View Session 2
1:45 - 3:00 pm

View Session 3
3:15 - 4:30 pm

SESSION THREE

3:15-4:30 PM

Integrating Circuits toward a USB Connect:
Faculty, Students, and consultants [U]nifying, [S]ounding off, [B]enefiting One Another

Harry Denny, Director, Writing Centers, Queens & Staten Island, St. John's University Staten Island, NY
Chris Leary, Assistant Director, Writing Center
Anthony Eid, Tutor
Joseph Kenny, Tutor
Hadia Sheerazi, Tutor

Consultants and administrators from St. John's University seek to share experiences concerning the expectations that various stakeholders bring to sessions in writing centers. After asking panel participants to free-write on this topic, we'll show video interviews shot prior to the conference that juxtapose student, faculty, and consultants; thoughts on writing center work. Over the course of the presentation, we hope to learn from participants and each other some strategies and approaches for negotiating the different interests that influence the direction of a tutoring session.

The Uconn Writing Center and the Connecticut Writing Project: Partnership Possibilities for Outreach.

Mary Isbell, Outreach Coordinator, Writing Center, University of Connecticut Storrs, CT
Jason Courtmanche, Ph.D., Director, Connecticut Writing Project, Department of English
Dimpi Parikh, Undergraduate Writing Associate
Lydia Smith, Undergraduate Writing Associate

We will present a multi-pronged roundtable discussion of our community-based, peer-to-peer wirting-partnership model that includes Uconn Writing Center, CT Writing Project, Hartford Public High School, and Griswold High School.

Alternative Approaches to Training Writing Center Staff: How Science Specialists Can Enhance the Work of Writing Centers

Becca Yuan, Director, Robert J. Connors Writing Center, University of New Hampshire Durham, NH
Joleen Hanson, Writing Assistant
Jeff Eaton, Writing Assistant (Tutor)
Kenyon Stratton, Writing Assistant (Tutor)
Jenna Aueior, Writing Assistant (Tutor)
Andrea Simoneau, Writing Assistant (Tutor)

Participants will experience and discuss staff training practices intended to help tutors conference effectively with writers in science and engineering classes. The training exercises presented will include a role play and an opportunity to respond to a writer's questions about a draft lab report. participants will receive a hand out about writing lab reports. They will hear about one writing center's rationale for cultivating "science specialist" tutors, and a limited study of their effectiveness.

Revisit, Rewrite, Revise: A Collaboration between Writing Tutors and Administrators to Reshape Writing Tutor Practice

Sarah Balzer, Writing and Literacy Coordinator, Lehman College, CUNY Bronx, NY
Carolyn Steinhoff, Learning Skills Specialist
Misha Jemison, Tutor
Martin Walker, Tutor

Panel members will discuss a collaboration between writing tutors and administrators to create a series of guides to support writing tutoring. The presence of outdated materials inconsistent with our center's guiding principles sparked the project. Administrators drafted guides and then work shopped them with all 15 writing tutors. With the guides and video documentation of the meetings, tutors and administrators will introduce alternative methods of tutoring writing, report on ways we currently use the guides, and reflect upon this collaborative approach to staff development.

Alternative Contexts for Writing Center Theory: Mentoring ESOL Students in a Public Speaking Class

Dr. Laura Greenfield, Coordinator, The Speaking, Arguing and Writing Program,Mount Holyoke College South Hadley, MA
Kirbi Kidd, Undergraduate Peer Mentor
Judith Frank, Undergraduate Peer Mentor
Sarah Gray, Undergraduate Peer Mentor

What can we learn from existing writing center theory to offer effective mentoring in public speaking for ESOL students, what theories stand to be deleted, and what alternative theories might we imagine? This dynamic panel will discuss the challenges and rewards of combining a public speaking class for ESOL students with peer mentors from a advanced peer mentoring course.

Error Connecting with Server: Case Study Analyses of Writers with Autism

Meredith Barrett, Student Consultant, Writing Center, Plymouth State University Plymouth, NH
Amanda Cook, Student Writing Consultant
Jess Dube, Student Writing Consultant
Naomi Fosher, Student Writing Consultant
Christie Haskel, Student Writing Consultant
Weston Thompson, Student Writing Consultant

Students with Asperger's Syndrome have become increasingly common in higher education. Two students with Asperger's who had very different personalities and needs frequented our Writing Center. In attempts to serve them and improve processes, we responded with individualized methods and regulations. We would like to present both cases and reflect on their outcomes. Then we will prompt participants' reflection and perspectives in a collaborative round-table discussion on the effectiveness and appropriateness of our strategies

Facing New Challenges of Age and Experience

Jennifer Jefferson, Writing Center Director, , Endicott College
Erica Schmitt, Peer Tutoring Coordinator
Christi Cartwright, Peer Tutor
Jessica Rockowitz, Peer Tutor

At Endicott College, students complete a full year of senior thesis research. Until now, these students have worked exclusively with professional tutoring staff. Currently, we are shifting, in part from necessity and in part from our belief in the ability of undergraduate tutors, to having peer tutors work with seniors. Our panel will discuss issues pertaining to the ages, knowledge, and experience of tutors working with senior thesis projects.

Discourse Control: Simultaneous Discourses in the Writing Center Minimalist Tutoring and Dispersed Control Directing the Controlled: Passive Suggestions for Compositional Independence

Samuel Robinson, Writing Center Coordinator, University of Connecticut, Waterbury, CT
Adam Ciullo, Peer Tutor
Richard A. Basile, Peer Tutor

The first speaker will consider the extent to which a writing center can maintain coherence while encouraging alternative discourses for some students but not for others. The second speaker will consider the ideas of controlling forces in the writing center as they are connected to a student writer's growth as a student. For many freshman writing is akin to an identity crisis. Students struggle to write both what they believe and what they think their professor wants them to believe. If a tutor wants to assist this type of student they must be passive-directive. But how passive and/or directive must a tutor be? If over directive the tutor could further stifle the student's belief. If too passive then what difference can the tutor make?

A Dynamic and Innovative Approach to Teaching Basic Writers: Renewed Collaborative Strategies of a Writing Support Team

Louise Pelletier, Director of Writing Support Services, Western New England College Springfield, MA
Lisa Drnec Kerr, Director of Writing Resource Center
Timothy Dannay, Writing Fellow
Nichole Emonds, Writing Center Student Supervisor
Asron Kraus, Tutor
Alex Mazzaferro, Tuto

This interactive presentation will provide an alternative model for supporting writers based on a dialogic model that positions tutors as key players within an ongoing tutorial system. The first presenter will discuss issues of control that permeate pedagogy and administration. The second presenter will provide an overview of a newly designed tutor training program. The third presentation will be delivered by student tutors who will share their experiences as members of the writing support team.

View Session 2
1:45 - 3:00 pm

View Session 3
3:15 - 4:30 pm