentally different” (113). Stock, too, ends his discussion with a call to “build on rather than blur boundaries that are worth preserving” (95).

Perhaps the most central work on fellows training comes from Hall and Hughes, who review the details of their comprehensive training program, consisting of “a semester-long course for new fellows; a sequence of ongoing education sessions and staff meetings; and individual mentoring for each Fellow, every semester” (28). The intensive program includes an emphasis on the role of the fellow, as well as preparatory practice for holding student conferences and other fellows’ activities, clearly highlighting the need for and use of rigorous training.

However, Hall and Hughes’ writing also underscores the importance, and, perhaps lack, of existing, fellows-centric disciplinary work. For example, when discussing how fellows-in-training prepare to hold conferences, Hall and Hughes explain that they consult articles from authors like Muriel Harris and Kenneth Bruffee—important works, without question, but not fellows-specific. And in fact, immediately after this bibliographic insight, Hall and Hughes identify differences between WC tutors and fellows when holding conferences and the importance of engaging fellows-in-training in such conversations.

Solaire A. Finkenstaedt-Quinn et al., offer a different method of fellows training. They describe their MWrite program at the University of Michigan, which focuses on the implementation and support of writingto-learn (WTL) assignments in STEM courses. The fellows are trained through a discussion-based course run by the WC in collaboration with MWrite that “covers the pedagogy behind the WTL assignments” (8). Additionally, they “read and respond to the WTL assignments that are administered in the course for which they are a fellow,” engage in peer review and evaluation with other fellows, and attend regular meetings with the course instructor (8). This training, as

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A Guide of One’s Own • 63 well as Finkenstaedt-Quinn et al.’s broader work, which examines fellows’ beliefs on student writing, demonstrates fellows’ unique positioning, needs, and work.

This review magnifies the distinctive operations of fellows programs as well as the obvious need for a training program specific to fellows. While it is no doubt useful to understand distinctions between the work of WC tutors and fellows, it is far less intuitive to have to use training materials for the former in order to prepare the latter, demanding such, “But in your case…” caveats because a centralized fellows resource does not exist.

Fellows training is thus hampered by a reliance on adapted materials, mindsets, and publications.

Analyzing WC Guides To more systematically examine the materials available for fellows’ preparation, in the following section, we analyze several WC guides popular for training new consultants. Specifically, we examine how three major foci of the guides—peerness and authority, specialist/generalist knowledge, and directive/nondirective approaches—may both contribute to and clash with fellows’ training and development. We also analyze supplemental instruction (SI) materials to both gain an understanding of how these materials demonstrate and build a unique SI identity and what implications they may have for fellows programs. Our analysis largely reveals how the lessons and ethos established for writing tutors lack applicability and nuance in their translation to support fellows. While there are certainly general lessons and entry points to be gained from such materials, we hope to demonstrate the ways in which these specific topics, and by extension, WC guides generally, do not account for fellows’ particular contexts and needs.

Our Approach to Analyzing Guides We used a grounded theory inspired approach to examining WC guides in an attempt to identify the opportunities and hindrances afforded by these readily available training materials. Grounded theory emphasizes that initial data collection is exploratory and uses a collaborative approach to refine and adjust data collection, categories, etc. Comparisons are constant and collaborative (Corbin & Strauss). Using this approach, we initially looked at WC training manuals because this had been our starting point when we piloted our fellows program in 2021.

We discussed what manuals we were all familiar with through our professional and educational

experiences. Additionally, we examined Maureen’s bookshelves related to writing center training and searched for available resources in online spaces, such as Amazon, Google, and our university’s databases. We included texts, such as The Bedford Guide for Writing Tutors, based on our collective familiarity and use of the text.

We continually explored other options of tutoring guides to include and reviewed texts from multiple perspectives to inform our analysis.

Based on what we found in the manuals, we discussed potential categories and then asked new questions. Initially, we were only asking what information from WC training manuals could be useful to help train fellows. From our initial question about what was useful, we ended up with minimal portions of the WC manuals that we thought were directly useful without significant adaptations or contextualizing. This made us ask new questions that moved beyond potential benefits of WC training manuals to potential hindrances of using some of the materials even with adaptation to a fellows programmatic context. We also added SI guides after we had reviewed the WC manuals because SI models are more disciplinary specific and, at first, seemed like they might be more aligned with our fellows approach. At this stage, we were asking both about benefits and hindrances.

We also began to identify gaps in training support in available materials. For example, in both WC manuals and SI guides, there was little, if any, discussion of how students serving in these capacities negotiate authority with instructors. We then began to organize our analyses by coded areas (e.g., negotiating authority with instructors) and discussing where overlaps or divergences were noticed by one or more members of our research team. We also began the process of checking our theoretical constructions against our experiences. We initiated this process by individually reflecting and writing about our fellows pilot program and then comparing our experiences collectively. This helped us leverage the benefit of our three unique perspectives.

Ultimately, we settled on the following research questions: ● What do the manuals claim is “standard,” normal, consistent throughout/for writing support? ● How are those “standards” going to be beneficial or a hindrance for fellows support? ● What gaps are left in regard to resources for training fellows?

Peerness & Authority

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A Guide of One’s Own • 64 One standard forwarded by the WC guides we reviewed is the importance and complex balance of “peer-ness” and collaboration with “authority.” Much has been said on the topic of how WCs are the site of “peer-to-peer” and collaborative learning: providing an important alternative learning space, a lower-pressure environment in which to brainstorm ideas, ask questions, and develop ideas through talking, writing, and thinking (See Bruffee, Lunsford). The St Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors includes Lunsford’s 1991 Writing Center Journal piece “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of the Writing Center,” which argues that WCs are a “threat as well as a challenge to the status quo in higher education” (76) because of their peer approaches to academic support.

The importance of new tutors analyzing their “peer” role helps them move from fellow student to a student employed for their writing expertise. Along those lines, the St. Martin’s Sourcebook includes Peter Carino’s “Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring,” which importantly discusses the complexity of the peer role, arguing that “tutors might be trained differently to recognize and use their power and authority without becoming authoritarian” (113). Carino’s critique of unquestioned adherence to nondirective methods is important for WC tutors, as well as fellows. His argument that “tutors should be taught to recognize where the power and authority lie in any given tutorial, when and to what degree they have them, when and to what degree the student has them, and when and to what degree they are absent in any given tutorial” also has important (and we note clearly different) implications for fellows’ work with students and faculty.

The various balances of authority, power, and peerness are similarly implicit in The Bedford Guide. For instance, a substantial section discusses various “hats” that tutors must wear, including ally, coach, commenter, collaborator, writing ‘expert,” learner, and counselor.

While these are important considerations for WC tutors, we note that the fellows role adds layers of complexity: issues of authority and peerness change with disciplinary specificity embedded in fellows consultations. Further, as much fellows literature notes, one of the most significant and “unique” demands on fellows stems from their role interacting with students and the faculty who teach the courses for which they fellow: WAC change agents (Zawacki), being “accountable “to at least two people who may or may not be on the same page” (Macauley 47), and engaging with “appropriately critical faculty” (Hall & Hughes 22). In our program (and many others), fellows also work closely with other important program personnel: WC and WAC directors, and

coordinators, including graduate TAs or even senior/experienced fellows.

A clear gap exists here for fellows in training: What does relationship-building with faculty actually look like for a fellow? What kinds of authority does a fellow take on, and how are they introduced to that authority and invited into the authority to take on that role? Not only is the fellow accountable to two people, as Macauley notes, but also they take on complex WAC work, consulting with and supporting faculty. Soven claims that WAC program directors came to see fellows as a way to “give faculty members a ‘WAC buddy.’

Tutors would become our emissaries, our intermediaries, with the special strengths that only peer tutors can bring to the table” (“Curriculum” 202).

Fellows may be an approachable resource for faculty looking for feedback on writing assignments or support with writing pedagogy, but what does it mean for a fellow (often an undergraduate) to actually give feedback on an assignment to faculty, sometimes in a different discipline, who has years, often decades, more experience in academia behind them? What is expected from fellows? What is possible or preferred? How can (or should) fellows navigate these experience and power differentials?

The only guide that explicitly mentions fellows in a more sustained way, Soven’s What the Writing Tutor Needs to Know, only gestures briefly to the complexity of communicating with faculty: for instance, about a poorly designed assignment. The guide calls on fellows to “be brave” and request meetings with faculty members to discuss these difficult situations. It cites how feedback from fellows has often resulted in improvement of faculty’s assignments; however, it gives no examples or specifics of how these developments came to be.

All the guides we reviewed provide helpful advice and scenarios for WC tutors to address challenging tutoring scenarios: running sessions steeped in frustration, reluctance, and emotions (Rafoth, A Tutor’s Guide); supporting unresponsive, antagonistic, and last-minute writers (Bedford); and “affirming diversity” around multilingualism, race, sexuality, disability, and other important student identities (St. Martin’s). While much of this is importantly transferable to fellows sessions, there are no resources in the guides on talking to, or collaborating with, faculty. The St. Martin’s Guide includes Carol Severino and Megan Knight’s chapter “Exporting Writing Center Pedagogy: Writing Fellows Programs as Ambassadors for the Writing Center,” an interesting piece about the potential institutional value of fellows, but, again, without pragmatic outlining or guidance for the power, authority, and complexity of the fellows as WC and

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A Guide of One’s Own • 65 WAC/WID liaisons. WAC literature on consulting with faculty (Jablonski, Tarabochia) might be one resource for fellows learning what it means to talk with faculty about writing pedagogy; however, it, too, is not specific to fellows and, instead, focuses on faculty-toWAC/WID specialist interactions.

Specialist/Generalist An enduring question in WC guides considers what tutors should do if they encounter subject matter with which they are not familiar. How would a writing tutor help a student with a paper on cell biology or physics? Unsurprisingly, WC guides presume that these content knowledge gaps will be an issue for tutors.

Alexis Greiner, in A Tutor’s Guide, implores her readers in such situations to “remember…that the client knows that you are not in her field and you can remind her to take this into account when hearing your feedback” (118). She emphasizes strategies to offer feedback based on the tutor’s reading experience—what they felt about the piece’s vocabulary and flow, for example—as well as how to ground the session in questions directed back to the student (116-117). This reliance on questions is a common tactic. Carol Briam suggests that “rule number one” when encountering complex subject matter is “don’t be afraid to ask questions” (70). Pavel Zemliansky, too, discusses his attempt “to ask the usual clarifying questions about her purpose, audience, and the conventions of writing in her discipline” while working with an upper division computer science major (87). The strategies outlined in these guides, therefore, respond to a supposition that their audience of writing tutors will not have content and disciplinary knowledge for each student and paper they encounter and will need methods to approach this difficulty.

Furthermore, to support tutors who find themselves in these precarious positions, some guides, like Bedford, offer quick summaries of writing genres across the curriculum, like lab reports, literature papers, and resumes (72). These summaries include checklists that tutors can use to help them evaluate these works, asking about the use of structure, tense, and style. Other resources, like the Rowman and Littlefield Guide, outline critical thinking and cognitive process frameworks as a through-line for approaching complex disciplinary knowledge (135). Soven pushes a bit further, urging tutors working "in a field that is new" to "become familiar with the rudiments of the format, style, and documentation conventions of that field" to avoid making incorrect suggestions (129). Like Bedford, though, she provides checklists for certain assignment genres. She also, interestingly, makes the claim that

much undergraduate writing, regardless of discipline, is in fact more similar than different, as the goal of undergraduate education (particularly at liberal arts institutions) is to deepen critical thinking ability (129130). While Soven therefore introduces an important discussion about the aims of undergraduate writing across disciplines, she offers no specific link/reference to fellows contexts, which necessarily complicate the role of specialist/generalist perspectives due to their embedded and course-specific nature. Ultimately, then, the materials discussed above provide writing tutors with a general, starting platform from which to consider complicated and genre-specific works, but do not linger on the intricacies and complications of generalist/specialist divides.

Engaging this question of how to handle specialist content knowledge and generalist writing expertise thus highlights a gap in the applicability of these materials for fellows. Fellows are necessarily aware of the assignment details and course requirements prior to working with students—they work with instructors, and, in our case, program coordinators, to better understand the specific needs and context of the students’ work. This specialist knowledge and preparation are critical, and fellows are tasked with managing both this positioning and their generalist writing expertise. Regaignon and Bromley acknowledge that the fellows in their study “consciously approached their work…as specialists in the discipline, rather than as the generalists they are in the writing center” (46).

This specialist work is a specific benefit and outcome of fellows programs: fellows programs can make “both faculty and students across campus more conscious of the expectations of discipline-specific writing” and help “students make more progress as writers in disciplinespecific courses than they do otherwise” (Regaignon and Bromley 52). Thus, consideration of disciplinary specialist knowledge is critical for fellows programs, but this need is largely uncomplicated and underexplored in writing tutor materials.

Acknowledging this need and preparing fellows to meet it are crucial in fellows contexts. Zawacki highlights this in conversations with a fellow supporting a course with which she was unfamiliar. The fellow likened commenting on the first round of student papers to “trying to hike after sundown,” explaining she was “really afraid of making a wrong step” (9). This lack of comfort when faced with discipline-specific writing and questions was explored by Jean Kiedaisch and Sue Dinitz, citing examples of tutors giving erroneous guidance to disciplinary writers: telling a business major with a sectioned-out marketing analysis that the paper was choppy and needed transitions, only to be corrected

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A Guide of One’s Own • 66 by the student (63-64). Dinitz and Harrington also point to this gap in their discussion of tutors and disciplinarity, explaining that a lack of disciplinary expertise can lead to both tutor and student being “less able and less willing to identify global issues, evaluate and challenge the writer’s point of view, ask effective questions, and draw general lessons” (73).

Acknowledging these complications between specialist and generalist abilities and applications is critical to our analysis, as this is a key differentiation between fellows and writing tutors. While writing tutors are routinely responding to work across disciplines and cannot develop expertise in each one, fellows work with faculty, learn about the course and assignment, and can respond to students from a more informed and insider position. Because of their differing placement and role in supporting the writing of a particular course, fellows can, in ways that generalist tutors cannot, “provide key knowledge about writing in the discipline that the student is lacking and needs in order to move forward with the paper” (Dinitz and Harrington, 89). Thus, this is a clear variance between the needs and roles of fellows and writing tutors pertaining to generalist/specialist needs and positioning, one which WC training documents do not account for.

Directive/Non-directive Within WC history, there has been a constant debate that started with Stephen North’s “help the writer not the writing” and spiraled into Jeff Brooks’ “Minimalist Tutoring” and other non-directive/handsoff approaches that basically have the consultant asking directed questions but very intentionally not being a collaborator. In her 2001 article, “Perspectives on the Directive/Non-Directive Continuum in the Writing Center,” Irene Clark discussed a twenty-five-year history that idealized non-directive pedagogy. Clark argues that non-directive approaches are so well-established that they can be likened to WC dogma. Clark calls for a less dichotomous approach and promotes a view of directiveness on a continuum. Additionally, Lori Salem’s “Decisions…Decisions: Who Chooses to Use the Writing Center?” has recently added to WC studies: encouraging WC scholars and administrators to consider how non-directive approaches are often “slanted toward privileged students” (163). Even so, in most WC training guides, the non-directive approach is assumed and/or emphasized.

The Bedford Guide is a good example of how nondirective approaches have become an assumed perspective. Bedford never directly addresses directivity, but rather has a section discussing the “three effective,

powerful tools” for tutoring: active listening; responding like a reader; wait time. In the discussion of these tools, there are indications that Bedford supports a primarily non-directive approach, with subsections focused on how to request more information, what questions to ask, how a tutor can refocus the writer’s attention. Bedford says in this section, “As a facilitator, you function as a sounding board or mirror, reflecting back to writers what you hear them trying to communicate. Your stance is an objective one, for your purpose is to evoke and promote the writers’ ideas, not to contribute your own…beware: The paper must remain the responsibility of the writer” (p. 27). Other guides, including Bruce and Rafoth’s ESL Writers, assume that a non-directive approach is the primary strategy for writing support. In fact, they include a cautionary chapter about avoiding appropriation, noting “it is easy for writing tutors to exert too much control over a paper” (p. vi). In Rafoth’s A Tutor’s Guide, there is a chapter from Jennifer J. Ritter about how the non-directive approach works with ESL writers and so focuses on how to negotiate meaning and form. In this same text, there is a chapter about seeing multiple ways to organize writing and always approaching writing support from a perspective of flexibility and options. In One on One with Second Language Writers, Reynolds never explicitly discusses directive/non-directive approaches, but there is an underlying suggestion that the tutor’s purpose is to ask questions, not necessarily to provide answers.

Approaches labeled as student-centered often include discussion and support for non-directive approaches that try to address the uneven authority present in WC interactions and classroom teacherstudent constructs. In Stories from the Center, Catherine G. Latterell proposes “decentering student-centeredness” based on her interactions with “Carlos,” a student, and her professional reflections. Latterell says, “writing center educators are being discouraged from acknowledging the ways in which both tutors and students express authority as they relate to each other— authority that is varied, temporary, and overlapping at times” (p. 112). While this text presents a more nuanced discussion and influencing factors, the book in which this is included is less a guide for peer tutors and more a resource for WC administrators. Even in Guide for Peer Tutors, a more learning center (i.e., not specifically WC) guide, the suggested approach is non-directive: “The scaffolding that tutors provide in one-to-one sessions is very often highly dialogic. Tutors ask questions that encourage students to think of a problem in new ways, and they provide alternative explanations or ways of viewing the material. They invite the student to share their understanding of a concept, in the process calling

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A Guide of One’s Own • 67 the student’s awareness to areas in which their knowledge structures may be incomplete, incoherent, or misaligned with the way that more advanced learners tend to conceptualize it” (56). Sanford goes on to say that students should be active in the session, doing more talking than the tutor.

The Rowman & Littlefield Guide for Peer Tutors has a chapter dedicated to active learning and collaborative learning. In this chapter, Daniel R. Sanford has questions to help drive the session, including “How can I make this session more of a collaboration between the learner and myself?” This guide, however, does come from a learning center, not a WC, perspective. The St. Martin’s Sourcebook provides a range of republished WC articles, including Brooks’ “Minimalist Tutoring” as well as Clark’s, Carino’s, Shamoon and Burns’, and Corbett’s articles that all discuss the ways in which directiveness/non-directiveness impacts writing support or how it should be used in WC sessions. While these articles provide a range of perspectives related to directive/non-directive approaches, they do not guide new tutors/fellows to fully understand how, when, or why to apply different approaches.

With fellows training, the potential hindrances of this standard non-directive approach spiral from the overall purpose of the fellows support to be directly linked to the instructor’s learning goals for the assignment. So, a question like, “Do you think this is meeting your instructor’s expectations from the rubric?” may seem condescending or may not address the intention of the instructor-fellows relationship. In their unique position, fellows can reinforce the instructor’s expectations so students can spend their time working toward that goal, instead of perhaps just trying to understand what the goal is. Students seeking fellows’ support may also assume that fellows are less confused about the specific academic discourse needed for the course and/or the assignment (Flower) and that they may not feel like “academics” in the way Bartholomae discusses in “Inventing the University,” but they may assume that students who are fellows more likely identify as academics. By using a non-directive approach then, fellows can seem like they are withholding information that is readily known to them because the student has not developed an insider’s identity.

Supplemental Instruction In an attempt to expand our scope beyond just writing and learning center guides with which we were familiar, we reached out to the coordinator of our school’s supplemental instruction (SI) program because

of the embedded disciplinary nature of SI. Unlike WC tutor training, there are no published guides; however, many schools make their SI training materials and reports available on their websites or are willing to share their guides upon request.

Guides that we reviewed ranged from about ten pages to almost a hundred. Some included training or guidance just for SI leaders, others just for faculty partners, and others combined SI leaders, faculty partners, and SI coordinators (an administrator-intraining position). Most SI training manuals included a range of topics, including policies, history of SI, reflection activities, learning theories, and even marketing concepts; the more extensive training guides included lessons and handouts to be used during SI sessions (LASSO SILeader Manual, Supplemental Instruction (SI) Handbook for LU Faculty and Staff, Kent State Supplemental Instruction Program General Report). All manuals outline a very similar structure for SI that includes an almost identical history, list of values, and structure.

SI training materials dedicate explanation and discussion about “how-to-learn” rather than “what-tolearn.” Initially this reads similar to generalist versus specialist discussions, but with a more narrowed starting focus. The training guides focus on “transferable skills” that participants can apply to other classes/circumstances. There is also a lot of emphasis on collaborative learning, what this looks like, how to engage peers with each other, how to redirect questions back to group members. Another interesting comparison is that although SI is targeted disciplinary support similar to that of fellows programs, many of the SI guides we reviewed take a very hands-off approach to guiding students and instead encourage a collaborative peer model for the students participating in SI sessions, rather than relying on the guidance or expertise of the SI leader (more facilitator, less guide/mentor/tutor). SI literature emphasizes an authority based on expert peerness, meaning there is a peer hierarchy in the sense that they are students, but they have a level of expertise achieved by successfully completing the course they are now supporting as an SI leader. Ultimately, training materials position SI leaders as disciplinary generalists, compared to WC training materials that often position consultants/tutors as generalist writing specialists.

While initially it seemed that these guides would have a lot of potential to be useful for fellows programs, they are still so unique to the SI model as to have several potential hindrances. For example, the SI model is a small group model, so there is a lot of focus on group facilitation using preset discussion questions or activities, rather than adapting to individual needs; SI is

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A Guide of One’s Own • 68 always voluntary for students; SI coordinators attend every class and read all texts and other course materials; and SI leaders are responsible for developing curriculum for their individual sessions. SI leaders are expected to meet with faculty independently, which would seemingly warrant more training for how to navigate this relationship, but more emphasis was placed on the frequency of meetings.

A key difference between fellows and SI models is that even with the variations in fellows programs, fellows models are intertwined with the tensions of composition and rhetoric’s history and its continued search for identity. Ultimately, what can be learned from SI is that having shared purpose, assessment, and language to describe a program has value at individual institutions but also at larger levels that could lead to more consistent funding, support, and awareness. This shared identity, however, does not eliminate the need for adapting to individual contexts, whether that is a new program that is working to get established on a campus or a long-standing program that is trying to determine programmatic boundaries while still remaining relevant.

Implications for Future Fellows Scholarship So, why does it matter that we parse out these distinctions between fellows training and writing tutor guides? First, and perhaps most obviously, for fellows program administrators, staffers, and fellows themselves, these guides provide limited (even confusing) support. Fellows-driven users must comb through their pages to determine what guidance might apply to fellows and how it will need to be tweaked or discussed so that the fellows-specific contexts and needs are not lost. Importantly, this is not a critique of these works—it is simply a recognition that writing tutors, not fellows, are their intended audience, and they, therefore, have limited application to the latter. We have endeavored to spotlight this gap in our analysis and to demonstrate the need for a fellows-specific guide.

Furthermore, in not having a separate guide, and in gesturing at fellows in writing tutor-specific guides, it becomes far easier to conflate the work of tutors and fellows, diminishing the particular use that fellows programs seek to provide. This conflation is evident in works like Severino and Knight’s positioning of fellows as “ambassadors” for the WC. They explain that fellows “fan out as Writing Center ambassadors across campus and across town…helping to demonstrate clearly the nature of what happens in the Writing Center to greater numbers of faculty and students” (216). While fellows programs absolutely can help students explore other avenues of writing support

available to them through their institutions, framing like this casts fellows as WC operatives outside of the center.

It implies their participation in the same practices and types of support offered by WCs, which makes it difficult to clarify the different applications, values, and needs of fellows programs. We are not attempting to claim that one program is more valuable than the other, but it is integral to establish that writing tutors and fellows serve distinct purposes and operate in distinct roles, and they therefore necessitate specifically focused preparatory guides to support them.

Such work has important implications for the field as well. Our practices inform the way we understand the values and distinctions of our field, and in failing to establish and meet the distinct needs of fellows, we are making a claim about the unilateral and unvarying nature of writing support. This lack of distinction reflects previous conflations of composition and literature, especially in first-year writing courses, for example. In much the same way that presenting composition studies as English has troublesome implications for how we actually understand and distinguish composition, so too does presenting fellows as writing tutors. It elides the differences that define this work and necessitate it in the first place.

Ultimately then, our work in parsing these guides and examining their mismatch for fellowsspecific needs and applications is directed toward our desire to extend the conversation about fellows. We find it critical to build a distinct literature-base and conception of fellows work so that, rather than existing as an addendum or a spare chapter in a writing tutor guidebook, it becomes the subject of its own dedicated manual. Doing so would help to build uniqueness and framing for fellows within the broader area of writing support, would be essential particularly for those new to this field to first develop an understanding of fellows that is distinct from writing tutors, and would provide practical support and guidance about fellows programs.

Such a guide would benefit immensely from exploration of some of the gaps and questions raised above. How do fellows navigate authority and peerness when working with both instructors and students, and how should programs prepare fellows to interface with and potentially guide instructors as they craft their assignments? How should fellows utilize their disciplinary knowledge and embedded position to support students? What does establishing a directive/non-directive balance look like for a fellow whose positioning and background affords, and perhaps calls, for more decisive support? And how does the structure of a consultation change when students are already familiar with fellows and their applications, and

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A Guide of One’s Own • 69 when instructors have flagged specific issue areas for fellows in advance? These questions are just a starting point for a guide that should also provide the history and underlying theory of fellows work, interlaced with practical examples and lessons for fellows programs.

Such a guide would also offer the opportunity to tie in components from the WC guides that do have important cross-applications, like approaching an antagonistic student, supporting writers’ identities, and setting realistic goals for appointments.

In approaching this work from a fellowsspecific guide, though, all questions and inclusions are framed by the needs of fellows programs. In creating this guide, then, we would also be building out the identity of a fellows program: such a guide would help to create a distinct scholarly space for fellows programs, where our claims and practices can be centralized, contributed to, and challenged. It would provide a space, out in the open, to examine fellows programs— what they are, how they are built, what they need—and provide that critical, generative, conversational space that is so emblematic of the work we do.

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ACROSS TIMES AND SPACES: TUTORS’ PERSPECTIVES ON ASYNCHRONOUS TRAINING COMPONENTS AT A HISPANIC-SERVING INSTITUTION Amanda M. May New Mexico Highlands University amandamay@nmhu.edu

Omolola Ayegboyin New Mexico Highlands University oayegboyin@live.nmhu.edu

Rose Gonzales New Mexico Highlands University rgonzales19@live.nmhu.edu

Katherine Lundebjerg New Mexico Highlands University klundebjerg@live.nmhu.edu Introduction In a 2023 Praxis article, Ana Wetzl and colleagues discuss how writing centers serving smaller regional campuses possess advantages over larger tutoring corporations, including a localized model of training that “...is more intimate and individualized than outsourced options. It includes formal training and supervision provided by faculty and ongoing informal training or learning through conversations between and among tutors, tutees, faculty members, and other members of the educational community” (62).

Historically, our own writing center—located at a rural comprehensive institution with multiple campuses—has offered less structured initial training that left many incoming tutors feeling underprepared.

Our institution, New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU), is unique in several capacities. At the time of writing this article, the university is classified as Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and pursuing a classification as a Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution (NASNTI). Both relate to our student population: 55.4% of our students identify as Hispanic, and about 8.5% identify as Indigenous (10% is required for NASNTI status). Additionally, our university’s graduate student population consists largely of international students from African nations like Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon. While our tutors bring a wealth of knowledges, languages, cultures, and experiences with them, many lack familiarity with American higher education contexts and writing centers.

Responding to the institution’s need for welltrained tutors capable of supporting undergraduate and graduate writers across disciplines, and to better support incoming tutors’ needs for more knowledge of writing center pedagogies, this article considers localized training that combines asynchronous modules (Allison; Estes and Martina; Greer et al.) and practice sessions.

Our article follows Amanda Greenwell and colleagues, whose 2020 Praxis article incorporates multiple voices and perspectives to explore training. To that end, our article is multivocal in nature: writing in their own voices, tutors present narratives focused on four factors: background, differences from other training contexts, how the training prepared them, and what knowledge can only be learned through experience. This article contributes to ongoing conversations about tutor preparation not only by framing tutors’ experiences as valuable in the context of training but also by centralizing our own institutional context—a local, rural, comprehensive HSI striving for NASNTI status—as a site for knowledge-making about tutor training.

Literature Review Writing center training varies by institution.

On-site models include approaches such as for-credit courses (Buck) and intensive nine-day training (Bell).

Considerations and focuses for developing training are, much like writing center work more broadly, shaped by context. Elisabeth Buck, in creating a for-credit course, highlights three needs: incentivizing the course, strategically recruiting tutors, and aligning the schedules of new and returning tutors to form mentorship. While Meredith McCarrol underscores the need to balance theory and practice, other scholars describe potential focuses on Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines (Medvecky), adapting an organization’s core values to a local context (Cahil et al.), or utilizing an inquiry-based approach (Burelle and Thompson 242). Other writing centers “focus on creating a welcoming and safe space for writers and building a sense of belonging” (Dobson 13).

Participants in writing center training also engage in creating texts, such as literacy narratives (Howard 3;

Across Times and Spaces • 72 McCarrol) and reflections (Allison 37; Behrens and Funt; Buck; Estes and Martina; Howard 5-6).

Previous writing center scholars have underscored the numerous benefits of asynchronous writing center training. Both Estes and Martina and Gallagher and Maxfield describe training for tutors that relies on self-paced, self-guided systems, but where Gallagher and Maxfield focus on read-and-respond activities, Estes and Martina highlight their use of modules that each include “links to articles, excerpts from sample tutoring sessions, mini-quizzes or interactive elements, and questions for discussion or reflection” (2). Allison additionally describes his modular training model, which includes questions, theoretical readings, application, a reflection/bridge, and an assessment to close the loop (37). Writing center researchers have also identified training potentials for interactive Wikis (Estes and Martina 5), but no further research has been conducted.

Writing center scholarship also points to hybrid training models that incorporate face-to-face components while relying primarily on modules (Greer et al.). This training, unlike classroom-based training, allows tutors to access the material as a refresher and supports new tutors in its flexibility. Goals and focuses are relevant to consider when developing asynchronous training, and while the training is delivered primarily online, each component is informed by our institutional context, extending the importance of context at smaller institutions that Ana Wetzl and colleagues discuss at length. Although they focus on tutor rapport at a regional institution, our article extends this consideration to tutor training, especially in the context of tutors who may be less familiar with our institutional context as incoming international students.

Regardless of modality, training and professional development tend to be ongoing and important for both writing program administrators (Charlton) and writing center tutors (Bell; Cahil et al.; Gallagher and Maxfield). Like many aspects of writing center work, Elisabeth Buck notes that training should be assessed to continue meeting the needs of incoming tutors, and Greenwell et al. additionally highlight the importance of revisions over time. As tutors develop, they can contribute through revising and developing new materials, either for ongoing training (Hughes) or modules (Estes and Martina 2). Estes and Martina point out that inviting tutors to contribute materials “allows [them] to become active participants in designing their own training experiences” (2-3). Our initial training takes place online, and our ongoing training continues through biweekly meetings, which provide additional

opportunities to build community and develop professionally.

Training Development and Structure: Amanda M. May To strengthen incoming tutors’ knowledge and practice, I began developing our asynchronous training in Summer 2023 and recruited Nicole Kirby, an English graduate student with undergraduate experience at our institution, to help. We first met and discussed what components could better support incoming tutors’ writing center knowledge and practice. Keeping in mind the importance of institutional knowledge, particularly at regional campuses (Wezel et al.), and similar to Caswell et al.’s suggestion to ask what knowledge writers need when they visit the center (198), I relied on a guiding question: What knowledge do incoming tutors need to best support writers at our institution? Together, we developed a structure for the modules and selected topics. I then drafted the PowerPoints, which Nicole provided feedback on. Because I had access to a quiet space and a quality microphone, I also recorded videos using Zoom with captions. Nicole also helped populate the shell in Brightspace, our institution’s LMS, and developed pre-activities and quizzes. In total, our training offers eleven modules divided into four weeks; each aims to provide tutors in training with new writing center knowledge or tools, and each contains a list of goals for learning, an opening reflection, a 15- to 25minute video, and a closing quiz. A full list of modules and objectives can be found in the Appendix.

During training, tutors read our handbook, which relies extensively on writing center scholarship and aims to balance theory and practice, as McCarrol advocates for. Both GAs and hourly tutors complete training in their first four weeks and begin tutoring in week three after having completed three mock sessions.

Our tutors speak about these mock sessions and other training components in their own voices, which this article seeks to value by preserving their narratives in their entirety.

Narrative Accounts To better understand how this training impacted incoming tutors, three tutors present their narratives about their experiences with the training. As Alanna Bitzel et al. point out, tutors “bring their own skill sets, academic areas of interest, and life experiences to their work, consulting or otherwise” (1). These three tutors offer unique perspectives; at the time of writing this article, Omolola was a first-semester international

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Across Times and Spaces • 73 student with a bachelor’s degree in English, Rose completed her undergraduate degree in special education in 2023, and Katie was an undergraduate studying criminal justice. I selected these tutors because all three completed the training the first semester it was offered and because they offer three unique perspectives shaped by their backgrounds and familiarity or unfamiliarity with the institution.

Our methods for developing the questions were heavily collaborative and unfolded over two meetings. In the first, the director instructed tutors to generate questions on their own before our next meeting. At the following meeting, we collectively gathered and reviewed the list of questions, then refined them and selected the four that we felt were most relevant to the narratives: ● What is your background? ● How is this training different than training in your previous professional contexts? ● What happened in the training, and how has this training made you feel more prepared and confident in your writing center work? ● What can you only learn in a writing center session?

Adapting to Change: Navigating Asynchronous Training in the Writing Center and Beyond: Omolola Ayegboyin In the vast educational landscape of Nigeria, where I embarked on my academic journey, the foundational principles of education rested upon faceto-face interactions with teachers and peers within physical classrooms. The concept of asynchronous training was, at that point, a foreign entity, but that phenomenon would come to dominate my educational experience in ways I could not have anticipated.

Then came the year 2020 – a year that brought about a seismic shift within the realm of education. The pandemic’s relentless grip forced people indoors, yet the pursuit of knowledge and growth remained undeterred.

Asynchronous and synchronous learning emerged as the answer to this unprecedented challenge, though asynchronous learning was more widely accepted. It marked a paradigm shift that I, like many others, had to embrace, ushering in a new era of learning.

Prior to the pandemic, my encounters with online learning were sporadic. However, necessity has a way of catalyzing change. I found myself enrolling in online courses and participating in work-related training through virtual platforms. The transition from traditional classroom learning to asynchronous training

presented a formidable adjustment period. It was a shift in my educational journey that demanded I alter the way I processed information.

As a student within the English department, I was afforded a unique opportunity – that of working as a writing tutor in the writing center. This position became the gateway through which I would step into asynchronous training in academic writing support.

The writing center stood as a hub of intellectual exchange where students from diverse backgrounds converged to seek guidance on their writing projects. I vividly recall the day when I received the news from the writing center director that the training for writing tutors would be conducted asynchronously.

The announcement filled me with a mixture of excitement and anxiety, for I did not know what to expect from this form of training.

The first step in this asynchronous journey was to complete a series of online modules. These modules served as my introduction to the center's policies, practices, and the expectations placed upon me as a writing tutor. Through them, I acquired the knowledge needed to conduct effective consultations, be they faceto-face, email, or Zoom, and to provide constructive feedback on various types of writing, such as creative writing, theses, fictional and nonfictional stories, and academic papers. The asynchronous nature of the training allowed me to proceed at my own pace, a flexibility that was particularly advantageous given the other academic commitments that I had to juggle.

One module in particular stood out for me. It focused on the nuances of writing center etiquette and the art of building rapport with students during virtual and physical sessions. This module delved into the intricate details of creating a welcoming and nonthreatening online and physical environment. The goal was to encourage students to share their work openly, and techniques such as active listening, the use of positive language, and the application of empathetic responses were heavily emphasized. These were the tools we wielded to ensure students felt comfortable during remote and physical sessions.

Moreover, the module included mandatory practice sessions that involved conducting mock consultations with fellow trainees. During these sessions, participants simulated tutoring scenarios to practice and apply the skills learned in the training. The mock consultations provided a hands-on experience, allowing trainees to actively engage in the tutoring process within a controlled and supportive environment. These sessions typically involved one trainee playing the role of the tutor, while the other took on the position of the student seeking assistance. This

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Across Times and Spaces • 74 format aimed to replicate real tutoring scenarios, fostering the development of effective communication, problem-solving, and tutoring techniques. The collaborative nature of the practice sessions encouraged trainees to provide constructive feedback to each other, facilitating a collective learning experience that enhanced their overall preparedness for actual tutoring sessions. These sessions occurred through a variety of mediums, including face-to-face interactions, Zoom meetings, and email correspondence. After each session, we were required to reflect on our performance, assessing our strengths and identifying areas for improvement.

However, the newfound freedom in the asynchronous format came hand in hand with a significant responsibility: self-discipline. In the absence of fixed training hours, effectively managing time became a crucial aspect that rested solely on my shoulders. To navigate this situation, I implemented a structured approach to my schedule. I created a personalized timetable that allocated specific periods for engaging with training modules, participating in practice sessions, and completing associated tasks. Setting realistic and achievable goals within designated time frames allowed me to maintain focus and progress steadily through the training. Additionally, I employed time management tools, such as calendars and reminders, to stay organized and ensure timely completion of training requirements. Cultivating a sense of accountability and adhering to the established schedule played a pivotal role in balancing the autonomy of asynchronous training with the discipline required to meet its objectives.

Upon my successful completion of the asynchronous training, I was well-prepared to embark on my journey as a writing tutor. The transition from training to real consultations in the writing center was remarkably smooth, a testament to the comprehensive nature of the training program. I was now equipped to assist students with a diverse array of writing projects, whether they were working on essays, research papers, or creative compositions.

The experience of asynchronous training in the writing center not only equipped me with valuable skills in virtual communication, online and physical session consultations, but it also underlined the importance of adaptability in today's educational landscape. The training program demonstrated that effective training could be conducted successfully in an asynchronous format, catering to the diverse needs of students with varying schedules and commitments. The seamless shift was particularly evident in the alignment between the training assignments and the actual tasks encountered

during consultations. The practical exercises and mock consultations conducted as part of the training closely mirrored the scenarios encountered in real tutoring sessions. For instance, the simulated consultations incorporated diverse writing challenges, ranging from structure and grammar to more nuanced aspects of writing support. This intentional similarity ensured that the skills honed during training seamlessly translated into the live, dynamic environment of the writing center.

The transition felt fluid, with the practical experiences gained from the training serving as a robust foundation for confidently addressing the varied needs of students during actual consultations.

Moving forward, my experiences as a writing tutor were enriched by the asynchronous training experience, as I found myself connecting with students from all walks of life. Together, we navigated the intricate landscape of academic writing, shaping it into a realm of creativity and expression. The experience underscored the importance of technology and online resources in providing academic support, a lesson that has become increasingly relevant in the current educational climate.

My journey into asynchronous training at the Writing Center was a fulfilling and enlightening experience. It showcased the potential of flexible, technology-driven training methods while emphasizing the value of community and collaboration in both the virtual and physical learning environments. This experience not only enhanced my skills as a writing tutor but also deepened my appreciation for the evolving landscape of education. It was a chapter of adaptability and growth, one that continues to influence my approach to teaching and learning, leaving an indelible mark on my educational journey.

From Uncertainty to Certainty: How Asynchronous Training Helped Build My Confidence as a Writing Center Tutor: Rose Gonzales I live in a small rural town and am part of a community with a rich heritage expressed through vibrant celebrations, traditional cuisine, and timeless architecture. The beauty and originality of this rural town have left me with a profound love for the area and its people, so much so that I chose to pursue a career that I could one day use to give back to this small community and help preserve its culture and support its growth. I am an alumna of NMHU and graduated in May of 2023 with my degrees in Special Education and English. Currently, I am working on getting my master’s degree in English with a concentration in literature at NMHU.

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Across Times and Spaces • 75 My love for teaching has evolved over the years.

During my last semester as an undergrad, I was able to work with students with special needs while completing my student teaching at a local elementary school. This experience helped to further develop my passion for teaching and fueled my interest in learning how I could teach students with special needs to master different writing concepts and to have a deeper understanding of literature. All of these wonderful experiences have left me feeling fortunate to attend a university like NMHU, where I could pursue my interests closer to home. This fall, I was offered the opportunity to continue to study English at NMHU while working in the writing center, and it has been a learning experience that has helped me grow as a writer.

The writing center has helped me grow as a writer, in addition to helping other writers feel more confident in their writing. I have experienced success as a tutor in the writing center not only because of my love for teaching and writing but also because of the training I was given during my first week on the job. The training I received before tutoring students was very different from my training in previous workplaces. I have worked for years in retail and food service, and the training I was given for this type of work was primarily on-the-job training, which always left me feeling uncertain about my work responsibilities. In these work environments, understanding was gained by close observation and hands-on experience, along with being mentored by a senior employee. My biggest struggle with on-the-job training was that it always led to information overload.

Whenever I started a new job, I was thrown right into working while trying to understand and remember the various rules and regulations set by my employer. When difficult situations would present themselves, I would be left to try and figure out the correct response, which would frequently lead to a large amount of stress and a series of mistakes, some more serious than others. At the NMHU Writing Center, I was given not only handson experience but also extensive online asynchronous training that helped me to reflect on the various writing center practices in a low-risk and stress-free environment.

Our training at the NMHU Writing Center began the first week of the semester and it lasted a total of four weeks. With this type of training, we slowly transitioned into tutoring and were able to reflect on many situations that could arise during writing center sessions. Throughout these weeks of training, we completed various forms of reflective writing and quizzes based on videos recorded and uploaded by our writing center director. These videos not only explained the basics of how the NMHU Writing Center operated

with its forms and procedures but also gave an in-depth look into what it means to be professional and how to work with writers from various disciplines. Since the NMHU Writing Center works with students from all disciplines, it was important for us as tutors to understand how their essays and projects were usually formatted and what their academic voices may sound like. The asynchronous training we received helped us with interdisciplinary writing and how to approach tutoring sessions with students in various departments.

Aside from this, we were also given a chance to reflect on culture and what that looks like in a writing center setting. NMHU is a Hispanic-serving institution that also has a population of students from other countries outside of the United States. During training, we thought about culture and how it influences different perspectives and voices within writing. Overall, the extensive asynchronous training that I received during the first four weeks of the semester helped me feel more prepared for actual sessions. Since this training was asynchronous, it became a resource that I could always return to if needed. This resource helped me feel more confident because if I ever had a situation where I did not know the answer, I could return to the training modules or our handbook and quickly and accurately make a correct decision regarding any writing center policy or practice.

Many might question how asynchronous training can prepare tutors for in-person training sessions, and it is true that some training can only come from live sessions with a writer. However, the fantastic thing about our center’s online asynchronous training is that it was also skillfully integrated with hands-on training. Starting in our second week, along with our online training modules, we were tasked with scheduling and completing three mock sessions with our coworkers. These mock sessions included an email session where we would look at an essay, provide our feedback, and send it to our writing center director for further assessment. We also got time to practice mock Zoom sessions where we could work with the program and its features, which helped us manage difficult technical issues. Our on-site mock sessions most closely resembled an actual tutoring session. We could work with our co-workers and provide feedback on projects they were working on, which was a valuable experience because each of us brought a unique element to each mock session. One thing about tutoring at a writing center is that all sessions are individual. Writers cycle through with new papers and new ideas, so adjusting to that continuous change is something that can only be learned through experience. Our mock on-site sessions allowed us to practice tutoring in a safe, low-risk

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Across Times and Spaces • 76 environment where learning and gaining experience were prioritized, and because of this, we could jump into real sessions with writers more confidently.

Stabs and Scribbles: Katie Lundebjerg I became enamored with writing stories once I learned to comprehend the squiggles called letters. I devoured books, poems, stories, and articles with the ferocity of a starving animal. I submitted writing to high school literary magazines, attended creative writing groups, and served as Editor in Chief of my high school’s literary magazine my senior year. I approach teaching with the same passion and zeal. In 2019, I began my coaching career in the sport of fencing at my mentor's suggestion. I teach both the French and Italian styles of sword play to all ages.

Currently, I am in my senior year of an undergraduate degree in criminal justice with a minor in English writing. One of my capstone courses, criminology, required me to visit the writing center during the Spring of 2023. Through frequent email and Zoom sessions, I developed confidence in my writing process and control of language. I use them about once or twice a week. I also meet with the director of the writing center, Dr. May, to work on the novel I began in April of 2023. My previous training was strictly done in person. My training at fast-food places was done in conjunction with the work tasks. I would learn how to perform a task by watching and copying my trainer or doing it with them. When I started coaching, I received similar training. I observed two classes and then took the class as a mock student. I did the drills, the exercises, and served as the ‘example’ for the class. After a few classes, I led parts of the lesson. Finally, I received full control of a class once the Master of Fencing felt I managed the flow of information and my student’s attention well without assistance.

My writing center training followed a more academic, classroom style. We did a pre-activity to engage our brains, watched a lecture, and took a postquiz or another activity to check for understanding.

Mock session exercises were done during the second and third week of training so there was more time in between the theoretical and practical application of tutoring. As a remote tutor, I practiced Zoom and email sessions. For the Zoom sessions, I sent Dr. May a Bookings request for a Zoom session. I met with her and provided feedback on her PowerPoint and a research proposal. For the email sessions, Dr. May sent a copy of her previous writing to review using the Comment’s feature in Microsoft word.

I noticed similarities between this training and my fencing training. Both schools I teach at have a Master of Arms certification track. There are required theory courses and in-person practical hours before taking exams in both schools. Both the French and Italian schools require extensive study of texts written by previous Masters of Fencing. There is a universal language which the Master of Arms must know and utilize while they teach. Due to the sheer volume of information, the theory courses flow much like a college course with take-home assignments and Zoom lectures.

The in-person training courses cover how to teach theory to students. We also learn how to structure a group class, how to teach a private lesson, and how to adapt the material to different age groups. In the writing center training, I listened to lectures on tutoring theory and how to adapt teaching strategies for different writers. Next, I conducted mock email and Zoom sessions to apply what I learned. Mock sessions are beneficial, hands-on applications like the in-person hours for my Masters of Arms certification courses.

For the first two weeks of writing center training, I struggled to engage with the training modules.

Since I am a kinetic learner, I flounder during lectures or periods of time when I am expected to sit still. This issue affects me in every classroom because I must sit for long periods of time, follow along, and take notes.

However, once the mock sessions began, the information presented in the videos clicked. The videos and handbook were handy to review when I got stuck. I had minimal questions for Dr. May when I received feedback on my sessions. My brain processes the act of listening and the act of application as two separate things. I cannot contemplate how to apply auditory information before I practice the application of the subject. Once I began to physically interact with the subject matter, the instructions were easy to apply, and the training breezed by.

During my first email session, I applied Dr. May’s feedback and confidently conveyed my critiques, ideas, and praise to the student. Although I was a bundle of nerves, I never felt stuck during the session, and my approach was solid. So far, I have only conducted one Zoom session this semester. The ability to see my students during the session both helped and hindered me. I spoke freely but was also more distraction prone because I could see them. Juggling notetaking and student engagement while I tutored them proved difficult because of the dynamic nature of Zoom sessions. The session report I wrote, therefore, was less accurate than the email sessions. I can go and review comments on email sessions if I forget information.

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Across Times and Spaces • 77 There are a few things I could only learn in my sessions. The most important lesson focused on adjusting time management for each student and modality. There are different needs for each paper because of the student’s writing level, the subject matter, and where they are in the writing process. I utilize a visual timer and macro copy-pastes to keep email sessions efficient and focused. Between my two mock Zoom sessions, the requested focus varied depending on the student’s progress and their place within the writing process. Although the skeleton of the sessions was the same, my comments and ideas were different.

I also learned how to maintain confidence and focus regardless of who I tutor. I recently worked with a graduate student on her midterm paper. She requested help with APA formatting and argument presentation.

Our Bookings page does not specify who is a graduate or an undergraduate tutor. Although I felt incredible anxiety when I received the Bookings request, I kept the session and decided to trust myself. When I received the student’s draft, I was surprised and relieved that I could offer her feedback on tense and academic writing tone.

I also taught her how to consult the APA style guide.

Once I sent her my comments, I received a lovely email from the student thanking me for helping her. The training, and my ability to continuously access it, allowed me to provide helpful feedback to a student who is working a degree higher than mine. This format of training, with both theoretical and practical components, helped set me up for success with tutoring.

Discussion The above three narratives from tutors, presented in their own voices, represent their experiences with the center’s newly developed asynchronous training. Together, these three narratives present valuable insights and tutor perspectives. After briefly discussing trends in perceptions of the training and its connections to other contexts, we highlight three common themes in the narratives: supporting diverse students, the issue of time, and finally knowledge that can only be gained from sessions.

Tutors overall felt positive about the training.

Both Omolola and Rose use the word “comprehensive” to describe the modules, which the director developed in response to institutional context. In connection with writing center research, context was not only a consideration but a defining factor of training. Besides shaping the training’s format—asynchronous modules combined with real-time practice sessions rather than an intensive course (Bell) or a for-credit course (Buck)— our institutional context also informed the training’s

content, especially the module for interdisciplinary writing. Because writing center training is shaped by the contexts they serve (Bell; Buck; Cahil et al.), bringing the question of what knowledge new tutors need can help each center develop the content as well as format of their training.

Tutors also saw mostly differences between the asynchronous modules and training they had encountered in other contexts. Omolola highlights how the online learning context is fairly new to her but that the pandemic prompted her adaptation, Rose discusses how the modules varied from her in-person training on the job, and Katie highlights how the modules differ from fencing certification courses. Both Omolola and Katie’s narratives additionally underscore the importance of synchronous components. Omolola mentions the training brings value to “community and collaboration in both the virtual and physical learning environments,” notably citing two key writing center values in her narrative, while Katie notes the familiarity she found in the practice sessions, as they resembled her experiences in fencing due to their hands-on format.

These practice sessions allowed tutors to learn firsthand what a writing center session tends to look like, helping bridge the gap between theory and practice that McCarroll espouses.

Like existing literature on asynchronous tutoring, the three narratives reference the ability for asynchronous training to fulfill the needs of diverse tutor populations. In the context of training (Allison) and workshops (Towle), digital formats can better support learners’ needs, and parts of the above narratives reflect the modules’ ability to do so. Omolola described our training as “flexible” and “technologydriven,” and Rose nods to our module on interdisciplinary writing, which aims to better prepare tutors to support writers outside of the English department. At the same time, Katie’s narrative points to some limitations involving modular training, particularly in the challenges she faced during week one before the practice sessions began. Although the director designed these modules with subtitles, it is clear from Katie’s comment that there are other considerations. Writing centers considering the implementation of training should therefore consider integrating components that support learners with different approaches to learning and differing needs.

Estes and Martina provide a potential solution in their description: integrating more interactive components.

This is something we may revise our training to include more of moving forward so that it can better suit individuals who thrive in hands-on environments.

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Across Times and Spaces • 78 A second factor, time, came up in all three narratives but in different ways. Like research on online training and tutoring, which points to time no longer being a limitation (Allisonb34; Gallagher and Maxfield; Hewett 42), both Omolola and Rose indicate their appreciation for the way the asynchronous modules allow for more flexibility in terms of time commitment; they could access the modules remotely and at any time.

Rose additionally points out the advantage of online training providing her with more time to think and reflect. However, Katie and Omolola cite an issue that the literature does not currently cover, specifically in terms of managing time to complete the modules. While time is often presented strictly as an advantage in online venues, particularly asynchronous ones, Katie’s narrative shows that time can also be challenging in asynchronous training settings. Omolola points out similar issues, noting that “the onus of managing time fell squarely on [her] shoulders” in this context. The need for “self-discipline” that Omolola points out underscores that asynchronous training creates some unique challenges.

An additional advantage in time emerges from these three narratives, one not mentioned in literature: the ability to return to previous material. Both Rose and Katie indicate their practice of returning to training components when they were unsure of something, and while Rose mentions only the videos, Katie also indicates her tendency to reference our handbook, especially “when [she] encountered a sticking place in the email session.” Besides serving as initial training, the modules therefore additionally serve as a reference for tutors that they can consult on the job. While tutors can admittedly consult with lecture notes from tutoring courses, this advantage is unique to online settings.

Tutoring courses with Zoom components could benefit from posting lectures or in-class discussions as recordings in LMSs, therefore supporting tutor learning beyond the classroom.

Finally, all three tutors noted that some knowledge can only be gained through actual writing center sessions. The director developed this training with the objective of better preparing—not fully preparing—new tutors for writing center sessions, but as these narratives show, learning continues to take place even after initial training. Researchers highlight the importance of ongoing training and professional development in the writing center context (Bell; Cahil et al.; Charlton; Gallagher and Maxfield). However, the narratives represent firsthand how learning continues on-the-job in tutoring sessions with students. Katie specifically points out the ability to adapt and manage time with different writers and different modalities. By

bringing this question into considerations of initial training, we can emphasize the learning-by-doing aspect of writing center work.

Collectively, these narratives add dimension to the existing research on writing center training that includes asynchronous components. Their individual perspectives confirm their perceptions of the training’s extensiveness and highlight its value in the context of our local writing center. Notably, Omolola also perceived the writing center values of “community and collaboration” within the initial training structure. These accounts of training experiences together represent how asynchronous training components can help prepare new tutors for sessions but not fully. Even with mock sessions, these tutors felt they could only learn certain things during sessions with actual writers visiting the center, such as adaptability and time management for different students and in multiple tutoring modes. These three narratives also underscore how asynchronous training can support diverse learners and provide flexibility, both presented in writing center literature.

However, they also contrast with current descriptions of asynchronous tutoring from the research, particularly in the challenges related to time they highlight. While these narratives present challenges heretofore not mentioned in the research, they also highlight an additional benefit related to time: the availability of training modules as a resource, which is an advantage on-site tutoring tends not to provide. The three accounts provided by tutors show how asynchronous training can provide both benefits and drawbacks to individual learners but ultimately can support tutors in our current context in their initial stages of work.

Conclusions This article presented three tutors’ narrative experiences with a newly developed and locally rooted initial training composed of asynchronous modules and real-time practice sessions with other tutors. The narratives were keyed to four questions: background, differences in training from other contexts, training components and preparation, and finally knowledge that can only be learned through experience. The three tutors presenting their experiences, Omolola, Rose, and Katie, differ in culture and educational background, yet they are all connected by their experiences as first-semester tutors undergoing initial training. The stories they present show how the training differed from other contexts, as well as how it prepared and did not fully prepare them for writing center sessions. Together, their stories contribute to—and complicate—current writing center understandings of asynchronous training

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Across Times and Spaces • 79 components: while these tutors found value in the flexibility offered by our modules and in their availability as a resource, these three tutors also indicated challenges like time management. This knowledge can be valuable for writing centers developing or reconsidering their training, as they underscore the role of background experiences and approaches to learning in tutor perceptions of training. Writing centers can additionally learn the potential values of—and challenges posed— by asynchronous training components from tutors’ perspectives at our Hispanic Serving Institution. In presenting these narratives, the tutors and I seek to value tutors’ narrative accounts, perspectives, and voices.

Further, we together seek to position HSIs as valuable contexts for making knowledge about writing center practice and training. As the institution changes, we can continue collecting narrative accounts from tutors and expand our consideration to incorporate tutoring reflections, a recent revision to our current training practices. Both could provide additional insight into how these training approaches support tutors at our institution.

Appendix: List of Modules and Mock Sessions Week 1 ● Module 1-1: Welcome to the [Institution] Writing Center o Define what a writing center can be. o Understand the mission and history of NMHU's writing center. o Learn the five driving principles of writing center work. o Identify the kinds of work they will be doing within the center. ● Module 1-2: Basic Tutoring Approaches o Understand the basic steps of a faceto-face tutoring session. o Differentiate between tutoring and proofreading. o Understand the forms used to document writing center sessions. ● Module 1-3: Writing Center Professionalism and Front Desk Procedures o Understand and apply principles of professionalism within the NMHU Writing Center. o Learn why the front desk is an important writing center space. o Describe some common duties associated with the front desk.

Understand how to access the writing center e-mail. o Understand how to check and respond to voicemails.

Module 1-4: Introduction to Writing Center Technologies o Learn how to access the writing center Zoom. o Describe some functionalities of Zoom that help tutoring. o Learn how to access and use the comment tool in Word. o Understand how online tutoring is similar to and different from face-toface sessions. o

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Week 2 ● Module 2-1: Additional In-Person Tutoring Tips o Understand and define rapportbuilding. o Develop strategies for building rapport with writers visiting the center. o Use strategies to get the writer engaged in sessions. ● Module 2-2: Additional Tips for Online Tutoring: Zoom and E-mail o Differentiate between synchronous and asynchronous sessions and approaches. o Learn how to adapt the basic session structure to Zoom and e-mail sessions. o Develop strategies for troubleshooting technological issues during online sessions. o Understand and apply effective tutoring approaches in online settings. ● Module 2-3: The Importance of Reflection o Define reflective writing. o Apply your current writing knowledge to reflective writing. o Understand why it is important to complete weekly reflections while working at the writing center. ● Three mock sessions (one in-person, one Zoom, one e-mail), plus reflections.

Week 3 ● Module 3-1: Advanced Tutoring Techniques: Special Cases o Expand knowledge of NMHU's student population. o Understand a variety of potential writing center situations.

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Across Times and Spaces • 80 Develop strategies for adapting current tutoring practices to different students and sessions.

Module 3-2: Tutoring Writing in Different Disciplines o Understand how to identify characteristics of disciplinary writing. o Differentiate between writing in your discipline (literature, creative writing, linguistics/composition) and other disciplines (e.g., sociology, criminology, etc.). o Develop strategies to increase writers’ awareness of disciplinary differences in writing style during sessions.

Three mock sessions (one in-person, one Zoom, one e-mail), plus reflections. o

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Week 4 ● Module 4-1: Balancing Praise with Constructive Criticism o Understand the importance of positive feedback during all modalities of writing center sessions. o Develop approaches to giving positive feedback. o Adapt these approaches to both synchronous and asynchronous online settings. ● Module 4-2: Adapting Tutoring Work to the Classroom o Recognize how working with writers individually can help them succeed in classroom settings. o Identify ways they can build approaches to classroom teaching through writing center work. o Understand what the writing center can teach about writing and what knowledge about teaching may be missing.

Works Cited Allison, Fallon N. “Modular Training for Professional Writing Center Consultants.” Redefining Roles: The Professional, Faculty, and Graduate Consultant’s Guie to Writing Centers, edited by Megan Swihardt Jewell and Joseph Cheatle, USU Press, 2021, 31-43.

Behrens, Vicki, and Alex Funt. “Investing in Graduate Tutor Training: A Sustained Approach.”

Redefining Roles: The Professional, Faculty, and

Graduate Consultant’s Guie to Writing Centers, edited by Megan Swihardt Jewell and Joseph Cheatle, USU Press, 2021, 204-215.

Bell, Kathryn. “Our Professional Descendants: Preparing Graduate Writing Consultants.” How We Teach Tutors, edited by Karen Gabrielle Johnson, Ted Roggenbuck, and Crystal Conzo, 2019. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/dec1/Be ll.html.

Bitzel, Alanna, et al. “Professional Development at the UWC: Three Personal Experiences.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, 2009, 1-7. http://www.praxisuwc.com/bitzel-et-al-71.

Buck, Elisabeth H. “From CRLA to For-Credit Course: The New Director's Guide to Assessing Tutor Education.” How We Teach Tutors, edited by Karen Gabrielle Johnson, Ted Roggenbuck, and Crystal Conzo, 2019. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/dec1/Bu ck.html.

Burelle, Megan Boeshart and Meaghan Thompson. “An Inquiry-Based Approach for Customizing Training for Graduate Student Tutors.”

Redefining Roles: The Professional, Faculty, and Graduate Consultant’s Guie to Writing Centers, edited by Megan Swihardt Jewell and Joseph Cheatle, USU Press, 2021, 241-252.

Cahil, Lisa, et al. “Developing Core Principles for Tutor Education.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 42, no. 2, 2017, 10-18.

Caswell, Nikki, et al. The Working Lives of Writing Center Directors. Utah State University Press, 2017.

Charlton, Jonikka. “The Future of WPA Professionalization: A 2007 Survey.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 7, no. 1, Fall 2009. http://www.praxisuwc.com/charlton-71.

Dobson, Joe. “Fostering a Sense of Belonging in a Graduate Writing Center.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 48, no. 1, Sept.

2023, pp. 11-19.

Estes, Sharon, and Alexis Martina. “Taking Tutor Training Online.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 35, no. 3-4, 2010, pp. 1-6. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/v35/35.3 -4.pdf. Accessed 6 Oct. 2023.

Gallagher, Daniel, and Aimee Maxfield. “Learning Online to Tutor Online.” How We Teach Tutors, edited by Karen Gabrielle Johnson, Ted Roggenbuck, and Crystal Conzo, 2019. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/dec1/Ga llagherMaxfield.html.

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Across Times and Spaces • 81 Greenwell, Amanda M., et al. “Reading in the Writing Center: Tutor Education and Praxis.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 17, no. 2, 2020. https://www.praxisuwc.com/172greenwelletal.

Greer, Michaela, et al. “Educating a Large Writing and Communication Center Staff through Online Blackboard Learning Modules: Planning, Implementation, and Assessment.” The Peer Review, vol.

3, no.

2, 2020. https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue3-2/educating-a-large-writing-andcommunication-center-staff-through-onlineblackboard-learning-modules-planningimplementation-and-assessment/.

Hewett, Beth L. The Online Writing Conference: A Guide for Teachers and Tutors. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010.

Howard, Jeffrey G. “Fostering Reflection and Empathy: Narratives as Pedagogical Tools in Writing Consultation Preparation.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 48, no. 1, Sept.

2023, pp. 3-8.

Hughes, Bradley. “The Tutoring Corona: New Perspectives on Professional Development for Tutors.” Another Word: From the Writing Center of University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sept. 5, 2017. https://dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/thetutoring-corona-new-perspectives-onprofessional-development-for-tutors/.

Accessed 6 October 2023.

McCarrol, Meredith. “Making Tutoring Strange: The Pedagogical Aims of Tutor Training.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 14, no. 3, 2017. http://www.praxisuwc.com/mccarroll.

Medvecky, Craig. “Enter the Dragon: Graduate Tutor Education in the Hall of Mirrors.” How We Teach Tutors, edited by Karen Gabrielle Johnson, Ted Roggenbuck, and Crystal Conzo, 2019. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/dec1/M edvecky.html.

Towle, Beth. “From In-Class to Online: Developing Asynchronous and Hybrid Writing Center Workshops.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 46, no. 6-7, 2022, pp. 11-18.

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NAVIGATING WRITING CENTER TIMESCAPES: REFLECTIONS ON TUTOR SELFEFFICACY AT UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY SITES Kendyl Harmeling The University of Louisville kendyl.harmeling@louisville.edu

Alexandria Degner The University of Louisville alexandria.degner@louisville.edu

Jennings Collins The University of Louisville jennings.collins@louisville.edu

Lauren T. Cox The University of Louisville lauren.tweedell@louisville.edu Abstract

This reflection came together over the course of a semester while the co-authors were working in their University Writing Center and at community partner sites. Only a handful of writing center scholarship has investigated how time as an agent plays into pedagogical performance (Geller, “Tick-Tock”; Geller et al., The Everyday Writing Center; Terzano, “Short-Time Tutorials”). Yet, across writing centers we’re all negotiating these material and temporal realities as part of the daily structure of our work. And, as Powell and Hixson-Bowles point out, writing center studies often publishes about the writing self-efficacy of the students and clientele of center services but not tutor self-efficacy. We therefore use time as a lens with which to view and better understand our individualized tutoring efficacies. The co-authors’ stories demonstrate how time can be a valuable reflective lens for connecting theory to action within a session and for the development of one’s sense of self as a writing center professional (their tutor self-efficacy) across sessions and spaces. By so doing, exploring time as a pedagogical influence, tutors can carve out more confidence in themselves, authority in their selfefficacy, and find success in familiar and unfamiliar writing center terrains.

As any tutor who has three back-to-back sessions may come to find, time and its influence on pedagogical performance – and later how we feel when we reflect on that performance – can be felt in the body.

A dry mouth after three writers preferred you do the read aloud or sore eyes from computer screen after computer screen, time takes its toll as we perform “writing center-ness.” And we can feel it in our pedagogical soul when we’ve had a day of literacy narratives, and the last-hour-of-the-day writer comes in with yet another one; time can have much more a say in how we perform that writing center-ness than we want to admit. It’s therefore necessary to narrate how time is woven into writing center theory, practice, and experiences of tutor self-efficacy in doing the work.

In the recursive process of becoming and enacting “tutor,” experience can be a good teacher by itself, but tutors can further shine when “strategic instruction and counseling” are provided (BannisterWillis 137). More than just instruction and practice alone, Geller et al. argue that discussion and reflection are critical steps in the process of becoming and

enacting tutor identity. For aid in navigating the dynamic between instruction and experience, or theory and practice, Anne Geller et al. argue that writing center directors should theorize time with their tutors in discussions about practice. Doing so can afford tutors and administrators alike the opportunity to summon different performances of writing center-ness (Geller et al.). To do this summoning, and to feel confident in the varied performances there-of, tutors must reflect on their training and enact it as praxis in the moment of a session, after the session, and re-start again before the next one. Critically, however, time and tutor self-efficacy are under-discussed in the nebula of writing center studies. Therefore, this article aims to showcase time as a useful reflective lens for understanding and expanding tutor self-efficacy.

This article invites you to think about the language and discourse of time as an under-discussed but powerful agent in tutor self-efficacy. By so doing, exploring time as a pedagogical influence, tutors can carve out more confidence in themselves and find success in familiar and unfamiliar writing center sessions. As the co-authors’ reflections demonstrate, time is a valuable reflective lens for connecting theory to action within a session and for the development of one’s sense of self as a writing center professional across sessions and spaces.

In an efficacy-themed issue of Praxis, Roger Powell and Kelsey Hixson-Bowles petition writing center studies for greater inquiry into tutor self-efficacy.

In “Too Confident or Not Confident Enough,” they argue that self-efficacy is a well explored and valued outcome of writing center use-value, yet it has been explored nearly exclusively for those outside the center coming in (e.g. the writers), not for the tutors.

Fundamentally, Powell and Hixson-Bowles explain that the field makes assumptions about but has little empirical evidence of the correlative relationship between tutoring experience and tutor self-efficacy. And while the field of writing center scholarship debates if

Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 83 trust (Gillespie and Lerner), conversations about writing (North), or the event of the tutorial itself (Vandenberg) are the core of what it is writing centers do, the stacking of all these purposes inform the nebulous thing tutors tap into when wearing this hat or that one, or at this site or that one.

These moves, or hats, or roles – like establishing rapport, discussing a piece of writing’s constraining influences (assignment-specific, prompt, deadline, or generic requirements), reading aloud, non/directive guidance through the document, providing emotional support – are well wrought (e.g.

Longman, Bedford, Allyn and Bacon, Oxford). These moves are also, largely, how it is the writing centers (and their people) describe what it is that we do. It’s these moves that populate the field guides and tutor training courses that orient new and experienced tutors in the moment of a session. And it’s in the experience of navigating these terrains that tutors’ senses of selfefficacy evolve. In other words, the structures of professional development as a tutor – being trained, discussing training, practicing, experiencing, and reflecting on the doing of the work – are all protocols of tutor self-efficacy which the field leaves up to the tutor to figure out and form on their own. In this article, we define tutor self-efficacy as a tutor’s felt sense of confidence and authority in understanding the possibilities and potentials in the work and then acting to bring possibility and potentiality into reality. And time is a crucial element of tutor self-efficacy given that most often, tutors’ performances of their self-efficacy are a timed product or occur within temporal boundaries.

Like Haynes-Burton writes in “Constructing Our Ethos,” administrators are often reporting usage numbers as means for funding, both taking and relenting the power to define writing center value in their institutional contexts. But it is not only the administrators who define the work, as tutors are frequently performing and negotiating the ethos of the center to the writers in the moment of a session. Both of these performances of writing center-ness are reductive in that, given the constraining contexts of individual performances, administrators and tutors alike bring one of many possible expressions of writing center ethos into reality for a given rhetorical situation. And, as individuals, we all feel the weight and worry of such performances of authority – the authority to bring one potential over another into reality. While the power dynamics, localities, and agents differ between decisions that an administrator or tutor might make in defining and constructing their center’s ethos, these negotiations for tutors and for writing centers as institutions can feel

more confident when all agents are tapped into their efficacies (Bannister-Willis).

Conversations about time and pedagogy sparked a semester long-inquiry for the four co-authors into how it is the tutors at our UWC and community partner sites negotiate time’s influence on pedagogical practice, outcomes, and goals for writing center work.

At its root, the inquiry began with trying to understand tutors’ anxiety and drops in senses of self-efficacy when they face new answers to old questions, questions like how long they will have with a writer, what if the paper is too long, what if the writer is late, and more. Our tutors had faced all of these questions about the unknown before as first-time tutors in the Fall 2023 semester at our UWC, and even still before if they tutored elsewhere in their undergraduate institutions.

Tutors’ confident sense of “I can do what I know how to do,” started to shrink the closer we got to the launch of tutoring services at community sites in the Spring 2024 term, especially when more than place and space were changing, but time too.

In the following narratives sparked by questions of acting within time, Jennings, Lauren, and Allie build, reflect, and rebuild their senses of tutoring as process and as identity enaction. And as emotional labor and self-efficacy populate our conferences, journals, and centers themselves (Bartelt; Sherwood; Geller et al.; Powell and Hixson-Bowles; Mannon), tending to what time’s got to do with it feels like a natural next step. Especially since Anne Geller’s “TickTock” reminds us, “clocks are everywhere” (8). By tuning into time as a pedagogical influence on senses of self-efficacy as tutors, the four of us started seeing time everywhere – in policies, marketing materials, training, community literacy relationships, spatial design, writing center goals and outcomes, and more. By reflecting, we began to feel time and our tutorly ethos within it everywhere – in how we approach a given writer and writing situation, in the space of the session, and in how we see ourselves as tutors and writing studies professionals more broadly.

Talks of Time and Self-Efficacy On a rainy drive back to campus after an orientation with a community partner geared at bringing our new volunteering tutors up to speed, I ask Lauren and Allie how they’re feeling. Really excited, they reply, if not for some apprehension about the amount of time they’ll have with community writers in appointments: only 30 minutes, compared to the 50-minute sessions we have in our University Writing Center (UWC) location.

While our sessions at the UWC don’t always last 50-

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 84 minutes, there’s that guaranteed time just in case it’s needed. So, even though these consultants have already experienced 30-minute sessions, and some even shorter, the prospect of having only 30-minutes with community writers felt daunting. They asked: how can we do what we know how to do in only 30 minutes? How do we tutor without time? One week later, at a different community site where we volunteer, Jennings and I are on the site’s stoop in the frigid cold talking about how to make sure the partnership works well and that we work well for the site. It’s 3:30 pm and 29 degrees Fahrenheit, but it feels like 15 with the 12-mph winter wind. Jennings and I stepped into these conditions to start talking through ideas without disrupting the fluid silence of the community members inside. Unlike the UWC, this community site is walk-in only and without time-stamped sessions. Jennings describes some excitement and some anxiety in playing with the pedagogies they’ve learned from sessions at the UWC and in their graduate cohort’s tutor training course. The four of us all agree some thinking and rethinking about time is needed. So we hit the books.

What we learned is that plenty of scholarship in the form of field guides and manuals talk about time, but most often when the field talks time, it’s talking time that provides borders within which to analyze pedagogy, or in reference to determining what length session to offer (e.g. Fitzgerald & Ianetta, The Oxford Guide; MyersBreslin, Administrative Problem Solving; Iris-Soven, What the Writing Tutor Needs To Know). Writing center studies discusses less often what time’s role is in shaping how the events of a session unfold. Only a handful of writing center scholarship has investigated how time as an agent plays into pedagogical performance (Geller, “TickTock”; Geller et al., The Everyday Writing Center; Terzano, “Short-Time Tutorials”). Yet, across writing centers we’re all negotiating these material and temporal realities as part of the daily structure of our work. In a quick search of writing centers in the United States, for instance, sessions last anywhere from a quick 5-minute question, to 15-minutes, 30-minutes for some centers, and 45-60-minutes for others. The power that time has in codifying our behaviors, discourses, practices, and affective states that govern what it is writing centers do is an influential, disciplining power. All writing centers are making decisions, structuring training, and practicing pedagogies with different material and temporal contexts in mind. And tutors are developing their selfefficacy within the local dynamics of the field’s differing landscapes.

Through reflecting on time as a pedagogical influence, Geller’s “Tick-Tock” speaks to how tutors feel in the moment of developing, challenging, or

expanding their tutoring self-efficacies against the clock.

Geller analyzes how tutors navigate the felt-sense of sometimes rivalling affective and institutional discourses on time within the session, the same sorts of anxieties the co-authors introduce this literature review with.

Thoughts of “can I do what I know how to do” and “will the writer think I’m helpful,” bob in the slowly but increasingly stirring waters of anxiety in so many tutors’ minds. Urgent deadlines, anxious writers, session length limits, paper lengths, writer expectations, teacher expectations, tutor expectations, and more coalesce in the tutor’s head while they sit at the table with their writer, hoping to satisfy.

Geller writes that her tutors so often, “put moments of awareness, or negotiation, or confusion, or frustration, or success, in relation to time” (8). The time a tutor has and gets with a given writer structures how tutors understand and enact their tutorly ethos. And while Geller argues that there is great value in the exchanges that occur in sessions when tutor and writer turn toward one another and away from the ticking clock, the authors of this article argue that turning away from the clock and turning toward the clock can be generative for tutors to reflect on their practices, philosophies, and for their senses of tutor self-efficacy.

As in this article, by tuning into and turning toward how the clock is an agent of the session, tutors can be better equipped to confidently make new and creative pedagogical choices, feeling empowered to do so.

Self-efficacy’s common definitions circle one’s awareness of and belief in their achievement ability (Martinez et al., “Pain and Pleasure”; Ekholm et al., “College Student Self-Efficacy”). Studies of writing selfefficacy, or one’s awareness of and belief in their writing ability, correlate higher senses of writing self-efficacy with higher academic achievement (Schunk and Zimmerman, “Influencing Children’s Self-Efficacy”; Hawkins, “From Interest and Expertise”; Pajares, “SelfEfficacy Beliefs”; Mitchell et al., “Exploration of Writing Self-Efficacy”). As Powell and Hixson-Bowles point out, writing center studies is most often publishing about the writing self-efficacy of the students and clientele of center services but not tutor self-efficacies (e.g. Lundin et al. “Impact of Writing Center Consultations”). They write, “to our knowledge there exist no studies [to date] that try to determine what exactly tutors’ writing and tutoring self-efficacies are, or in other words, which levels of self-efficacy they might have” (Powell and Hixson-Bowles 33). However, in an even more recent review of self-efficacy in the field, Wetzl et al. argue that writing studies and writing centers’ concern for student/writer self-efficacy is well placed and reciprocally beneficial. Wetzl et al. state, “the

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 85 unique role[s] that regional campus student tutors play in the education of tutees and the formation of their identity as tutors” are mutually constitutive (65). And while much of writing center scholarship isn’t explicitly tagged as “tutor self-efficacy,” or conducted via RAD or quantitative research there-in, the field has nonetheless theorized the components and essence of tutor selfefficacy that can make up a tutor’s sense of “professional self.”

Wetzl et al. enumerate some of the things falling under the realm of “tutor self-efficacy,” like interacting with tutees, fellow tutors, fellow students in coursework, faculty, staff, and administrators while part of “both the university’s and the global community of practice of writing tutors, wanting to understand their communities of practice more fully, as well as the knowledge they wish they had” (65). Explicit ties to tutor self-efficacy, or the sense of and belief in one’s tutoring abilities, are outnumbered in the writing center studies parlor room of implied, affective analyses of tutor expertise and authority. While not writing exclusively about tutor self-efficacy, writing center studies takes up the essence there-in when it writes on how tutors analyze and act within the power, institutional, and pedagogical dynamics at play in their writing center sessions and centers more generally.

Therefore, the field is often, if not always, thinking about tutor self-efficacy when scholars write about how it is a tutor scopes and determines how to summit the mountain terrain that can be the writing center session.

Take, for example, Peter Carino’s “Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring,” as one of many field texts which implicate tutor self-efficacy as a central, but unnamed, pillar of practice. The chapter argues that the fluid localities within a writing center session cannot be removed from the power dynamics “imbricated in the institutional position of the writing center but carrying over into the pedagogy of peer tutoring” (100). Within the landscape of power and authority, a tutor must recognize the locality of the appointment while also tending to the larger ties to discursive, cultural, and institutional influences of that session, that writer, and that writing.

Their tutor self-efficacy functions as a pedagogical map to guide them through the moments of a session. However, given the under-discussion of tutor self-efficacy in the field, tutors are also the ones who have to make that map, and largely by themselves.

Therefore, their self-efficacy in regard to their ability to render a self-guiding pedagogical resource also influences how confident they feel when making decisions about where to go or what to do in a session based on that map. Though Carino doesn’t tag the

chapter with “tutor self-efficacy” as a keyword, his description of power and authority in the session aligns with Wetzl et al.’s earlier definition of the very same, where a tutor and how they enact pedagogy are implicated in the global and local contexts of the moment.

Powell and Hixson-Bowles determine that tutor self-efficacy is exampled in how tutors “help students who struggle with writing … push students who succeed with writing, and work with all those in between” while balancing confidence in their own writing abilities between the diverse situations of a writing center session (32). And tutors must do this while maintaining “an understanding of what it is like to struggle with writing” (32). One of the methods of tutoring that Jo Mackiewicz and Isabelle Thompson propose, “cognitive scaffolding,” examples how it is tutors can do the balancing act of their own sense of self as writer and as tutor, and for helping their writer to have of themselves. Mackiewicz and Thompson write that cognitive scaffolding is an active method wherein “the tutor acts as a scaffold, helping the student to do things he or she cannot perform alone” (54-55). And Steven Corbett details that tutors negotiate building a scaffold, and their own pedagogical authority, to “broaden their instructional repertoires” in order to explore “more flexible notion[s] of what it means to tutor in the writing center, in the classroom, and in between” (84). Corbett, and Mackiewicz and Thompson explicate the pedagogical performances of the tutor as essentially tied to the tutor’s ability to recognize their unique power and positions and act to perform their idea of writing center-ness. As the authors argue in this article, and as tutors know well in the performance of their tutor-ness, all of these strategic and tactical maneuvers that a tutor must identify and balance are done with a timer counting down.

In essence, the field has been writing about the situations and actions of tutor self-efficacy without naming it as such, and this is clear because it is all these conversations that tutors read and figure out how to make real in the lived experiences of their writing center sessions. It is therefore an act of praxis to reflect on tutoring self-efficacy, affording tutors new perspectives on the cyclical connections between their tutoring practice and who it is they are as tutors in the timed moment of a session or across the timed months of a term. If all the field’s talk on and in tutor training is meant to help tutors feel empowered to wield the tools of the trade and do the work of the trade, underdiscussion of time as a tool and as a constraining influence has left the toolkit incomplete. Moreover, the non-naming of tutor self-efficacy may leave tutors

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 86 feeling like it’s all up to them to figure out the unknown, alone, of how to connect theory and practice. Yet, the co-authors of this article learned that wading through the unknown can feel scary, but it is also rife with creative potential for self-discovery.

Reflection Writing, Co-Authoring, and Community Sites This reflection came together over the course of a semester while co-authors were working in the University Writing Center and at community partner sites. In my capacity as an assistant director of our UWC, I guided Lauren, Jennings, and Allie (graduate writing tutors) at and about the sites weekly during the Spring 2024 term.

We are lucky to have multiple community partnerships as a center, but the two highlighted in these narratives are a live-in learning community and a historic branch of the city’s free public library. The live-in learning community site provides housing and academic, personal, and familial support to their participants. Participants live on site, are parents/guardians of young children, and have left some form of federal or state support system. The site’s mission is to help their participants overcome obstacles, end the cycle of poverty, and head out into the workforce as educated, confident individuals. The space that we use in our partnership is a computer lab. In our partnership with this site, we offer 30-minute writing appointments at their location, which generally functions like a satellite center. Lauren and Allie tutored here once a week, in two-hour shifts, each having up to four 30-minute sessions a week.

The free public library site is a founding Carnegie library located in a historically Black neighborhood in the city. While we are also there to tutor specifically for a youth poetry competition that the library hosts, our partnership with them is more fluid and long-form. It is less focused on structured appointments like the live-in learning site, and is more centered on maintaining our partnership’s presence in the space to cement it as part of local community expectation. We’re there for whatever the community might bring us, including but not limited to their poetry for the contest. Jennings and I were at the library once a week, for three and two hour shifts respectively.

Though we saw little traffic, the library’s administrators’ main goal for our partnership is not so much that we run a satellite office in their space, but so that someday, down the line, community members view us as constant and consistent visitors they can rely on to be at that place, at that time. Bronwyn Williams and Amy

McCleese Nichols’ (2019) “Centering partnerships: A case for writing centers as sites for community engagement” overviews the development, stakes, and aims of these partnerships in detail.

On top of the hours spent tutoring in the UWC and community sites, we met as a group and in one-toone conferences frequently to talk through how things were going at each site, community literacy readings, questions or ideas we had that we wanted to float, etc.

Through these discussions, each co-author developed their narratives as they are presented here.

A key result of Powell and Hixson-Bowels’ study is that tutors each occupy diverse identities coming from unique and local backgrounds to the shared space of the center (37); therefore, tutor selfefficacy develops individualized to each tutor and intersecting with their other senses of self and selfefficacies. Given the unique contexts that each of the co-authors brings to and occupies in these experiences, we determined that individual narratives were the best form for this reflection. Presenting three stories from writing center timescapes which snapshot how each author constructs and reflects on their tutoring selfefficacy, Lauren, Allie, and Jennings welcome you to some of their time at our community partner sites. The three of them revised multiple drafts in conjunction with peer feedback from the group and informed by the continuing development of their community site relationships. This process helped the co-authors of this article identify and tap into the undercurrents of their writing center praxis.

Lauren’s Reflection: The Intersection of Writing Center Policy and Time In Allie, Jennings, and my tutor-training course during the Fall 2023 semester, we often discussed directive vs. nondirective tutoring, writing across disciplines, and motivating writers to complete their assigned coursework. All the while, I had been waiting to work with the UWC’s community partners, and I was eager to apply our conversations and dive in. After a tour of the facility, Kendyl, Allie, and I sat down with a few staff members. It was then that I learned all our sessions would last thirty minutes.

The new sense of urgency made me nervous one week later as I sat in the site’s computer lab waiting to take my first virtual appointment with a participant. I logged on early and found myself still alone on the call five, ten, and 15 minutes after my appointment was meant to start. This begged the question: how long is it appropriate to wait online before I call it and log off?

The ambiguity regarding appointment policies outside

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 87 of the University Writing Center was new to me, as I am accustomed to a very specific set of timestamped procedures. The last thing I wanted to do was leave just before a writer logged on. If not for an administrator being there that day to ask about the call status and who could contact the participant, I think I would’ve waited an hour before daring to press the end call button.

This experience brought to my awareness that so much of writing center policy governs time; when a writer can walk-in and still be accepted for an appointment, how long a tutor or consultant will wait for them, when tutoring needs to pause or cease, and when a writer is considered a ‘no-show,’ are all determined and enforced by measurements of time. As much as English scholars may joke that we don’t like numbers, we are rather reliant on them when it comes to the daily operations of the writing center. We neatly package messy, generative conversations about ideas and pedagogy into different pockets of time, and often judge the success of a session based on how long we can persuade writers to continue sitting and writing with us.

I didn’t know what to expect the following week, when my writer rescheduled our virtual appointment, and I waited on the video call again. There was no administrator on-site that day, and I sat for another 25 minutes, still unsure how long was an appropriate amount of time to wait. At the University Writing Center, video appointments are either converted to written feedback (if there is a document attached to the appointment form) or disregarded after 15 minutes have lapsed without a writer or writing present. But here, without communication that was specific to our setting, I couldn’t bring myself to end the call. Fortunately, my instincts were correct as my writer logged on at 3:25 and we reviewed her research proposal.

Any nerves I felt regarding time constraints or tutor pedagogy quickly diminished as the writer and I considered her previous experiences in English classrooms, her excitement that her instructor enjoyed her writing style, and her new puppy, who frequently chimed into our appointment. Our conversations centered on organization or the effective use of topic sentences were of equal importance to affirmation and rapport building throughout our session. During our appointment, totaling 25 minutes, I realized that establishing trust and rapport with writers should not be sacrificed in this community’s context, no matter the time constraints placed upon us. Yet, due to the brief nature of a two-page research proposal, we were able to address organization, topic sentences, and writing process concerns during our session.

Rather than slashing important pedagogical strategies to accommodate a shortened session, consultants and tutors might consider collaboratively setting the agenda with their writer instead, maintaining a tight focus on their individual concerns and needs.

Our discipline’s dependence on timekeeping as a means of meeting institutional standards, clarifying writing center expectations for writers, training tutors, and maintaining professionalism may need to become more flexible, or at the very least be reconsidered, when operating in community settings outside the university.

As consultants and writing center scholars, we must ensure that our understanding and use of time serves writers and writing center pedagogy, and not the other way around.

Allie’s Reflection: Navigating Time Constraints Through previous weeks, Lauren and I have prepared to work with the community site participants and have been getting acclimated to the setting of the site. The first writer I met with was an intern who was getting hours for her graduate social work practicum, which she was doing at the same community site. I wondered how was I supposed to tutor someone who was in the environment but was not a participant? And, because she was not a “participant,” did she still apply to the 30-minute session rule? I felt I had little time to prepare for the session and brainstorm how I was supposed to navigate the scenario, so I didn’t know exactly what it was I should do when it came to working with her. But, I could already feel my mindset shifting to how I could better accommodate the participants from incredibly diverse backgrounds and experiences and with similarly diverse writing needs.

In my undergraduate years as a writing center consultant, we had evening open appointment hours where anyone could come in with any writing question and stay for as long as they wanted during those hours until the center closed. Coming to our current UWC from my undergraduate institution’s writing center, I was not prepared for the new physical structure and an ability to head to a “back room” when appointments were done, eliminating the possibility for students to linger around the center like they did for hours after an appointment at my undergrad institution that had no back room. During the session I had with the intern at our community site which takes place in an open computer lab, I felt like I was back in that same scenario; I knew that we had talked about only having 30-minute sessions, but I had no other appointments scheduled for the day and I had no back room to go to indicating that

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 88 the session was done. Because of this, the appointment ended up lasting for 75 minutes.

Even though I was unsure about how to proceed in a session with her, and despite the fact that we did a lot of talking that wasn’t necessarily about writing, I did feel like I was able to build a connection with her through our long appointment. She even stopped in to say hello and give us updates on how her paper went when we were back for our third week of sessions. On the other hand, when I had my first session with an actual “participant,” I was beginning to feel the pressure of the time constraint. The writer came in right on time as Lauren and I got there, which worked out well because her being on time meant we could use every minute up if need be. I had the writer read her paper out loud as I would do in any normal writing center session at the UWC. We had the perfect amount of time to read over the paper as it was only two pages and then discuss it afterwards. I felt we were able to touch on all her points of interest within the paper, such as citations and transitions.

It wasn’t until after the session that I reflected on the use-value or applicability of the read-aloud method; would it be as effective in sessions that have such a time constraint like ours? Because of the time constraints, I realized that I needed to prepare for giving up the read-aloud method but still have a way to involve the participant in describing their feelings on the paper to me. The most effective way I could think of doing this was to have the participant narrate their writing process to me. Perhaps they were really struggling in a certain section, or maybe they felt particularly good about a section that their professor told them was not working. In describing the writing process and the emotions that come with it in the session, more time is saved for the discussion of the piece that could otherwise be taken up by the read-aloud. With this, it also leaves more opportunity for the writer and the consultant to connect with one another. With only 30 minutes to spend together, the more time that is spent discussing their work, the more possibility there is for this connection to become established between both parties.

Jennings’ Reflection: Adjusting to Absence The first day we visited the community site ended up with a lot of questions about how we could best use the space as a writing center space. Kendyl and I had many long talks about how to make ourselves a reliable resource and negotiate our pedagogical practices in an entirely different setting than what that pedagogy is often intended for. But the thing that concerned me

most about working in a public space with K-12 students after school was the lack of pre-existing knowledge of a writer and their needs that, at the UWC, usually provides as preparation for a session with a limited amount of time. If we don’t have the same kind of time for preparation regarding a tutoring session here at the community site, how could we best adapt our services for a new demographic in a new setting with a new time constraint?

I began to realize that the time we have at the site is limited, but its limits come in a different form than a writing center. We don't have three hours that we must divide into thirty-minute sessions with an individual student. We have three hours to be present with an unknown number of students with unknown needs at any given time. Early on, Kendyl and I would arrive at 3:00 on the dot, set up our various activities and signage at the center table to then see little-to-no traffic. Aside from one community member sitting with us to make Valentines cards one afternoon, it felt like we were only occupying a table. All of this is to say, by the end of our first month, I largely felt like I had failed in my community site when it came to traditional writing center pedagogical practice. To overcome the hump of disappointment I was feeling in myself, I started rethinking our utilization of time and my conception of it. If it’s not just the time spent with writers, but the time spent at the site overall, what can pedagogy and purpose become?

One day, as soon as I sat down at our usual table, I was approached by a community writer who had heard about us from the site staff. He had two big projects for us: a nonfiction book and a book of poetry that he’d written with a specific audience in mind. He was apprehensive about approaching us, as he’d been in and out of academic circles. But in talking with us, we were able to reassure him that we weren’t just here to work with academic writing, and wanted to meet the needs of anyone who came to us. We planned to meet again the following week, to give us time to read his work and discuss his wants for the writing.

Then, an uptick in tours of the site gave rise to more student interest in the space as an after-school study spot. The week after our session with our book writer, we again walked right into a potential community interaction. We found half a dozen students already in the space, and while the initial group wasn’t very interested in us, I was able to have a session with one of the site staff. She was co-writing and editing a memoir with her grandmother, but was having trouble navigating the collaborative process and designing the structure of the book. It seemed that she was having to transcribe and organize handwritten excerpts from her

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 89 grandmother and was being encouraged by her grandmother to contribute her own writing to the book.

I offered the structure of a novel I was familiar with as an example of how she could organize a book with a mismatched divide in the words of the two writers, and she was excited to try it as she continued to write.

After that, another group of students came from a later bus run. I introduced myself and told them about what we do, and one immediately asked me for time. This was the closest we’d gotten so far to what we’d been told to expect in our days of tutoring at the beginning of the year, working with a student on a research paper. She told me she would be picked up in only a few minutes, so I took some practices I’d learned from doing sessions at our UWC. As I read and left comments on her paper, I narrated things I was noticing, but wanted to have my feedback in writing so the student could reference it later. I had a major confidence boost after these sessions because I was able to find a way to deliver feedback more efficiently when we knew our time was limited but were uncertain of how much we actually had. I was proving to myself that I could expand pedagogy to an engaged community setting and it could work, regardless of how much time we had together.

Concluding Thoughts This reflection came about through conversations about working at community partner sites. However, we’ve seen that regardless of where a writing center moment unfolds, community site or UWC, we think about time and our ability to identify the work and do the work (Geller; Powell and HixsonBowles). Whether at a UWC or a community site, it is important to foster tutors’ self-efficacy in writing center work. One way to do this is to examine the parameters that frame tutor decision-making. We have found time to be a valuable asset for examination, both at the institutional and interpersonal levels. Writing centers often function by structuring time. However, when moving into communities, we learned that a great way to build tutor self-efficacy is by providing opportunities to engage with writers in situations that have unstructured time. Because of the nature of our community relationships, a lot of time went ungoverned or under-structured compared to our well-established UWC, and therefore tutors felt they could really flex in their self-efficacy by their unique abilities to decide what to do about time. Across these narratives, tutors found that they were able to make powerful decisions about how to structure time based on the writer and the community they were encountering and how it helped

them grow as tutors and helped us as a center think about time and efficacy differently.

Spending a semester in the unknown has helped Lauren discover how both tutor and writer creating a shared affective environment, together honing their tutorly and writerly self-efficacies, can help both feel like mutually empowered agents in the moment of the session. Lauren deciding to wait–to not hang up the call after the writer hadn’t appeared–though she was anxious in that moment, helped her root into her senses her tutor self-efficacy and what she as a tutor can decide.

Outside the spatial boundaries of the UWC, Lauren was able to flex new muscles as a tutor and start to analyze her relationship to policies, pedagogies, their interaction, and her agency there-in. In essence, because of the new and unfamiliar, Lauren negotiated who she is as tutor and how she in that role can make the unfamiliar meaningfully familiar.

Allie also narrates how space and the time spent within it are highly influential elements of tutor senses of self, their role, and their relationship to writers – in other words, their tutoring self-efficacy. Maybe at the UWC, Allie wouldn’t have felt empowered to have a 75minute session because of the structural and procedural differences of the main center compared to the community sites. Nonetheless, Allie felt empowered to work with a writer for as long as that writer found it valuable, and in doing so, made decisions about pedagogy based on her awareness of and agency within institutional norms. A sort of inverse to Lauren’s story, Allie explores the boundaries and form of writing center studies through her analysis of space and time’s relationship. Because of her work reflecting on her individual tutor self-efficacy as it’s evolved across centers and spaces, Allie felt like she could meet this writer’s needs, how the writer needed.

In yet another unique context outside the UWC, Jennings initiated their own paradigm shift on the value that writing center studies bring to community relationships, related to and outside the boundaries of “the session.” Where Lauren and Allie experienced what felt to them like sort of compacted and expanded writing center sessions and had to grapple with time and their sense of self in that dynamic, Jennings’ time at their community site was a sort of ad lib, on-call dynamic. The community writers at Jennings’ location may not have even known they had a question about writing in some form until they got to the space that day and saw our table set-up. In this dynamic, Jennings, unlike Lauren and Allie, was not really a determiner of session time or time spent talking with writers. At this community site, the site itself is the main draw for community members and we offered them yet another activity with which to

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 90 spend their time while there. Unlike Jennings’ experience with walk-ins and scheduled appointments at the UWC, they had to define and negotiate how to “writing center” on the fly and be able to let it go along with the writer, no matter how much time spent therein and with no clue when it may happen again.

Though there’s ample scholarship on space (Hadfield et al), emotional labor (Mannon), hospitality (Haswell and Haswell) and community relationships (Rousculp) which supports these take-aways, it is a different thing to be a tutor and to feel it, to learn it from experience rather than just by reading it. Or, to experience putting reading into action. Through action and enaction, we have learned that “what feels achievable” and “what success looks like” are choices that a tutor who is tapped into their self-efficacy feels empowered to decide. Although it came for these tutors at the end of their time in our UWC, this is an important take-away for these tutors and tutors in general.

It’s significant because, upon reflection, these are considerations all of us in writing center work are always making. It’s happening all the time; tutors are always evaluating their sense of self and ability as tutors to identify and meet the needs of their writers within the boundaries of local center or community dynamics (Bartelt). Whether first-time tutors in a UWC or a community site, and even as veteran tutors, we’ve found time to be useful in understanding tutor reflexes, both as a lens with which to analyze the development of tutor self-efficacy over time and as an agent of pedagogy for tutors to engage with in the moment of a session with a writer, in whatever form that session takes. For other writing centers, finding ways to adjust time—whether that means adding structure, or taking it away—has the potential to continue this work and possibly reveal different ways to tailor timescapes to writer and tutor need.

We therefore echo Powell and Hixson-Bowles’ call for greater attention paid to tutor self-efficacy, and Geller’s call for further research into time as an agent in the writing center. As we have begun to do here, future scholarship might engage the fabric of writing center studies to weave together a history and modernity of tutor self-efficacy. We ask what tenets of writing center studies and practice are imbued with the mark of tutor self-efficacy? And like Geller and her tutors’ use of reflection, discussion, and even drawing to tell the stories of their tutoring and time, we encourage the same for scholarship and practice. Let’s tell stories about time, about tutoring self-efficacy, about ourselves and the boundary-ing and disciplining dynamics of the work we do. If it is through stories, the ones we tell as tutors and to tutors, that the nature of writing center-ness can be

revealed, what stories of tutor self-efficacy do you, your tutors, and your centers have to tell? What might we learn about ourselves and our field when we do?

Works Cited Bannister-Wills, Linda. “Developing A Peer Tutoring Program.”

Writing Centers: Theory and Administration, edited by Gary Olson, NCTE, 1984, pp. 132-43.

Bartelt, Margaret. “Am I a Good Tutor?” Writing Lab Newsletter, 19, 6, 1995, pp. 8.

Carino, Peter. “Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring.”

The Center Will Hold: Critical Perspectives On Writing Center Scholarship, edited by Michael Pemberton and Joyce Kinkhead, UP Colorado, 2003, pp. 96-113.

Corbett, Steven J. “Negotiating Pedagogical Authority: The Rhetoric of Writing Center Tutoring Styles and Methods.” Rhetoric Review, 32, 1, pp. 81-98, https://doi.org/10.1080/07350198.2013.7394 97 Ekholm, Eric et al., “The Relation Of College Student Self-Efficacy Toward Writing And Writing Self-Regulation Aptitude: Writing Feedback Perceptions As A Mediating Variable.” Teaching in Higher Education, 20, 2, pp. 197-207. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2014.9740 26 Fitzgerald, Lauren and Melissa Ianetta. The Oxford guide for writing tutors: Practice and research. Oxford UP, 2016.

Geller, Anne. “Tick-Tock, Next: Finding Epochal Time in The Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal, 25, 1, 2007, pp.

5-24. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1569 Geller, A., et al. The Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice. Utah State UP, 2005.

Gillespie, Paula and Neil Lerner. The Allyn and Bacon guide to peer tutoring. Allyn & Bacon, 2000.

Gillespie, Paula and Neil Lerner. The Longman guide to peer tutoring, 2nd ed., Pearson Education, 2008.

Hadfield, Leslie et al. An Ideal Writing Center: Re-Imagining Space And Design. In The Center Will Hold: Critical Perspectives On Writing Center Scholarship, edited by Michael Pemberton and Joyce Kinkhead, Utah State UP, 2003, pp. 166-176.

Haswell, Richard and Janis Haswell. Hospitality and authoring: An essay for the English profession. UP Colorado, 2015.

Hawkins, R. Evon. “From Interest and Expertise: Improving Student Writers’ Working Authorial

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Navigating Writing Center Timescapes • 91 Identities.” Writing Lab Newsletter, 32, 6, 2008, pp. 1-5.

Haynes-Burton, Cynthia. “Constructing Our Ethos: Making Writing Centers ‘Convenient.’”

Composition Studies, 20, 2, 1992, pp. 51-59. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43501238 Iris-Soven, Margot. What The Writing Tutor Needs To Know. Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

Lundin, Isabelle M. et al. “The Impact of Writing Center Consultations on Student Writing SelfEfficacy” The Writing Center Journal, 41, 2, 2023, pp.

725. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/27 262713 Mackiewicz, Jo and Isabelle Thompson. “Motivational Scaffolding, Politeness, And Writing Center Tutoring.” The Writing Center Journal, 33, 1, 2013, pp. 38-73. https://doi.org/10.7771/28329414.1756 Mannon, Bethany. “Centering The Emotional Labor Of Writing Tutors.” The Writing Center Journal, 39, 1/2, 2021, 143168. https://doi.org/10.7771/28329414.1962 Martinez, Christy T. et al. “Pain and Pleasure in Short Essay Writing: Factors Predicting University Students’ Writing Anxiety and Writing SelfEfficacy.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 54, 5, 2011, pp. 351-360. International Reading Association, doi: 10.1598/JAAL.54.5.5 Mitchell, Kim M. et al. “An Exploration Of Writing Self Efficacy And Writing Self- Regulatory Behaviors in Undergraduate Writing.” The Canadian Journal for The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 10, 2, 2019, pp. 1-23. https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotlrcacea.2019.2.8175 Myers-Breslin, Linda, editor. Administrative ProblemSolving For Writing Programs And Writing Centers: Scenario In Effective Program Management. NCTE, 1999.

North, Steven. “The Idea Of A Writing Center.” College English, 46, 1984, pp.

433-446. https://www.jstor.org/stable/377047 Pajares, Frank. “Self-Efficacy Beliefs, Motivation, And Achievement In Writing: A Review of The Literature.” Reading and Writing Quarterly, 19, 2, 2003, pp.

139-158. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.10 80/10573560308222 Powell, Roger and Kelsey Hixson-Bowles. “Too Confident or Not Confident Enough?: A Quantitative Snapshot of Writing Tutors’

Writing and Tutoring Self-Efficacies.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 16, 1, 2018, pp. 36-56. https://www.praxisuwc.com/161-powell-andhixson-bowles Rousculp, Tiffany. Rhetoric of Respect: Recognizing Change At a Community Writing Center. NCTE, 2014.

Ryan, Leigh and Lisa Zimmerelli. The Bedford Guide For Writing Tutors. 6th ed., Bedford/Saint Martin’s, 2016.

Schunk, Dale and Barry J. Zimmerman, “Influencing Children’s Self-Efficacy and Self-Regulation of Reading and Writing Through Modeling.”

Reading and Writing Quarterly, 23, 1, 2007, pp. 725. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10 80/10573560600837578 Sherwood, Steve. “Tutoring And The Writer’s ‘Felt Sense’: Developing And Safeguarding The Mind’s Ear.” Writing Lab Newsletter, 19, 10, 1995, pp. 10-14.

Terzano, Kathryn. “Short-Time Tutorial Strategies.”

Writing Lab Newsletter, 35, 1, 2010, pp. 14-15.

Vandenberg, Peter. “Lessons of Inscription: Tutor Training And The ‘Professional Conversation.’” The Writing Center Journal, 19, 2, 1999, pp.

59-83. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1416 Wetzl, Ana et al. “What Our Tutors Know: The Advantages of Small Campus Tutoring Centers.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, 20, 2, 2023, pp.

68-77. https://www.praxisuwc.com/202-wetzl-et-al Williams, Bronwyn and Amy McCleese Nichols.

“Centering Partnerships: A Case For Writing Centers As Sites For Community Engagement.”

Community Literacy Journal, 13, 2, 2019, pp. 88106. doi: 10.25148/CLJ.13.2.009071

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LOOKING BACK TO GET AHEAD: STUDENT NEED AND SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE WRITING CENTER Tyler Sehnal New Mexico State University tsehnal@nmsu.edu Abstract

In the last decade, writing center studies has shifted to proposing more radical approaches to tutoring praxes in the hopes of more aggressively challenging the normativity and institutional hegemony of Standard American English (SAE). While well-intentioned and ostensibly conceptualized as “student-centered,” these approaches often fail to acknowledge how radical approaches to writing center (WC) praxes often contend with students’ reliance on directive and assimilationist tutoring, a dependence fostered by the pervasive, institutional hegemony of SAE. As such, drawing on personal experience and contemporary writing center theory, I argue that we should look back to scholarship from beyond the last 5-10 years to guide us as we move forward in the fight to challenge the linguistic hegemony of SAE and institutional linguistic oppression. To that end, this article also offers some suggestions for how we might proceed in a more nuanced pursuit of some of the field’s loftier social justice aims, based on concepts offered by authors like Esters, Geller et al., Diab et al., and others.

Introduction For decades, the field of writing center studies has sought to undermine the normativity and institutional hegemony of Standard American English (SAE)—and for good reason. After all, the broader university environments that writing centers inhabit and histories of composition in the United States have, for centuries, been invested in the pursuit of power, dominance, and the preservation of white supremacy (Kynard). By way of assimilationist pedagogies and the marginalization of peripheralized forms of English and linguistic habits, universities in the United States have effectively eliminated the idiosyncrasy of language and affirmed the hegemony of SAE. This suggests to students that developing a proficiency in SAE is imperative to ensuring their success as they navigate the university and institutions beyond it. As such, students often conceptualize writing centers as spaces of assimilation and for correcting deficiencies, hoping to participate in directive tutoring sessions or receive counseling on how to improve their proficiency in SAE (Bräuer).

Nancy Effinger Wilson defines Standard American English as an arbitrary, socially constructed concept that generally refers to the “privileged language of middle-class European Americans” (185). SAE’s long-standing association with academic discourse has historically encouraged discriminatory attitudes toward African American Language (AAL) and other

peripheralized Englishes (Wilson 182), contributing to their conceptualization as “deficit.”

This conceptualization often promotes problematic associations between peripheralized language habits and disability, negatively contrasting the sociocultural factors that influence language habits with the white heteronormativity foundational to SAE. The hegemony of SAE and white supremacy, and the ableist attitudes that often accompany them, is pervasive. Not only does it manifest in classrooms across universities, in office hours, and peer study sessions, but in “annual assessments, course and instructor evaluations, adjunct labor… tenure and promotion protocols” (Craig 146). Not even writing centers, which are often conceptualized as a last line of defense for students against institutionalized linguistic hegemony, are immune to the pervasiveness of white supremacy. Research has shown that writing center tutors often align themselves with common institutional biases toward “non-academic” discourses (Melzer) and feign ignorance of the roles that white supremacy and racism play in institutional conceptualizations of language and the privileging of SAE (Kern). White supremacy’s pervasiveness is not only responsible for the continued valorization of SAE and the marginalization of other peripheralized forms of English and linguistic habits, but also conceptualizes the concept of truth in general as an extension and “possession of whiteness” (Pham).

Frustrated by the stubbornness of institutionalized linguistic hegemony, writing center studies scholars, consultants, and directors have recently shifted to developing more radical approaches to revising their praxes. Specifically, in the last decade, scholars have dedicated several presentations, journal editions, and edited collections to theorizing radical antiracist, decolonial, or other socially just approaches to writing center praxes aiming to aggressively challenge the institutional linguistic hegemony of SAE. Many of these approaches are informed by existing anti-racist and decolonial approaches to composition studies put forth by Baker-Bell, Young, Sohan, and others who generally argue that “the belief that there is a homogenous, standard, one-size-fits-all language is a myth that normalizes white ways of speaking English and is used to justify linguistic discrimination on the

Looking Back to Get Ahead • 93 basis of race” (Baker-Bell 99). Writing center scholars as such have theorized anti-racist, decolonial, and other socially just approaches to writing center praxes that encourage tutors to rethink the use of directive behaviors, reevaluate tutor-tutee and peer-to-peer hierarchies, better promote student agency, and even physically reconfigure writing center spaces to promote equity and be more “authentically welcoming” (Camarillo), among other ideas.

Despite often being posited as “studentcentered,” however, many of these approaches neglect to consider conceptualizations students often have of writing centers as well as their conceptualizations of what writing is and does. These conceptualizations are often informed by the discriminatory and marginalizing attitudes of the broader institutions they are a part of, meaning that students often visit writing centers with already deeply internalized prejudices or stigmas towards “non-normative” or peripheralized Englishes.

With this in mind, in this article, I argue that the field of writing center studies would be well-served by looking back as it moves forward in the pursuit of undermining the institutional hegemony of SAE and associated institutional linguistic prejudice and oppression. In other words, I claim that contemporary writing center scholars and practitioners aiming to dismantle the linguistic hegemony of SAE would be well-served by drawing from scholarship from nearly two decades ago, looking to literature that presents a clear cognizance of the contentions that often arise between radical writing center praxes and student conceptualizations of the writing center and of what writing is and does.

I also gesture toward scholarship that explicitly acknowledges the often-incremental work of decolonizing academic writing centers and undoing the harm of the assimilationist models of English education common in the United States. By looking back and drawing inspiration from these more nuanced approaches to dismantling linguistic hegemony and colonizing ideologies in academic writing centers, I argue that scholars will be better positioned to address the stubbornness of institutionalized linguistic hegemony and the slow but steady progress in undermining institutionalized linguistic oppression (Diab et al.). As of now, this difficult work has frustrated the field and pushed it into more contentious, radical territory—one that is ultimately counterproductive to (and has stagnated the pursuit of) several of the field’s most ambitious social justice aims.

I open by providing an overview and critique of current literature theorizing radical revisions to writing center praxes. I note how these revisions imply specific conceptualizations of writing centers and of writing,

which are not always reflective of students’ actual conceptualizations of writing centers and of what writing is and does, especially students whose conceptualizations have been influenced by broader institutional linguistic prejudices. Next, I reference my own experiences working with students in a writing center situated in a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and contemporary scholarship presenting demographic and qualitative data collected from writing center users to establish contentions between student perceptions and radical writing center praxes. Finally, I draw from older writing center scholarship that is more cognizant of the contentions that often arise between radical writing center praxes and student conceptualizations of the writing center and of what writing is and does to offer specific suggestions for how the field and practitioners might proceed in their pursuit of undermining the institutional hegemony of SAE and associated institutional linguistic prejudice and oppression.

Review of Current Literature As I mentioned previously, writing center scholarship published in the last decade has taken a discernibly more radical approach to theorizing writing center praxes for the sake of more aggressively challenging the normativity and institutional hegemony of Standard American English (SAE). This is not to say that writing center scholarship or theory has never been read or marketed as “radical,” but rather that the use of the term “radical” has become much more commonplace and centralized in popular writing center scholarship in the last 5-10 years. Consider Laura Greenfield’s Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement, published in 2019, or when Romeo García and Anna Sicari wrote in the introduction to volume 19, issue 1 of the writing center journal Praxis (published in 2022) that: we—the writing center community—are aware of ways in which the writing center can be a space of intervention, despite its haunted beginnings and entanglements… it is clear there needs to be a radical shift in how we talk with one another, and how we learn from one another. (1-2) Like-minded contemporary writing center scholarship also envisions radical effects for the sort of revisions proposed by Greenfield and others, often conceptualizing the radical praxes I describe below as capable of “completely transform[ing] the field” (Greenfield 58) and engendering change beyond writing center studies, facilitating “structural changes in society, disciplines, and the institution itself” (Coenen et al. 18).

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 94 Such aspirations are at best overly optimistic and at worst pretentious.

The “radical” approaches Greenfield and others describe take multiple forms, challenging writing center scholars and practitioners to rethink the use of directive behaviors in the writing center, reevaluate tutor-tutee and peer-to-peer hierarchies, better promote student agency, and even physically reconfigure writing center spaces to amplify equitability. To reiterate, the aim of the article, and this section in particular, is not to suggest that these theories do not possess any merit.

Rather, my goal is to emphasize how the development of more aggressive and “radical” writing center praxes can actually be counterproductive to the field’s pursuit of its intended social justice aims. Specifically, I aim to identify how these radical praxes fail to account for students’ actual conceptualizations of writing centers and of what writing is and does as well as their consistent dependence on writing centers to provide directive, assimilationist tutoring sessions or counseling on how to succeed in contexts in which SAE is conceptualized as standard.

The idea that writing center tutors should avoid providing directive feedback to keep from perpetuating the same institutional hierarchies that position marginalized forms of English and linguistic habits as deficit has persisted in writing center scholarship for decades (Carino). However, contemporary radical antiracist and decolonial approaches to tutoring and reconfiguring the relationship between writing center tutors and tutees take things a step further. Alongside facilitative and noninterventionist tutoring, authors like Wang, Feibush, and Vue & Wongwai encourage tutors to engage in practices that directly challenge linguistic hegemony and tutees’ preconceived conceptualizations of SAE as superior to peripheralized Englishes or other “non-normative” linguistic habits. These practices include counterstorying, “a CRT tactic… that maps knowledge from the margins in order to understand the ways the functioning of racism in society… a method of telling the stories of those people whose experiences are not often told” (Wang 50), embodied listening behaviors like eye contact, posture, and other nonverbal communication (also known as gestural listening) (Feibush), and introspective self-criticism on the part of (namely white) tutors (Vue & Wongwai).

Practices that encourage tutors to directly communicate to tutees the problematic nature of linguistic hegemony and institutional privileging of SAE—like counterstorying, gestural listening, introspective self-criticism, and maintaining a “mindful resistance” to writing centers’ “historical role in gatekeeping and assimilating” for the broader institutions they inhabit (Coenen et al. 14) aim to

empower tutees, particularly multilingual students or students who speak marginalized forms of English or practice peripheralized or even nonverbal linguistic habits. These practices more specifically amplify the agency of tutees by acknowledging their ability “to produce and change language in his or her everyday local practice” (Sohan 193) and by challenging tutees to reconsider the often institutionalized equation of “differences” in writing to “error” (Olson 2). In a similar vein, Eric Camarillo encourages tutors and writing center directors to address the “panoptic,” oppressive, hierarchical structure of the university and writing centers head-on by reconfiguring physical writing center spaces to improve equity and create more “authentically welcoming” spaces. Camarillo argues that adopting a less panoptic structure not only makes students aware of “the institutional and cultural forces that act upon [them], writing centers, and writing center workers,” but also makes it easier to “manipulate [these spaces], change them, to suit our purposes.”

The theoretical approaches proposed by Feibush, Wang, and others represent positive attempts to achieve some of the field’s most ambitious aims. Any writing center scholar, director, and even the consultants most reluctant to embrace a “willingness to be disturbed” or “articulate their commitments” to social justice—sometimes in spite of their own positionalities or relationships to colonialism and white linguistic hegemony (Diab et al. 28)—will tell you that limiting the perpetuation of problematic institutional power dynamics and amplifying tutee agency in writing centers are noble goals and well worth pursuing. However, while primarily conceptualized as “student-centered,” the sort of approaches emphasized above, and the direct, agenda-pushing they require, are often in direct contention with student conceptualizations of the writing center and of what writing is and does, conceptualizations—as I’ve mentioned—that are often informed by the discriminatory and marginalizing attitudes of the broader institutions of which students (and writing centers) are a part of. These contentious conceptualizations are described in detail below.

Recentering Student Need I’d like to reiterate one more time that there is nothing inherently wrong with rethinking the use of directive behaviors in the writing center, reevaluating tutor-tutee and peer-to-peer hierarchies, promoting student agency, or reconfiguring writing center spaces to amplify equitability. These are important pursuits, especially in the grand scheme of the field’s broader social justice aims. The problem itself lies in approaches

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 95 that unrealistically emphasize the impact that these sorts of practices can have on the broader field and institutions as well as those that fail to account for student preconceptions of writing centers. To put it simply, scholarship and my own experiences working in writing centers has proven that students who come to the writing center from institutions valorizing SAE don’t expect—or often want—noninterventionist tutoring, counterstorying, or informal lectures on how their instructors’ linguistic ideologies are problematic or that the institutional hegemony of SAE is an inherently white supremacist concept that needs to be eradicated.

Instead, I’ve found that tutees most often visit the writing center aiming to please professors who judge their work against the standards of SAE, effectively reiterating to students that there exists a discernible hierarchy of language and linguistic codes.

Further, research has shown that the most likely visitors to university writing centers across the United States are first-generation (Bond), working-class (Denny et al.), and other students historically excluded from access to higher education, including women and students whose parents had lower levels of educational attainment (Salem). Because these students are likely to have been led to believe that what they should “want” from their education is to be brought to par with “native” or “fluent” English speakers and to achieve a sense of “belonging” at the university (assimilation), these students often expect writing center appointments to “cover more ground, use more directive approaches… include negative language and emotional affect, and focus on global concerns… at more frequent rates” (Bond 161). The pervasive nature of racist attitudes governing language use in the university— attitudes that perpetuate discrimination against (and the marginalization of) peripheralized forms of English and linguistic habits and damaging self-stigmas—also means that students visiting the writing center are likely to request services like “line editing, extensive hands-on direction, or micro-level grammatical instruction” (1), requests driven by the assimilationist and disparaging white supremacist attitudes of the broader institutions they inhabit. Put simply, as Lori Salem explains, “The choice to use the writing center is raced, classed, gendered and shaped by linguistic hierarchies” (161).

As such, as many authors have noted, despite well-intentioned approaches to revising writing center praxes that claim to be student-centered and aim to promote student agency and equity, these radical praxes instead often “frustrate students” (Salem 163). In other words, as I mentioned previously, research shows that most students do not visit the writing center expecting (or wanting) the sort of “agenda pushing” that most of

the noninterventionist and other radical praxes named above require. Critiquing radical approaches that encourage facilitative and noninterventionist tutoring methods, Peter Carino explains, “Writing centers can ill afford to pretend power and authority do not exist, given the important responsibility they have for helping students achieve their own authority as writers in a power laden environment such as the university” (113).

Likewise, Philip J. Sloan writes that, despite tutors’ penchant to “prioritize process over product, the writer over the writing… grades matter – especially to students” (2). Therefore, how can hardline, “radical” approaches to writing center praxes truly be “studentcentered” when students are still visiting writing centers desperately expecting—and often find themselves jaded when they don’t encounter (Palmeri; Delgado & McGill)—the assimilationist tutoring methods that these praxes aim to completely eradicate?

It’s an unfortunate reality that so many students’ perceptions of writing centers and of their own writing are still so heavily curated by institutional biases against peripheralized Englishes and these institutions’ continued tacit valorization of SAE. After all, students deserve to have their linguistic habits validated, their agency encouraged, and to learn to “own [their] own ideas” (Suhr-Sytsma & Brown 45). However, in my own experience working as a writing center consultant and coordinator, I’ve found that the disparaging institutional attitudes that discourage students from celebrating differentiated linguistic habits and conceptualizing themselves as proficient communicators are devastatingly persistent and pervasive. This is especially interesting given that my writing center is situated in a Hispanic-Serving Institution, where most incoming students are multilingual and speak English as a second or even third language. As such, I’ve often found myself identifying the same “disparity between student and tutor interpretations of priorities” (Buck) named above and acquiescing to student requests for critical feedback, line-editing services, and directive feedback meant to help them meet the SAE-based standards for assignments set for them by their instructors.

I could offer several instances of tutoring sessions with undergraduate and graduate students who explained to me that their instructors had singled them out as “clear non-native speakers” or pointed out their “deficiencies” when their writing was held to the often impossibly high “standard” of SAE. And I have just as many stories of students who were disinterested in hearing about how their instructors’ feedback was at worst racist and, at best, misled. Instead, these students “just wanted to get through this assignment”; they wanted me to just tell them how to write “the way their

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 96 professors wanted them to” so they could get the grade and “move on with their lives.” Fair enough. Like I said, I could offer multiple examples here from my own experience, but you get the point: that radical approaches to writing center praxes that fail to consider students’ internalized linguistic biases are not the answer to undoing the linguistic hegemony of SAE and institutional linguistic oppression. Therefore, instead of offering additional examples from my experience—in which attempting these more radical approaches have left both me and my tutees frustrated—I’ll offer some examples of more nuanced approaches to developing more socially just writing center praxes that both empower students and help them “get on with their lives.” These approaches have guided me through multiple difficult tutoring sessions and also inform the suggestions I offer at the conclusion of this article for how the field might proceed in its continued struggle against institutional linguistic oppression.

Looking Back The persistence of institutional linguistic hegemony of SAE and instructors’ negative attitudes toward peripheralized Englishes and other “nonnormative” communication habits necessitates more nuanced approaches to revising writing center praxes for the sake of encouraging student agency and dismantling the institutional hegemony of SAE while also accounting for students’ needs, which often are as simple as “getting the grade” and, as I mentioned, “moving on with their lives.” While it seems almost nonsensical to look to scholarship from over a decade ago to find solutions when there exists a plentitude of more contemporary approaches to achieving the field’s social justice aims, the field’s recent shift toward more radical approaches to revising writing center praxes necessitates a look back. While much of the scholarship published in the last 5-10 years is informed at least in some way by the scholarship that has preceded it, these more recent approaches lack the appropriate nuance required to effectively balance the field’s ambitious social justice aims with student need and the deeply internalized linguistic biases they carry with them into writing centers every day.

The biggest thing scholarship from the early 2010s has in common—and perhaps its greatest attribute—is that it recognizes that anti-racist and decolonial work is incremental. Diab et al. write that “when teaching writing aims toward racial justice, it is not and cannot be reduced to something that happens in just one moment” (2), while Jason B. Esters explains: “Writing centers can’t be anthropomorphized as

metahuman entities with the abilities to help heal emotional wounds, or correct injustices, or produce better writers, or portend racial or gender neutrality” (299). Such assessments of writing centers are tempered—especially when compared to assessments of writing centers’ capabilities offered by more contemporary radical writing center scholarship (which, as I mentioned earlier, are often—at best—overly optimistic). However, just because we recognize that writing centers are not “metahuman entities” or as radically transformative as contemporary scholarship make them out to be doesn’t require us to think more pessimistically about the transformative capabilities of writing centers or their ability to undermine the institutional hegemony of SAE. Instead, it requires us to think more realistically about how to balance educating students on the institutional oppressions they navigate everyday and providing them the tools to do so in ways that don’t simply reaffirm the hegemony and supposed superiority of SAE. To that end, I suggest we look back to how scholars and writing center practitioners more than 10 years ago practically envisioned writing centers as liberating spaces that “need not be ‘pretty’… [or] have the trivial trappings to which so many in the [Predominantly White Institution] have grown accustomed” (Faison 54), but as welcoming, demarginalizing spaces that encourage (but not force) productive dialogue between tutors and their tutees. To me, given my own experiences working as a consultant and coordinator in writing centers, “productive” dialogue refers to that which promotes the agency of tutees—particularly of Black (Baker-Bell), MexicanAmerican (García), Asian American (Tang), and other students whose linguistic habits are most often marginalized by their instructors and other institutional actors—by helping them develop a critically and culturally contextualized proficiency in dominant discourses that both enables them to satisfactorily complete assignments while remaining cognizant of the situated nature of language and linguistic hegemony.

Helping students develop this contextualized proficiency is easier said than done. Simply put, tutors should aim to engage in discussions with tutees that help them complete their assignments in ways that are satisfactory to instructors subscribed to popular assimilationist models of teaching writing; that is, tutors should help tutees better understand and practice adhering to the conventions of SAE. Simultaneously, however, this dialogue should also encourage tutees to understand that these conventions are uniquely situated and that SAE itself is a learnable literacy, not a standard to which other literacies should be compared. This

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 97 measured approach not only satisfies students’ most pressing desires (earning a good grade) but also works to affirm students’ existing literacies and abilities and can initiate productive conversations that extend beyond the writing center. For a lot of tutees, simply introducing them to the idea that their unique literacies are valuable and challenging the supposed superiority of SAE is enough to get them thinking more critically about the systemically oppressive and demeaning nature of existing academic language models.

While, again, this work is easier said than done, several authors help provide a helpful foundation for how this work can proceed. As a start, a major part of balancing critique of institutional linguistic hegemony with the sort of pragmatism tutees expect from writing centers is openly acknowledging the contentions between student perceptions of writing centers and of what writing is and does and contemporary writing center praxes that emphasize the promotion of student agency and the dismantling of linguistic hegemony—sometimes at the expense of less “heavy” tutoring sessions or the ability to more quickly get students from “A” to “B” (or, in most cases, from “B” or “C” to “A”). Mullin et al. accomplish this by writing that students visiting writing centers often wonder “why they… [aren’t] taught to ‘succeed’ in their classroom writing,” while faculty experience a “perplex[ity] as to why writing centers [won’t] support ‘correct’ use of language” (151). With this in mind, Mullin et al. propose an “Import/Export” model where tutors learn or “import” knowledge about students’ writing, rather than simply “export” their extant knowledge, arguing that: The infusion into writing centers of this way of being, when combined with research on and experience with multilingual/nonstandard U.S. speakers of English, can promote a shift in identity for a meadow: rather than operating on margins, playing tricks on the environment, or separating themselves as unique habitats, writing centers might find this historical moment one in which they can openly advocate not for merely maintaining the status quo but for widening access to the growth of communicative possibilities. (165) In practice, an “import/export” model enables tutors to still “export” extant knowledge of the conventions of SAE or other “academic” writing, while generally taking a non-directive approach that encourages tutees to identify key similarities and differences between SAE and their own, situated literacies. This model, then, is particularly useful for helping tutees develop the contextualized proficiency in SAE that I call for above— one that situates SAE alongside, rather than above, tutees’

existing literacies. In other words, this approach subtly encourages (particularly multilingual) tutees to engage in agency-affirming, participatory knowledge building practices in the writing center while simultaneously assuring tutees that their tutors care about their more immediate concerns, like grammar issues, problems with punctuation, or their general compliance with SAE. Like Mullin et al., Geller et al. and Sytsma and Brown similarly propose more nuanced approaches to writing center pedagogy and tutoring in which tutors openly and more subtly address the “institutional, administrative, and pedagogical implications of taking up race and working at antiracism in and through the writing center” (Geller et al. 103) while also keeping students’ immediate concerns at the forefront of tutoring sessions. Suhr-Sytsma and Brown explain that writing center tutors can begin by raising questions about “linguistic ownership” (44) by asking tutees to interrogate their language use, identifying phrases or terminology that may be problematic, or pointing to places where the language tutees use may not be their own—language they may have included only because their instructors “insisted” they use as part of a “restrictive adherence to dominant discourses” (45).

Geller et al. meanwhile call for a “constant, active selfconsciousness” that requires tutors and students to “perceive ranges of choices relative to both disciplinary practices and to the performance of racial identity… to articulate various implication and effects of taking one choice over and against the others” (121). In either case, both authors propose interrogative behaviors that don’t take precedence over tutees’ anxieties, but instead encourage the development of the sort of critically and culturally contextualized proficiency in dominant discourses that I describe above—one that conceptualizes SAE not as standard, but as a situated literacy capable of co-existing alongside traditionally peripheralized languages and linguistic habits.

Sensing a theme? Much of the scholarship described above attempts to move tutors and directors toward presenting socially just tutoring as a difficult, nuanced process that often requires tutors to conceptualize the relationship between performance of racial and linguistic identity and adherence to disciplinary standards as a sort of compromise (i.e., tutees may choose to prioritize the coherency of their own writerly “voice” over the constraints of an assignment, or vise-versa). A compromise, as I’ve suggested, is not ideal, especially according to contemporary radical writing center scholarship or in the grand scheme of the field’s broader, ongoing fight against the institutional hegemony of SAE. However, as I’ve tried to argue throughout this article,

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 98 conceptualizing liberatory writing center praxes and meeting students’ more immediate needs as a compromise is the most effective way to initiate discussions capable of undermining the hegemony of SAE while also ensuring tutees that their grammatical or SAE-compliance concerns are valid and will be addressed. Again, it is the pervasive nature of white supremacy that necessitates this way of thinking, that requires us to reconsider how we challenge the institutional hegemony of SAE in our conversations with students. As I will argue below, however, reconceptualizing this relationship as a compromise does not indicate a step back or a “giving up” in the field’s pursuit of dismantling linguistic hegemony, but rather a way of guaranteeing a more tangible—albeit incremental—progress in this pursuit, especially when doing so offers practitioners and directors more accessible strategies for helping their tutees develop more critically and culturally contextualized proficiencies in dominant discourses.

Suggestions The first of three suggestions I offer is this: as writing center directors, coordinators, and consultants, we must continue to ask questions of our tutees.

Questions we might ask include: “Why did you word this sentence this way?” or “What were you trying to convey in this paragraph?” Raising questions, as SuhrSytsma and Brown note, is a great, innocuous way of prompting the sort of discussions that can get students thinking about their own linguistic habits and the validity of these habits. After all, in my experience, I’ve found that many students don’t ever get the chance to explain their process or writing style to their professors, especially in settings as intimate as those they often share with their writing center tutors. Giving students the space to talk through their decisions, in addition to providing tutors a chance to validate tutees’ often marginalized communication styles, also gives tutees the chance to express and relieve their frustrations. While working with a student working on their master’s thesis, for instance, I found that simply uttering the phrase “I see what you’re trying to do here” was enough to relieve some of the tension and budding defeatist attitudes my tutee was experiencing after working solely with his thesis chair, who was often quick to equate his “mistakes” to his status as a “non-native” English speaker.

In a similar vein, I recommend also further encouraging tutees’ agency by suggesting to them that they approach their instructors directly to ask questions about assignments or feedback they’ve received. Again,

in my experience, many tutees, including graduate students, have never even considered the possibility of approaching their instructors to ask the sorts of questions they’ve asked me or other tutors. This can be due to a variety of factors, but often occurs because institutional power structures intimidate or dissuade students from approaching their instructors for fear of challenging established classroom or institutional hierarchies (Delgado and McGill). Additionally, taking the role of the tutor a step further, I recommend also suggesting to students that you serve as an advocate on their behalf, volunteering to speak with instructors or seek clarification from instructors for them. Keep in mind, however, that receiving the consent of your tutees to approach or contact their instructors is paramount, as many students often fear academic or other repercussions of “challenging” their instructors’ authority. International students especially often fear that their visas may be revoked if they infringe on the authority of their instructors or other institutional actors. However, at least suggesting to students that you are “in their corner” by volunteering to advocate on their behalf can often be a welcome first step in initiating productive dialogue that may aid in the destabilization of the institutional hegemony of SAE in the minds of students.

Finally, I also recommend advertising other institutional resources to tutees that can aid them in securing the support they need as they navigate potentially problematic power dynamics between themselves and their instructors or other institutional actors. Among these might include resources for students with disabilities, student programs like Black, Indian, or Asian-American student groups, or other support systems for students whose linguistic or communication habits are most likely to be marginalized. I stress that tutors themselves must learn how these resources and systems operate so that they can be better advocates for tutees, especially since many of these systems—including disability access and related services—often present their own, unique institutional systems that students may also struggle to navigate on their own. By providing tutees informed access to these resources, tutors can help build a network between writing centers and other programs and resources already engaging in similar work and discussions aimed at undermining and dismantling the institutional hegemony of SAE and white supremacy, alleviating tutees’ fears—which I have encountered often—that they’re in this fight against linguistic and other institutional oppressions alone.

Conclusion

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 99 As I’ve discussed, writing center studies has shifted in the last decade to proposing more radical approaches to tutoring praxes in the hopes of challenging the normativity and institutional hegemony of SAE. While these approaches are well-intentioned and typically conceptualized as “student-centered,” they often fail to acknowledge the pervasive nature of SAE, and, by extension, how radical approaches to WC praxes often contend with students’ reliance on directive and assimilationist tutoring, a dependence fostered by the institutional hegemony of SAE. To support my claims, I’ve critiqued multiple contemporary “radical” approaches to revising writing center praxes— approaches that typically offer drastic suggestions for achieving the field’s social justice aims, require uncomfortable agenda-pushing, and envision grandiose effects of these approaches in practice. I’ve also offered scholarship that presents data suggesting that tutees rarely visit writing centers expecting the sort of agenda pushing required of most of the noninterventionist and other radical praxes I named previously.

With this in mind, I offered some suggestions to help guide the field forward, based on the readings named in the previous section and further examples from my own experience as a writing center consultant and coordinator. Each of these suggestions is grounded in the premise that uncovering ways for students to develop more critically and culturally contextualized proficiencies in dominant discourses is the most realistic—and thereby effective—way for the field to proceed in the pursuit of some of its most ambitious social justice aims. However, it’s also worth noting that modern writing center studies doesn’t completely neglect the approaches that have preceded the more contemporary, radical approaches I’ve critiqued throughout this article: Basta and Smith call for a rhetorical and critical approach that asks tutors to make tutees aware of the “linguistic options available to them, an approach that “moves away from the universalist correct/incorrect methodology to an approach in which students can negotiate multiple discourses and practice their agency” (62). Likewise, Laura Greenfield acknowledges: not every institution will be supportive of [radical revisions to existing] educational models… and not all students will be receptive to the radical questions [educators and practitioners] pose. [Writing center] directors will need to continue to be savvy in negotiating their practices in light of specific institutional contexts and stakes. (147)

Still, the question persists: how can writing center directors, coordinators, and consultants be “savvy” in ways that support the development of more critically and culturally contextualized proficiencies in dominant discourses for their tutees, especially for those whose linguistic habits are most often marginalized by the institutions they inhabit?

The ideas I propose are not perfect and likely will not be effective in every institutional context, especially in those that lack adequate resources for tutors and tutees looking to build networks of support for marginalized students. However, they do offer some paths forward as the field surges ahead in its pursuit of undermining the linguistic hegemony of SAE and dismantling the oppressive systems it helps support.

Relying on key concepts from older writing center scholarship, these methods and others like them can support the development of more critically and culturally contextualized proficiencies for tutees, an essential step in balancing tutees’ needs with the field’s ambitious social justice aims. This approach has much greater potential for sparking productive discussions beyond the writing center, including across curricular and administrative efforts.

As it stands, most contemporary writing center scholarship appears more concerned with aggressively critiquing existing power structures and the institutional hegemony of SAE, which, while a noble pursuit, has only resulted in greater frustrations for scholars and practitioners and greater alienation of the populations writing centers are most meant to help. After all, what’s the point of a writing center that isn’t truly studentcentered? More work needs to be done to maintain writing centers’ reputation for being a much-needed resource for students—both in ways they expect and that they haven’t quite come to recognize… yet.

As I’ve argued, looking back might be our best way forward.

Works Cited Baker-Bell, April. Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy. Routledge, 2020.

Basta, Hidy, & Smith, Alexandra. “(Re)envisioning the Writing Center: Pragmatic Steps for Dismantling White Language Supremacy.”

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2022, pp. 58-68. https://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/48157 Bond, Candis. “‘I Need Help on Many Things Please’: A Case Study Analysis of First-Generation College Students’ Use of the Writing Center.”

The Writing Center Journal, vol. 37, no. 2, 2019,

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 100 pp. 161-194. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26922021 Bräuer, Gerd. “When the Story of the University Changes, What Happens to the Mission of the Writing Center?” Writing Centers at the Center of Change, edited by Joe Essid & Brian McTague, Routledge, 2020, pp. 171-187.

Buck, Olivia. “Students’ Idea of the Writing Center: First-Visit Undergraduate Students’ Pre- and Post-Tutorial Perceptions of the Writing Center.” The Peer Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 2018. https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue2/students-idea-of-the-writing-center-firstvisit-undergraduate-students-pre-and-posttutorial-perceptions-of-the-writing-center/ Camarillo, Eric C. “Burn the House Down: Deconstructing the Writing Center as Cozy Home.” The Peer Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019. https://thepeerreviewiwca.org/issues/redefining-welcome/burnthe-house-down-deconstructing-the-writingcenter-as-cozy-home/ Carino, Peter. “Power and Authority in Peer Tutoring.” The Center Will Hold: Critical Perspectives on Writing Center Scholarship, edited

by M. A. Pemberton & J. Kinkead, University Press of Colorado, 2003, pp. 96-113.

Coenen, Hillary, et al. “Talking Justice: The Role of Antiracism in the Writing Center.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2019, pp.

12-19. https://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/2674 Craig, Sherri. “Your Contract Grading Ain’t It.” Writing Program Administration, vol. 44, no. 3, 2021, pp.

145-146. https://wpacouncil.org/aws/CWPA/asset_m anager/get_file/604397?ver=3 Delgado, Antonio, & McGill, Craig M. “Graduate Students’ Perceptions of Instructor Power in the U.S. Higher Education Classroom.” New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development, vol. 35, no. 4, 2023, pp. 186-198. https://doi.org/10.1177/19394225231189 Denny, Harry, et al. “‘Tell me exactly what it was that I was doing that was so bad’: Understanding the Needs and Expectations of Working-Class Students in Writing Centers.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 37, no. 1, 2018, pp. 67100. https://doi.org/10.7771/28329414.1866 Diab, Rasha, et al. “A Multi-Dimensional Pedagogy for Racial Justice in Writing Centers.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, 2012, pp.

1-8. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/62145

Diab, Rasha, et al. “Making Commitments to Racial Justice Actionable.” Performing Antiracist Pedagogy in Rhetoric, Writing, and Communication, edited by Frankie Condon & Vershawn Ashanti Young, University Press of Colorado, 2016, pp. 19-39.

Esters, Jason B. “On the Edges: Black Maleness, Degrees of Racism, and Community on the Boundaries of the Writing Center.” Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change, edited by Laura Greenfield & Karen Rowan, Utah State University Press, 2011, pp. 290-299.

Feibush, Laura. “Gestural Listening and the Writing Center’s Virtual Boundaries.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, 2018, pp. 34-43. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/65595 García, Romeo. “Unmaking Gringo-Centers.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 36, no. 1, 2017, pp.

29-60. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44252637 García, Romeo, & Sicari, Anna. “Guest Editors’ Introduction: Have We Arrived Yet?” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2022, pp. 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/48139 Geller, et al. “Bold: The Everyday Writing Center and the Production of New Knowledge in AntiRacist Theory and Practice.” Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change, edited by Laura Greenfield & Karen Rowan, Utah State University Press, 2011, pp. 101-123.

Greenfield, Laura. Radical Writing Center Praxis: A Paradigm for Ethical Political Engagement.

University Press of Colorado, 2019.

Kern, Douglas. S. “Emotional Performance and Antiracism in the Writing Center.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2019, pp.

43-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/2678 Kynard, Carmen. “Fakers and Takers: Disrespect, Crisis, and Inherited Whiteness in RhetoricComposition Studies.” Composition Studies, vol.

50, no. 3, 2022, pp. 131-136. https://www.proquest.com/openview/b6b98 5776ac25a0c97625aa011a01478/1?pqorigsite=gscholar&cbl=26283 Melzer, Dan. “Exploring White Privilege in Tutor Education.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2019, pp. 34-42. http://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/2680 Mullin, et al. “Import/Export Work?”: Using CrossCultural Theories to Rethink Englishes,

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Looking Back to Get Ahead • 101 Identities, and Genres in Writing Centers.”

Reworking English in Rhetoric and Composition: Global Interrogations, Local Interventions, edited by Bruce Horner & Karen Kopelson, Southern Illinois University Press, 2014, pp. 150-165.

Olson, Brian. “Rethinking Our Work with Multilingual Writers: Ethics and Responsibility of Language Teaching in the Writing Center.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 2013, pp.

1-6. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/62178 Palmeri, Jason. “Transgressive Hybridity: Reflections on the Authority of the Peer Writing Tutor.”

Writing Lab Newsletter, vol. 25, no. 1, 2000, pp.

9-11. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/v25/25.1 .pdf Pham, Vincent. N. “Truth as White property: solidifying White epistemology and owning racial knowledge.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, 2023, pp.

288-305. https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2023.2199 831 Salem, Lori. “Decisions… Decisions: Who Chooses to Use the Writing Center?” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 35, no. 2, 2016, pp. 147-171. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43824060 Sloan, Philip J. “Are We Really Student-Centered?: Reconsidering the Nature of Student ‘Need’.”

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1-5. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/62179 Sohan, Vanessa Kraemer. “Relocalized Listening: Responding to All Students from a Translingual Starting Point.” Reworking English in Rhetoric and Composition: Global Interrogations, Local Interventions, edited by Bruce Horner & Karen Kopelson, Southern Illinois University Press, 2014, pp. 191-206.

Suhr-Sytsma, Mandy & Brown, Shan-Estelle. “Theory In/To Practice: Addressing the Everyday Language of Oppression in the Writing Center.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 31, no.

2, 2011, pp. 13-49. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1732 Tang, Jasmine Kar. “Asians Are at the Writing Center.”

Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2022, pp. 11-24. https://dx.doi.org/10.26153/tsw/48140 Vue, Pajai, & Wongwai, Clare. “Steps Towards More Introspective and Anti-Racist Work in Writing Centers.” The Peer Review, vol. 7, no. 3, 2023.

https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/issue7-3/introspective-and-anti-racist-work/ Wang, Isaac K. “Our Theories of Race Will Not Save Us: Toward Localized Storyings of Race, Colonialisms, and Relationships.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2022, pp.

47-57. https://www.praxisuwc.com/191-wang Wilson, Nancy Effinger. “Bias in the Writing Center: Tutor Perceptions of African American Language.” Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change, edited

by Laura Greenfield & Karen Rowan, Utah State University Press, 2011, pp. 177-191.

Young, Vershawn Ashanti. “Should Writers Use They Own English?” Writing Centers and the New Racism: A Call for Sustainable Dialogue and Change, edited by Laura Greenfield & Karen Rowan, Utah State University Press, 2011, pp.

61-74.

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ACCIDENTAL POWER: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF WRITING CENTER INTERACTIONS BETWEEN TUTORS AND MULTILINGUAL TUTEES Lisa DiMaio Drexel University dimaiola@drexel.edu Abstract

My intent in this qualitative study was to illustrate if and how inequalities in power and authority exist in interactions between tutors and multilingual (ML) tutees set in a university writing center in a predominantly White institution (PWI). Using Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) as a guide, I analyzed selected transcripts to uncover how “language shapes and positions” tutors and tutees (Fernsten 45). I propose that using CDA to examine writing center transcripts can be an effective training tool for tutors working with multilingual writers. By analyzing how their discourse choices may unintentionally bolster linguistic dominance and diminish ML students’ voices, tutors can adapt their approaches while also identifying discourse choices that lead to constructive, collaborative interactions.

Introduction Writing centers are often seen as safe spaces where tutors and tutees collaborate and cooperate.

However, a hierarchical relationship, exemplified by dominance, power, and control, often exists between tutors and multilingual tutees, whether inadvertently or not (Akhmad; Chang; Thonus; Williams). Controlling a tutorial deprives ML writers of using their unique voices and inhibits language development (Williams). In this study, I illustrate how inequalities in power and authority exist in interactions between native-speaking (NS) tutors and ML tutees set in a predominantly White university writing center. Using Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis as a methodology, I analyzed selected transcripts to uncover how “language shapes and positions” (Fernsten 45) tutors and tutees. My analysis revealed the power dynamics between NS tutors and ML tutees and illustrated how tutors inadvertently bolster social dominance around proper language. I argue that applying CDA to writing center transcriptions as a method of training can assist tutors when working with ML tutees: by learning from the transcriptions and analysis that their discourse choices might reinforce language hegemony, stripping their ML students of their voice and identity, tutors can improve and modify their strategies. Conversely, tutors can identify discourse choices that lead to constructive, collaborative interactions. In the next sections, I review research on ML writers in the writing center, explain this study’s methods, and present the results of the CDA, concluding with recommendations for tutor training. The study was IRB-approved.

A New Path Forward for Tutors and ML Tutees When ML writers, with their varied cultures and languages, go to the writing center, tutors might regard their linguistic differences as weaknesses; the diversity these writers bring might not be positive, especially in a predominantly white institution. Dees, Godbee, and Izias advocate caution regarding diversity in the writing center: “Differences are more than just differences; they become unfair organizers of our lives, providing some of us with fewer opportunities, less insider knowledge, and limited access” (1). When tutors allow differences to define students and their interactions with them, then they are essentially allowing differences to divide them.

In their article, “Building a House for Linguistic Diversity,” Condon and Olson addressed how tutors focus on difference. They questioned what the relationship is “among language, intellectual ability, individual value, and national belonging” (37). They said that tutors must be cognizant of the perceptions “regarding language and difference” (41). While tutors need to acknowledge that differences do exist in their ML students’ writing, they need to create equitable conditions to promote learning.

To negotiate difference effectively, Canagarajah, in “Multilingual Writers,” suggests that “in place of this ‘limiting’ stance, we move toward a ‘difference-as-resource’ stance, in which we respect and value the linguistic and cultural peculiarities our students may display, rather than suppressing them” (Canagarajah 210). This approach reframes ML students’ writing as a strength rather than a deficiency.

Canagarajah further argues that exclusive focus on “standard” English inhibits the “linguistic acquisition, creativity, and production among students” (“World Englishes” 592), recognizing differences as deficiencies.

On the contrary, accepting differences is valuing the student’s identity and voice.

Asao Inoue, in “Afterword: Narratives That Determine Writers and Social Justice in Writing Center Work,” highlights how institutions create and uphold “singular linguistic standards that writing centers are expected to promote” (96). Committed to equity and social justice, Inoue argues that writing center work must focus on challenging racism and white privilege, which marginalizes students from diverse backgrounds.

Accidental Power • 103 Inoue encourages moving beyond linguistic hierarchies that privilege certain ways of speaking and writing; embracing linguistic diversity, he asserts, creates a foundation of equity.

Matsuda and Cox warn that a potential goal of tutors to make ML writing identical to native English writing — an assimilationist goal (Leki) — leads to the “imposition of the norms of the dominant U.S. academic discourse as well as the cultural values that come with it” (9). Matsuda asserts that multilingual writers bring distinctive issues to writing centers; consequently, he recommends that we “reexamine some of the fundamental assumptions of the writing center, which were developed with monolingual English users in mind” (“Teaching Composition” 47). Rather than expecting ML writers to achieve native-like proficiency, tutors must recognize that ML writers will often possess traces of their own linguistic backgrounds (Bruce and Rafoth; Leki; Matsuda and Cox; Severino and Deifell).

Collier and Mitchell, Destino and Karam claimed that it could take ten years for ML students to become proficient in academic English, and in 2001, the Conference on College Composition and Communication [CCCC] Statement on SecondLanguage Writing and Writers asserted the same.

Achieving native-like proficiency for ML students is quite rare; they are likely to reach a certain level and not acquire language past that point (Ritter). Writing centers need to recognize this reality and support ML writers in developing their own voices—ones that do not need to conform to dominant language ideologies.

In my study, I investigated how tutors and tutees negotiate differences (i.e., treat errors) and how tutors might assert power and privilege. I used critical discourse analysis as a methodology in examining transcripts of tutoring sessions. Van Dijk mentions that CDA is a “type of discourse analysis research that primarily studies the way social power, abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in social and political contexts” (352). In a previous study, Fernsten investigated issues related to multilingual students and talked about how CDA could be used in research with ML students. She claims CDA reveals how language situates individuals within society and how discourse choices are influenced by various norms. She mentions that CDA can be used to “raise awareness of language in its social context and can also help people understand and control their own roles in the use of discourse” (Fernsten 46). Applying CDA to transcriptions offers opportunities for professional development.

Based on the current research regarding language diversity and ML writers in the writing center

and the results of my study, I suggest a new path forward as we reevaluate tutoring methodologies to create equitable sessions for ML writers whose voices are often corrected and replaced. Implementing CDA as a tutor training methodology will provide tutors invaluable opportunities to gain meaningful insights into discourse choices that shape equitable writing center interactions and those that stifle them.

Methodology Setting The setting for this study was the writing center within a predominantly White public research university in a suburb west of Philadelphia. The total student population at this university at the time of this study was 17,005 but had 118 international students on F-1/J-1 visas from more than 40 countries, according to the Office of the President. Seventy-six-point five percent of the undergraduates were White (College Factual); this fits the definition of a predominantly White institution.

The international enrollment at this university was 0.7% (College Factual). The international student body consisted of the following countries and number of students from those countries: • 20 from India • 16 from China • 10 from Nigeria, Saudi Arabia • 7 from Norway • 6 from South Korea • 5 from Hong Kong • 3 from Ireland, Venezuela, Vietnam • 2 from Albania, Japan, Kenya, Sweden • 1 from Antigua, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Brazil, Burma, Cameroon, Canada, Czech Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Greece, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Netherlands, Panama, Russia, Uganda, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe. (Office of the President) Participants Recruiting Volunteers I planned to use two methods to recruit participants. I intended to use purposeful sampling since richer data can be gleaned from students from different backgrounds rather than from the same background.

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Accidental Power • 104 This kind of sample could provide a variety of attitudes, insights, and understanding the researcher is pursuing (Merriam). For purposeful sampling, I sought the assistance of the Assistant Director of International Programs, who interacted with students at a function for international students, discussed my research with the students, and invited them to participate in the study on my behalf. Those students who were interested told the Assistant Director, who then forwarded their names and email addresses to me. Then, I contacted the students via email. Three students responded and decided to participate based on our email conversations; I met with them in the writing center, where they signed the consent form. None of them, however, made consistent appointments in the writing center, so I was unable to use them in the study.

I also employed convenience sampling (Creswell) which was more successful. When students entered the writing center for their scheduled appointments, I spoke to them about my study. I asked them if they regularly used the writing center and, if so, if they would be willing to participate in my study. Four agreed. Refer to Table 1 for details regarding the ML tutees.

To recruit the tutors, I gathered a list of interested volunteers during a writing center staff meeting. All participants, 18 years of age and older, met with me in the writing center to sign the consent form.

Refer to Table 2.

Data Collection I audio-recorded all sessions, observed, and took notes, reflecting my interpretations, insights, and themes, which allowed me to examine the students’ non-verbal behaviors (Creswell). Additionally, I held separate focus group interviews with the ML students and the tutors.

edited all transcriptions verbatim to capture utterances, pauses, and repetitions (Bucholtz). Once I completed the transcriptions, I uploaded all twenty into Dedoose, an online software program designed for analyzing qualitative data. After I reviewed the transcriptions multiple times, I employed Open Coding, a flexible, unrestricted approach, to code for common, recurring themes (Saldaña). I noticed several themes that emerged: corrections, directiveness, voice, dominance, negotiation, questions, and self-doubt (see Table 3).

From the 200-plus initially coded passages, my second cycle of coding relied on choosing codes based on Saldaña’s book, An Introduction to Codes and Coding: The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. The two most common, overarching themes emerged: “correction” and “negotiation” based on frequency (Saldaña): ● Tutor provided correction by seeking perfection, appropriating tutee’s language, and taking autonomy (See Table 4). ● Tutor and tutee negotiated through conversation, collaboration, clarification requests, comprehension checks, and confirmation checks (See Table 5).

Table 6 illustrates that I coded “correction” and “negotiation” 265 times: 177 for “correction” and 88 for “negotiation.” These were the two most frequently coded themes (Saldaña).

Table 7 shows the number of times I applied the specific codes of “correction” and “negotiation” to each of the ML tutees’ interactions. Of importance, in Amani’s and Alyia’s sessions, their tutors corrected more often than they negotiated: 73% and 79%, respectively. Consequently, I chose excerpts from these sessions to apply Critical Discourse Analysis in the next section.

Audio Recordings and Coding Throughout the semester, the four ML participants made numerous appointments with various tutor participants. Appointments run for two standard amounts of time, 50 and 25 minutes. I recorded 23 sessions from week three to week fourteen 14 of the fall semester. Based on the quality of the audio recordings, I chose 20 interactions to transcribe. Out of 20, 10 appointments were scheduled for 50-minute slots, and coincidentally, 10 were scheduled for 25-minute slots.

This totaled nearly 15 hours of interactions. I transcribed all the tutoring sessions, utilizing the computer software program Temi, and then manually Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 2 (2025) www.praxisuwc.com

Accidental Power • 105 Table 1. Multilingual Tutees ML Gender First Language Tutee Gabriela* Female Spanish

Year Last-year undergraduate student

Alyia* Female Arabic First-year graduate student Amani* Female Arabic First-year graduate student Luca* Female Italian First-year undergraduate Note: *I used pseudonyms to protect the identities of all participants.

Table 2. Tutors Tutor Gender s Annie female * Alexa* female

First Language English

Year in College

English

Graduate Student

Third-year Undergraduate Student

Eve* female Graduate Student English Dina* female Graduate Student English John male Graduate Student English * Rob* Graduate Student Male English Note: *I used pseudonyms to protect the identities of all participants.

Table 3. Themes Recurring Examples from the Interactions Themes Tutor ● Tutor: So that or because the countries can understand other countries’ Corrections culture. The apostrophe should be after the S. ● Tutor: So, in that case, no period, lower case B ● Tutor: And so this. There's no ING. It's just “go.”

Directiveness Tutee: And it was, it wasn't common in my country to having another language.

Tutor: To have.

Tutor: That would've been okay. But you did it correctly.

Voice Tutor: Multiple reports of employee injuries?

Tutee: It was more than injuries...it was deaths.

Tutor: Oh, ok multiple deaths.

Tutee: It was like there was even a collapse.

Tutor: So, would you want to say immoral decision to do business with the DACA company because of multiple reports of employee injury and death in other Bangladesh companies?

Tutee: Mmhm. Let's see...

Dominance Tutor: So, here's how I would outline this.

Tutor: (21:23) Oh, okay. So, I mean, okay, so... patient... (continues for three minutes) Tutee: (24:16): mm Negotiation Tutor: Ok, right, so what if we just say, “and damage to our culture”? How do you feel about that? Or do you feel like we should say that?

Tutee: I feel like if we say it, it's not the only ones that happened…I think broad will be better because there's so many things that could be wrong.

Questions Tutee: How do I say it?

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Accidental Power • 106

Self-doubt

Tutee: Position to do business with the Dhaka garment factory was the ... how you say when you ignore something like negligence to, listen negligence to?

Tutee: I feel like I repeat a lot... What about there? I feel like I say, a lot of production to Bangladesh...

Tutee: The fact that it ignore[d] reports of multiple accidents. Multiple work accidents. I don't like that.

Table 4. Example of Correction from Tutor Dina and Tutee Alyia Alyia: And it was, it wasn't common in my country to having another language.

Dina: To have.

Alyia: Have, yeah.

Dina: If you're going to have a “to,” you don't have an -ING. Alyia: To had?

Dina: “To have” ...when you have the word “to.”

Table 5. Examples of Negotiation from Tutor Dina and Tutee Alyia Alyia: But my friends subscribing monthly.

Dina: So your friends do it all the time kind of thing?

Alyia: Yeah, like every month they are subscribed.

Dina: So they have a monthly subscription?

Alyia: Yes. Dina: So they subscribe monthly.

Alyia: Yes. Table 6. Number of Times Each Code Applied Tutor corrections (corrected errors; appropriated tutee’s voice; talked more) Tutor did not 177 or 66.7% negotiate; focused on making language perfect; used directive style, signaled mistake, and provided corrections.

Tutor and tutee negotiations (collaboration, conversation, clarification).

88 or 33.2% 265

Total excerpts that indicated correction and negotiation Table 7. Number of Times Specific Codes Applied to ML Tutees Alyia Gabriela Totals Amani Luca Corrections Negotiation s Totals

30 times 73% 11 times 26% 41

28 times 50.1% 27 times 49% 55

103 times 79% 27 times 20.7%

16 times 41% 23 times 59%

177 times 66.7% 88 times 33.2%

130

39

265

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Accidental Power • 107 Observations and Field Notes During the writing center session, I also observed and took notes that reflected my interpretations, insights, and themes (Creswell). These observations gave me the opportunity to examine the students’ non-verbal behaviors, especially for those who did not feel comfortable speaking or who had difficulty speaking during their session (Creswell). Schwandt claimed that a researcher can support how their evidence is reliable by “examining its source and the procedures by which it was produced” (as cited in Roulston 201). Observations showed if the tutors took control of the tutees’ computers or hard copies of their writing and if the tutor allowed the tutee to maintain control of their work. What transpired in the writing center sessions helped to inform the content and questions of the focus group interviews.

Focus Group Interviews I planned to hold focus group interviews in week 14, with all four of the ML students and with the six peer tutors, separately, but in the writing center. For many reasons that I was unable to predict in the planning stages of this research design, i.e., life-school balance, forgetfulness, potential disinterest, and some I was unable to identify, the ML students did not meet altogether. Two pairs met with me at two different times; instead of a focus group interview with four ML students, I held mini focus group interviews with two ML students twice. I still achieved the goal of interviewing ML students with another ML student present; in this context, students might feel more comfortable speaking up with other participants than in individual interviews as group interaction could facilitate the revelation of experiences, opinions, and attitudes.

These interactions were helpful in getting participants to express their feelings. The participants also had the opportunity to share and compare experiences and different perspectives were ignited. Besides, the power dynamic shifted since ML students were together speaking (Krueger). In addition to the benefits of focus group interviews, Creswell suggested that researchers conduct them to augment data collection and triangulate multiple points of data. I also shaped the questions based on the students’ comfort level and reactions and on what I observed in the writing center sessions.

Critical Discourse Analysis This study highlights the critical analysis of two excerpts that I coded for the recurring themes of

“negotiation” and “correction.” In the original study, I chose three as a representative group, which is in line with the CDA literature (Fernsten; Kang and Dykema; Pigliacelli). Using Critical Discourse Analysis as a methodology examines the discourse between the tutors and tutees and allows a researcher to uncover relationships between participants and to interpret texts and move beyond the surface level (Fairclough; Mumby and Clair; Sarangi and Roberts) while investigating the relationships between discourse and other social factors like power, inequality, values, and beliefs (van Dijk; Fairclough and Wodak). Applying CDA to selected transcripts, I investigated if and how the interactions of tutors and ML tutees exhibited inequalities in power and authority.

I applied Fairclough’s three aspects of analysis: textual, interactional, and interdiscursive. The first level describes textual and linguistic features, e.g., voice, pronouns, and modality (Fairclough). The first level answers the following questions: What is happening?

What are the activities, topic, and purpose? What are the textual features of the written or spoken words?

(Fairclough). For instance, declaratives, first-person pronouns, lack of interrogatives, and vocabulary indicate authority (Severino; Thonus; Williams).

The second level, interactional, involves interpretations of the text and an “examination of discursive practice” which is how the text is produced, distributed, and received by the listener (Fairclough 78).

The second level of analysis addresses who is involved, including the subjects’ positions and identities.

Individuals’ turn-taking, topic choice, and control of the agenda affect the power and dominance of the interactions (Chang; Locke; Severino; Thonus).

According to Locke, speech acts, i.e., “promises, declarations, requests, threats … evince particular social and power relations” (47). Thonus added three additional characteristics of dominance: less mitigation (more imperatives), shorter negotiations, and “holding the floor” (“Dominance” 228). Williams included “directives, interruptions, and unmitigated suggestions” (45) while Bell and Elledge mentioned “time-at-talk” (23) and control of session content. Severino maintained that tutors dominate their sessions with ML tutees as tutees use more backchanneling and fewer responses.

The third and final level, interdiscursive, involves an analysis of text in social contexts.

Vital to this level is the idea of “ideology,” which is both in the structure of discourse and in the production of the discourse (Fairclough). Language is situated in context with “wider political, social, historical, and cultural discourses. These wider discourses may come from the immediate conditions of the situational context

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Accidental Power • 108 and the more remote conditions of institutions and social structures” (Fairclough 26). Interdiscursivity, or sociocultural practice, addresses the role of language and the connection to the social context (e.g., power, hierarchy, authority) (Fairclough; Locke) and the analysis is aimed at exploring if the discourse supports a specific type of dominant conversation or ideology (Locke). Tutors may feel pressure from the institution and their tutees as they attempt to satisfy the expectations of the institution (by giving knowledge) and their clients (Locke; Trimbur). Bailey adds that the “expectation that writing centers should ‘fix’ the English of international ESL students ties in with broader assumptions that privilege monolingual Euro-American viewpoints” (1).

To investigate if and how inequalities in power and authority were evident in interactions between tutors and ML tutees, I applied CDA to three excerpts in the original study, but here I present two: one from Gabriela and one from Amani.

I used the following transcription conventions, modified from Williams: -interruption // speaker overlap <> unintelligible ( ) nonverbal action Italics relevant portion of interaction is italicized voice modulation (e.g., loudly, softly, [ ] laughs) Case 1: Gabriela Gabriela was a senior undergraduate student from Venezuela who graduated in May 2020. During our focus group interviews, she told us that she had been in the U.S. for ten years, four of which were spent in high school. Her high school experience was not very “friendly,” and she struggled with the language barrier.

The teachers were not understanding of “ESL” students, and she did not receive the support she wanted or needed. Once she graduated, she attended a community college for two years. In an encounter that changed the course of her learning, she earned a zero on a paper because she did not cite direct quotations. To revise, Gabriela sought the support of the writing center because “writing papers became [her] biggest fear.” She said that she felt she improved in so many areas, including sentence structure, making outlines, and using sources, and mentioned that she learned more from her visits to the writing center than in her writing classes.

The following figure shows that Gabriella and John each spoke for about half the time. The times do not include reading silently or writing down information (Bell and Elledge).

Figure 1. Total Time Speaking: 21.35 minutes

I recorded five of Gabriela’s sessions, totaling over 266 minutes (about 4 and a half hours). In this session, Gabriela asked for assistance with her grammatical accuracy in her draft of a research paper for a business class. Analyzing the discourse critically revealed that Gabriela and her tutor, John, used questions and conversation to negotiate meaning, maintaining equal roles. The textual analysis showed that Gabriela and John used negotiations to clarify meaning; the tutor employed hedges and suggestions, allowing Gabriela to maintain power over her own writing. The interactional analysis illustrated that by balancing turntaking, Gabriela and the tutor both possessed authority, although Gabriela interrupted and challenged the tutor, which emphasized her dominance. The interdiscursive analysis revealed that no power struggles existed and that both Gabriela and the tutor contributed equally to maintain collaboration.

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Accidental Power • 109 Gabriela: (reads her paper) The first argument that indicates that Joe Fresh made an immoral decision when they decided to do business with the Dhaka Garment Factory is the fact that there had been reports of multiple accidents related to the garment industry produced in Bangladesh before the Rana Plaza Collapse.

John: So, there's probably more in that one sentence than there needs to be.

Gabriela: (laughs) Ok. Tutor: Okay? Then what if we say the first argument that indicates that Joe Fresh made an immoral decision, was when it decided to do business with the Dhaka Garment Factory Gabriela: Mmhm John: ...is the multiple < > are the multiple, multiple reports? Like if you take this?

Gabriela: Um. John: Multiple reports...another thing that indicated that it was not the right thing to do?

Gabriela: Mmhm.

John: It's kind of, I'm still trying to work it out in my head best...ok... first argument, first argument that indicates Joe Fresh made an immoral decision was when it decided to do business with the Dhaka Garment Factory, even though there were reports… but... move this?

Gabriela: Mmhm. < > position to do business with the Dhaka Garment Factory was the ... how you say when you ignore something like negligence to listen negligence to?

John: I would say... I would say ignoring… that they ignored reports or reports of accidents. I think that's a good way to say it... it ignored multiple reports of workplace injury...

Gabriela: (typing) John: And you probably don't need the “Bangladesh” again because you've already introduced that up there.

Gabriela: Yeah…< > business with the Dhaka garment factory was the fact that it ignored multiple accidents...

John: Multiple reports of employee injuries?

Gabriela: It was more than injuries. It was deaths.

John: Oh, ok. Multiple deaths.

Gabriela: It was like there was even a collapse.

John: Ok. Gabriela: Like this factory collapsed there.

John Okay. So— Gabriela: And this one collapsed -- like to collapse-- and then the other one was a fire.

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Accidental Power • 110 Textual Analysis The textual analysis showed that through tutor hedges and suggestions (van Dijk) and the tutor’s and Gabriela’s interrogatives in the form of clarification requests and comprehension checks, they collaborated and maintained equal roles. In Gabriela’s first turn in this excerpt, she read her paper aloud. The tutor then offered a suggestion, hedging it by saying, “There’s probably more in that one sentence than there needs to be” (my italics). Gabriela replied with laughter and affirmation, “Ok.” The tutor offered another recommendation, “What if we say…?” Here he used a suggestion followed by the first-person plural pronoun “we.” His choices indicated that his role is not one of authority but a collaborator, involving Gabriela in the choices for revision. Gabriela replied to his suggestions with backchannels, “Mmhm,” which affirmed the tutor’s suggestions since Gabriela kept the conversation moving forward. The tutor and Gabriela both utilized interrogatives in the form of clarification checks and comprehension checks. The tutor clarified: “Are the multiple reports… another thing that indicated that it was not the right thing to do?” In one instance when the tutor asked, “Multiple reports of employee injuries?”

Gabriela clarified to make her meaning clearer: “It was more than injuries. It was deaths.” The textual analysis illustrated how Gabriela and the tutor distributed their power and authority equally by the following choices: 1) Gabriela’s use of interrogatives and her ability to maintain the conversation; 2) the tutor’s use of hedges, first-person plural pronouns, suggestions, and interrogatives. The textual analysis represented how the tutee’s and tutor’s choices facilitated collaboration and the co-construction of meaning.

Interactional Analysis In the interactional analysis, the tutor’s choices signified the balance of power and authority. Their interactions illustrated collaboration and coconstruction of meaning using clarification requests and comprehension checks. They both asked and answered questions, maintaining an equal balance in turn-taking (Williams). For instance, Gabriela asked, “How you say when you ignore something, like negligence, to listen negligence to?” The tutor, understanding Gabriela’s meaning, suggested, “ignoring... that they ignored reports…” (my italics). Gabriela and the tutor negotiated effectively by clarifying meaning. Gabriela’s initiation of the question “how you say... negligence…?” also indicated Gabriela’s agency and authority over her own voice. The tutor allowed this to occur by not

exerting dominance and control. By choosing to use clarification requests and comprehension checks to negotiate meaning effectively, maintaining a balance in turn-taking, and exerting agency, Gabriela and the tutor illustrated an interaction that represented equality.

Interdiscursive Analysis The tutor exerted no power or authority during his interaction with Gabriela, who created her identity as leader and author of her own session. The tutor made no choices to become the dominant speaker in the interaction. Both Gabriela and the tutor contributed equally. In one instance, Gabriela interrupted the tutor, exerting her power and authority: Tutor: Okay. So-G: And this one collapsed, like to collapse and then the other one was a fire.

The tutor worked at maintaining collaboration with Gabriela by providing her with time to ask questions and to respond to his questions. The tutor did not monopolize the session but promoted a “productive collaborative relationship” (Pigliacelli 12). No power struggles existed, and both Gabriela and John contributed equally to maintain collaboration. We can attribute this to Gabriela’s exertion of agency; she set the agenda, led the session, and interrupted the tutor to redirect the session. Gabriela knew the kind of assistance that she wanted and knew how to ask for it.

Case 2: Amani Amani was a first-year graduate student in a master’s program and had been studying in the U.S. for two years. She started visiting the writing center for help with errors in grammar and spelling because “other people couldn’t understand what [she] was writing.” She found, though, that her previous experiences in the writing center helped her “emotionally” when tutors “encouraged [her] to keep going.”

I recorded three of Amani’s sessions, totaling over 169 minutes. In the example below, Amani met with tutor Rob and asked for assistance in creating an outline for her research paper, “Impact of Technology on Patient Experience,” about healthcare management. The following pie chart indicates the speaking time for the tutor and the tutee. The times do not include reading silently or writing down information (Bell and Elledge). Rob spoke for 4/5 of the session; he was not available for a focus group interview.

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Accidental Power • 111 Figure 2. Total Time Speaking: 2,842 seconds (about 47 and a half minutes)

The excerpt below shows how the tutor controlled the session, limiting Amani’s opportunities to communicate. In many examples, Rob monopolized the time talking about what he would do, write, or say, not encouraging Amani to participate. Analyzing the discourse critically illustrated the inequalities in power and authority.

Rob: (39:51) And, then like I said, I don't think you need to go into like super in- depth on each one of the points. Okay. That's how I would write it. Um, okay. Let's see. As a manager, whatever is most convincing.

Okay. Uh, to invest in technology to enhance consumer experience. I imagine that's going to be a pretty < > but um, uh, for, for the tech. Okay. So it's more than, it's obviously more than just a financial thing. Right?

You know, if you know, you're doing a great job curing your customers, but in the, in the, in, in the, in the process, you know, you'd have them hanging upside down in a hole by themselves for twelve, twelve hours at a time, probably not going to want to come back to you for health care. Right? So, um, you're gonna have to start looking and looking at that, and that's gonna be where you're gonna be making, uh, your persuasive argument. And that's going to be probably the least < > You're going to have literature to support it, but not as much in the rest of them. Okay. So, what you're going to look at is, you're gonna look at literature that's going to know customers who are, you know, not depressed when they're in the hospital. You're gonna look at like how, you know, their state of mind affects things, how being placed in a state of financial burden affects things. And, then you're gonna have to make your persuasive argument on that. So, like what, how, how would you, how would you spin that to someone in the department, you know? Well, this is something we need to invest in?

Amani: So, is it like? - - (tutor interrupted Amani) Rob: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You need to argue, um, for why you would invest in technology like this stuff you talked about.

Amani: Should I pick one idea?

Rob: Well, here's what I would do. Okay. Like I said < > you need that. You need to really sit down and think about this cause there's a lot of different arguments you can make for technology. I'm assuming, um, the easiest one, the easiest one would be, okay, you've got this piece of technology. Um, it's either going to, it's either going to bring more people into the hospital for healthcare. So, if it's brand new and did you get a CRISPR machine that's actually working and can actually edit out things like cancer and HIV, you're going to get a lot of people coming into your hospital. Okay? So even if it costs $100 million, you're going to recoup that. So, you can make the fiscal argument, you know, you can make the customer satisfaction argument. You know, finances automatically. It does that too. Obviously if you're cured of cancer, you're probably happy. Um, but you can also look at that from the, from the customer experience thing. So, okay.

It might cost you some more money, but, um, it's gonna increase their overall mood. And in this piece of research, it shows the customer that, you know, patients who are happy and not depressed when they're in there are more < > have a better success rate. So, there's a lot of different ways you can go with this.

Because I don't know any of these arguments. I'm kind of spit-balling on that one. Um, but what I would do is I would pick the strongest < >. So, you're gonna, I would tie it back to your 0.1.

Amani: (43:22) Mm.

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Accidental Power • 112 Textual Analysis The textual analysis shows that the tutor’s use of the first-person pronoun “I” (in italics) and vocabulary (in italics) that appeared to be beyond Amani’s level of comprehension prevented collaboration and conversation. The tutor’s lexical choices also revealed his authority over Amani, even though he might not have intended to be the only participant with power. By using “CRISPR” and “HIV,” the tutor moved the focus away from Amani since these vocabulary words were not connected to her topic, and they stifled conversation as Amani replied with a backchannel, “Mm.” The language the tutor used prevented collaboration and co-construction of meaning. The tutor’s lack of interrogatives (Williams) also indicated his authority. Instead of asking Amani questions about her thoughts on the topic, he persisted with declaratives regarding his own ideas. The tutor’s use of the first-person pronoun “I,” his vocabulary choices, and his lack of interrogatives revealed his influence and authority.

Interactional Analysis In the interactional analysis, the tutor’s use of longer turns and interruption (Williams) demonstrated his dominance and power. We can witness the tutor’s dominance when he centered the interaction on himself: “That’s how I would write it.” Instead of involving Amani in her own learning, he focused on how he would write the outline on a topic that is not in his field. In the three-and-a-half-minute excerpt, Amani used nine words, speaking for only 3 seconds. While Rob tried to suggest that Amani focus on more than the financial aspect, his 208 seconds of speaking prevented Amani from using her voice to suggest the points she would want in her outline.

The tutor also interrupted Amani, another indication of his dominance (Williams); she was unable to ask a complete question. He cut her off, defending his power and dominance (Fairclough). Amani did eventually ask her entire question about choosing one idea, but the tutor chose the agenda, replying in a longwinded response about topics knowledgeable to him. He removed power from Amani by monopolizing the interaction, preventing Amani from expressing her voice. As a result, Amani maintained a submissive role, enabling the tutor to lead the session. The tutor’s longer turns and interruptions (Williams) revealed his role of authority.

Interdiscursive Analysis

The tutor, a member of a larger context, a university writing center, established authority and power. The tutor created his identity as the active speaker in the session, fulfilling his role as the expert in this institutional context. Trimbur mentions that “many tutors feel a loyalty to both the institution that has awarded them the label of ‘writing expert’ as well as to their own peers who share their concerns as students” (290-291). Tutors feel “pulled, on one hand, by their loyalty to their fellow students and, on the other hand, by loyalty to the academic system that has rewarded them and whose values they have internalized” (Trimbur 290). The tutor wielded authority by monopolizing the session and choosing the topics upon which to expand: “Here’s what I would do...like I said…” Amani maintained the submissive role since she only responded with two short questions, one of which the tutor interrupted (in italics), and the backchannel, “Mm.” The results of the CDA illustrate the inequalities in power and authority through Rob’s and Amani’s discourse choices in the context of a university writing center. The following illustrated Rob’s control, dominance, and power (Bell and Elledge; Fairclough; Hyland; Luke; Pigliacelli; Ritter; Severino; Thonus; Williams; Wodak and Meyer; van Dijk): ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Controlling the agenda or topic choice Longer turns and time at talk Interruptions The first-person pronoun “I” Imperatives Lack of interrogatives Lexical choices (vocabulary) Unmitigated suggestions

The following indicated Amani’s inferiority or submission (Bell and Elledge; Fairclough; Hyland; Luke; Pigliacelli; Ritter; Severino; Thonus; Williams; Wodak and Meyer; van Dijk), allowing the tutor to monopolize the session: ● Shorter turns ● Little or no control of the agenda or topic ● Backchannels ● Fewer responses ● Less mitigation The results of applying the Critical Discourse Analysis expose the disparity in power and authority through one tutors’ discourse choices and demonstrate the tutors’ lack of understanding regarding the needs of

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Accidental Power • 113 ML writers. Amani’s and Rob’s case elucidates how the tutor dominated the session by spending more time speaking and correcting grammar errors while suggesting accurate language use over the negotiation of meaning. However, Gabriela’s and John’s case illustrates how tutor and tutee used questions and conversation to negotiate meaning, maintaining equal roles. No power struggles existed; both Gabriela and the tutor contributed equally to maintain collaboration.

Discussion and Conclusion The transcriptions and critical discourse analyses revealed distinctive findings across two case studies. The session between Gabriela and John showed a balanced, equitable interaction, where they cooperated and scaffolded their interaction by negotiating meaning and asking clarifying questions. Gabriela maintained agency over her learning and guided the interaction effectively. She was an active learner in the session, and the tutor allowed space for collaboration and conversation to occur. Conversely, the session between Amani and Rob revealed a major imbalance, where the tutor used an authoritative style that stifled collaboration. The discourse choices that Rob made contributed to his position of power and privilege, evident in the way that he assumed authority over Amani, reinforcing social hierarchies. Diving deeper into the cases of Gabriela and Amani, tutors can learn how discourse choices illustrate dominance, authority, and privilege.

Textual Analysis Analyzing the transcripts from Amani and Rob’s interaction showed how the tutor exhibited his power and privilege. In terms of Rob’s textual choices, his continuous use of the first-person pronoun “I” and his lexical choices inhibited conversation and collaboration. The interactional analysis revealed Rob’s dominance and authority by his extended speaking turns and interruptions.

In contrast, by unpacking Gabriela and John’s session, we learn from the transcriptions and analysis that Gabriela and John worked collaboratively. For instance, the textual analysis revealed that John engaged in negotiations to clarify meaning and he employed hedges (e.g., “There’s probably more in that sentence than there needs to be”) and suggestions using the firstperson plural pronoun (e.g., “What if we say…?”) These textual choices allowed Gabriela to maintain power over her own writing. John consistently asked questions that expanded their conversation and encouraged

collaboration: “Are the multiple reports… another thing that indicated that it was not the right thing to do?” In another instance when the tutor asked, “Multiple reports of employee injuries?” Gabriela was able to expand her meaning to make it clearer: “It was more than injuries. It was deaths.” Tutors can learn that their textual choices can facilitate – or hinder– conversation and collaboration.

Interactional Analysis The interactional analysis showed that Rob spoke over 80% of the time, controlling the agenda and the entire session. His longer time-at-talk and interruptions exhibited his power and authority.

Especially disturbing is his “unmitigated suggestion” (Williams 45): “That’s how I would write it,” signaling that his voice is more authoritative than Amani’s, eliminating her power and voice.

If we contrast this with the interactional analysis of Gabriela’s and John’s session, we can see shared authority through balanced turn-taking as Gabriela controlled the agenda. John’s discourse choices facilitated a session filled with equality and a lack of dominance as John allowed space for Gabriela’s voice.

Interdiscursive Analysis From the interdiscursive analysis, we can learn how Rob’s discourse choices reinforced his power and authority. By dominating the session, he exerted his privilege of “writing expert” (Trimbur 290) and reinforced linguistic hegemony. He might have been conforming to an unrealistic expectation to “fix” ML writing (Bailey), but Rob was not available for the focus group interviews. Amani conformed to a passive role as tutee as Rob created no space for her to participate.

On the contrary, Gabriela’s and John’s interaction showed no power struggle as they were equally engaged in the conversation. The analysis showed that John did not exert control or authority during their interaction. John’s goal was to interact with Gabriela and not modify her voice for the expectations of professors as he mentioned in the focus group interview.

Based on these findings, how can writing centers adopt a responsible and equitable approach, considering our understanding of multilingual writing and the dominance of linguistic hegemony? Implementing CDA is one path forward, and, in your busy writing center, training does not have to be arduous. Once a tutor gets permission from their tutee to record their session, a tutor can record and

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Accidental Power • 114 transcribe the interaction. The tutor can analyze the interaction by applying the three levels (Fairclough): textual (e.g., pronouns, modality, interrogatives); interactional (e.g., turn-taking, topic choice, and control of the agenda); and interdiscursive (e.g., situational or social context and potential expectations of the context or institution). Applying CDA, as opposed to observing or viewing a recorded session, allows tutors to dissect their discourse choices, examining how they negotiate conversations to facilitate collaboration or how they might inadvertently dominate a session. This analysis and introspection can lead to more productive discourse choices that encourage cooperation, enabling tutors to recognize and appreciate the ML writer’s voice.

Limitations Limitations to this study included 1) unpredictability of students; 2) researcher bias; and 3) time frame. The original plan for this study described three tutor-tutee pairs who would meet three times during the semester. However, due to the unpredictability and conflicting schedules of the ML tutees, most of the ML participants were not able to meet with the same tutor several times. In the end, I observed and recorded the four ML tutees who met 23 times with five NS tutors over 11 weeks. This allowed for more data collection which increased my ability to make more interpretations and connections among data. Another limitation was the fact that I was the only researcher who collected and analyzed the data. My positionality and/or bias could have affected my interpretations of the data. The rigorous methods and recursive processes of analyzing data, however, guided my interpretations and explanations and accurately represented the concentrated results for which this study was aiming. The last potential limitation was the timeframe. I gathered data over 11 weeks because of the structure of the university semester.

This study presents two case studies valuable for tutor training, highlighting opportunities for critical discussions about tutoring sessions and the implications of tutor choices. If tutors aspire to maintain collaborative interactions with ML writers that lead to learning and growth, then tutors must hold space for their tutees to participate in the interactions. From this study’s transcriptions and analyses, tutors can understand that their discourse choices often reinforce linguistic dominance, thereby silencing students and erasing their identities as multilingual writers. As a result, tutors must be more conscious of their choices to avoid creating a power imbalance during writing center sessions. Tutors who work with ML writers can switch

their focus from correction to encouraging interaction and collaboration so learning occurs while still maintaining the tutee’s voice and identity in their writing.

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REVIEW OF RECONSTRUCTING RESPONSE TO STUDENT WRITING: A NATIONAL STUDY FROM ACROSS THE CURRICULUM Mary Hedengren Brigham Young University mary.hedengren@gmail.com Melzer, Dan. Reconstructing Response to Student Writing: A National Study from Across the Curriculum. Utah State University Press, 2023. 194 pages.

There is plenty to be optimistic about in Dan Melzer’s Reconstructing Response to Student Writing: A National Study from Across the Curriculum. First, writing is in fact happening across the curriculum and in all kinds of institutions across the country. Melzer collected ePortfolios from 70 institutions and from a wide range of disciplines, as he seeks to analyze the responses students receive from their peers and professors alike.

Not only are instructors requiring writing, but also these WAC instructors are incorporating some of the best practices composition has been trumpeting for decades- multiple drafts, peer response, writing to learn, reflection, and more (143). These disciplinarily-diverse faculty have applied the practices that were taught to them, not in grad school, but most likely through the hard work of WAC coordinators, centers for teaching and instruction, writing centers, and other campus writing programs. The training luncheons are paying off!

But the best news may be that the black box of peer feedback is more encouraging and more helpful than instructors perhaps assume. Melzer reports that although peer response scripts that require a mere yes/no response are just as brief as you’d expect (108), overall, students reflecting on their peer review “point out the ways that peer feedback helped them refine or refocus their entire essay” (104) and that the peer review “provides a balance of praise and constructive criticism even when there is no peer response script” (102). Peer response, according to Melzer “is more likely than teacher response to include praise comments, more focused on global rather than local issues and more specific” (99). If we consider peer writing tutors as a type of peer review, writing centers specifically come across quite well in the research. Melzer declares that students “report being highly satisfied with the feedback they receive from tutors” and that “tutors are focused on the content of their writing” and inspire students to make significant revisions (131).

The good news about peer review continues.

Students participating in peer review show two sophisticated metacognitive skills. The first is the ability to extrapolate revisions from a selection of peer review

to their whole project. One student reflects how even though the feedback was “only related to the first subclaim…[it] guided me through my second sub-claim; I made sure not to make the same mistakes,” while another student is able to “apply the main idea behind [the reviewer’s] criticisms to the last two pages” of unreviewed work (96). This is especially encouraging to those of us in writing centers who find that time constraints often limit us to looking over a mere fraction of a student project. Students can, and do, apply the discussion to the whole project.

The other skill, which writing center tutors will recognize immediately, is how looking at someone else’s writing improves the writing of the reviewer. Melzer reports that “one of the strongest patterns in my research is students reflecting on how much they learned from reading their peers’ drafts and how they were able to apply what they learned to improve their own” writing (94). Even students who were skeptical or dismissive of the quality of feedback they received during peer review reflected positively about the process itself. Those students who don’t think their classmates write well still value how peer review gives them new ideas and highlights what to avoid doing (93). Students who can transfer lessons about writing from a peer to their own work stand to gain double through the process of peer response.

With all this cheery good news, what’s the bad news? I’m afraid it’s on the instructor side. Melzer finds that “teachers in my study often focus on lower-order concerns in their comments” (124) and can, at times, edge into “a tone of frustration or even anger” (74).

Melzer reports a paucity of multimodality in the responses that teachers provide on student writing.

Although Melzer champions recording screencasts and other methods that embrace the human voice (86-7), he finds few examples and urges that instructors “carefully consider the affordances and constraints of whatever mode of response they choose” (87). Most shockingly, a third of instructor comments were still handwritten, and Melzer was “not surprised to find many of these handwritten comments are illegible” (83). And overall, while “most students avoid taking control of their peers’ drafts,” Melzer found more “examples of teachers wrestling control of drafts from students” (100).

Review of Reconstructing Response to Student Writing • 118 But beyond the nuts and bolts, and before we start planning a workshop to address these clear and easily corrected failings, the larger problem according to Melzer is that we have perpetuated an obsession with grades over learning and have not prioritized transfer outside of the classroom. He makes much of the fact that only a few dozen of the thousands of teacher comments discussed transfer. “The type of response that the research shows is most impactful is the type of response that is the rarest in my study,” writes Melzer (135), who recommends instead that faculty “think of response in terms of programs, departments and the entire institution” in encouraging vertical transfer of skills (137). The WAC work of creating shared language within programs, encouraging long-term reflection assignments and more (137) feels a little daunting on the institutional level, regardless of how effective it would be. But for Melzer this is the next step for WAC work: to “shift our focus in assigning and responding to writing, to emphasize not just process and growth but transfer” to other classes, to future professional writing and to personal writing (144).

Melzer is, perhaps, too iconoclastic about changing our institutional obsession with grades. He is palpably frustrated that “many of the students in my research associate writing with sniffing out the rules of the game, following those rules blindly, and obtaining that A, self-efficacy be damned” (142), but it’s a big step to say that “gradeless universities can be looked upon as the ideal model for encouraging writing development” and surely declarations like “The less grading, the more writing development” (146) will need much further research to substantiate. Further research in WAC about the relationship between low-stakes grading, no grading, and how student writing develops could be a fertile field for us to develop.

Melzer’s book is an important one for WAC programs and writing centers. It contains a rich repository of student reflection on response in their own words, which we can compare and correlate to the student responses we collect in our own classes and writing centers. We can see that students across the country have similar experiences with writing response to what we in writing centers and WAC find, and that, by and large, those experiences are positive and formative. Also, Melzer gives us a blueprint of what’s going well and where the field can develop. Knowing that peer review can be trusted to develop student writing on two fronts, that open-ended questions can lead to fruitful review conversations, and that we still have a way to go in how we train instructors to respond to student writing, we can then seek targeted change in our own contexts. I myself read this book slowly, not

because it was inaccessible, but because I had to open next semester’s syllabi and start making revisions as I read along.

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