Central to the theorizing that is current in writing center scholarship is the concept of collaboration between tutors and students. Because of the overarching framework of social constructivism that currently drives theorizing in a multitude of disciplines—e.g., composition, literature, history, sociology, anthropology—it is not surprising that writing center scholars also use this framework to question the kind of knowledge that tutors create in tutorial sessions (see Grimm 1999, Murphy 1995, Carino 1995, Hobson 1994). Are tutors simply replicating the hierarchical paradigms of knowledge construction in which academia seems to be fully invested? Or are they capable of "thinking outside the box" because they are peers rather than teachers?
My interest in how tutors theorize their practice in the writing center and how the writing center literature theorizes itself has been central to my work as a writing center director for the past 10 years. The small liberal arts college where I teach and direct the writing center has a staff of all-female undergraduate tutors, and I am constantly surprised by their fresh take on writing center theory and practice. They are bright and they question everything. Since this is exactly what a women’s college should be teaching young women to do, I encourage that stance in our writing center, and especially in the course tutors are required to take with me before they begin tutoring. In this paper, I will examine tutors’ journal responses written during a tutor training class held in the Fall of 2003. In these responses, tutors respond directly to articles which are often considered central to understanding the concepts of collaboration, control, socially constructed knowledge, and the writing center as a site of resistance--concepts upon which writing center theory is often built. An important aspect of these journals is that they are dialogic. That is, they are entered on a Blackboard discussion forum that allows each tutor to read the other tutors’ journals and respond to them. The tutors’ responses seem to reveal a gap between what tutors understand about their own tutorial practices and what theorists believe to be true. In examining the tutors’ responses, I find that theorists sometimes recast practice to fit their theoretical constructs; as a result, tutors do not always see the same connections between theory and practice that theorists do. By listening to tutors’ voices as they critique writing center theory, I believe we can better understand how to use theory as a jumping off place for tutor training, rather than as an ending point.
The 2nd Brigade of 101st Airborne Division found out in the summer of 2004 that they had to prepare for the war in the Middle East more particularly for Iraq. With Colonel Todd Ebel in Command of the 2nd Division with a year to prepare over 3,400 men and woman he got right to work. Colonel Ebel started by choosing his staff and who he thought was fit to take charge and lead this ever more complicated war. It was a huge religious civil war taking place in Iraq at the time with the Sunnis at war against the Shi’ite and after the capture of Saddam insurgency started uprising immediately. This uprising along with the uprising of Muqtada al-Sadr a key leader that had lots of violent followers that soon grew into a form of a militia called Mahdi Army which became another huge problem for the U.S. because the line between a legitamite populist movement and a huge theocratic organized-crime and terror ring was a thin one. The 2nd Brigade Infantry Battalions consisted of 1-502nd (First Strike) and 2-502nd (Strike Force) and 2nd brigade as a whole is known as the “Black Hearts”. Ebel’s mission was to deny insurgent’s access to Baghdad through his AO and as intelligence increased to uproot and destroy insurgent safe havens, while also training the IA so they could ensure the stability of the region later on. Ebel chose Lt. Col. Kunk as commander of “First Strike” 1-502nd and Lt. Col. Haycock as commander of “Strike Force” 2-502nd. By Ebel’s personality evaluations of Kunk and Haycock he decided that Kunk would work in the area that involved him being more engaging where populist centers were and work with local officials and Haycock more in the fighting areas. Kunk was in command of 3 rifle companies, 1 weapons company, 1 logistics company...
Peter Singer, in his influential essay “Famine, Affluence and Poverty”, argues that affluent people have the moral obligation to contribute to charity in order to save the poor from suffering; any spending on luxuries would be unjustified as long as it can be used to improve other’s lives. In developing his argument, Singer involves one crucial premise known as the Principle of Sacrifice—“If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it” . To show that such principle has the property to be held universal, Singer refers to a scenario in which a person witnesses a drowning child. Most people, by common sense, hold that the witness has the moral duty to rescue the child despite some potential costs. Since letting people die in poverty is no different from watching a child drowning without offering any help, Singer goes on and concludes that affluent people have the moral duty to keep donating to the poor until an increment of money makes no further contribution.
By March 26, 1945, Patton’s 3rd Army arrived to the hills overlooking the towns of Aschaffenburg and Schweinheim. While there, Gen Patton received orders from Gen Bradley to start moving further north, and coincidentally, he received military intelligence that his son in law LTC John Waters was being held captive as a POW at the OFLAG XIII-B located in Hammelburg. It was at this time that he ordered the raid to liberate the POWs from the Hammelburg camp. Selected to organize the attack was LTC Creighton Abrams, commander of the Combatant Command B (CCB), 37th Armorer Regiment. He assigned LTC Harold Cohen to lead the attack, but due to a severe case of hemorrhoids, he had to be removed from the mission. After being removed, he recommended CPT ...
This paper explores Peter Singer’s argument, in Famine, Affluence, and Morality, that we have morally required obligations to those in need. The explanation of his argument and conclusion, if accepted, would dictate changes to our lifestyle as well as our conceptions of duty and charity, and would be particularly demanding of the affluent. In response to the central case presented by Singer, John Kekes offers his version, which he labels the and points out some objections. Revisions of the principle provide some response to the objections, but raise additional problems. Yet, in the end, the revisions provide support for Singer’s basic argument that, in some way, we ought to help those in need.
‘Helping students meet the challenges of academic writing’ by Fernsten and Reda is an interesting study how reflective writing practices can be useful for marginalized students, who are struggling with “negative writer self-identity. The possible causes according to Fernsten & Reda are, “issues such as race, class and gender that are marginalized factors for many basic writers”, in addition to the expectations of the dominant academic culture. However, even though Fernsten & Reda illuminated the ‘potential conflicts’ within the academic world, they have failed to provide conclusive evidence that supports their argument regarding their solution. Their reliance on dated research that provides a one sided historical perspective, may no longer accurately reflect current socio/economic issues. In addition, education has been evolving to an inclusive curriculum approach, as immigrated children enter the school system in record numbers. “Persons obtaining legal permanent status in the U.S from the year 2000-2010 are roughly eleven million” (Homeland Security,pg.10/2010). Fernsten & Reda’s confidence of their own limited teaching practices without legitimate comparables from an empirical study leads to their underlying assumptions about the true effectiveness of reflective writing strategies and the causes they believe are associated to a student’s socio/economic background.
In Downs and Wardle’s article, they argue and identify the flaws in teaching writing in college. Demonstrating the misconceptions that academic writing is universal, but rather specialized in each case. Citing studies and opinions from esteemed professionals, Downs & Wardle state their points and illuminate the problem in today’s many colleges.
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
In my 1109 class our task for eight weeks was to observe a tutor and writer working together during fifty minute sessions. This took place at the Writer’s Studio here on Newark’s OSU campus. The tutor I observed was Wyatt Bowman and the student was Adam Bielby. Ad...
The book Black Hearts by Jim Frederick is an in-depth narrative about the 1st platoon, Bravo Company 1-502nd Infantry 101st Airborne Division deployed to Iraq in 2005. The leadership failures documented in this book range all the way from the general officer level down to the lowest private. LT general Ricardo Sanchez failed to understand the climate his command group was entering as they were deployed into Iraq. From then on the entire leadership failures continued to compound upon each other with improper time to plan. It is customary to have a six month lead time to have a proper battle hand off when preparing to take over an AO from another unit. To compound this problem, the entire time the 502nd was in pre-deployment training, they were preparing for the rigors of urban combat. In reality, they were given six weeks to recon their new area of responsibility and were going to a countryside crafted by the heavens for guerilla warfare. As Colonel Ebel said in the book, “It is not going to be an easy road. They are not even sure of what they have in the area. It just feels bad. We can expect a real fight.”
Bouton, Clark, and Russell Y Clark. “Learning in Groups.” Rolf Norgaard 400. Composing Knowledge; Readings for College Writers. Ed. Rolf Norgaard. Boston:Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2007. 239-251. Print.
College writing professors teach writing in a variety of ways around the United States and the world. The reason for this is that some professors are trying to teach their students a different aspect of writing an essay or a paper. Two views on this particular subject that I found interesting were Maxine Hairston’s essay "Diversity, Ideology, and Teaching Writing" and also Thomas Bray’s newspaper article "Memorial Day and Multiculturalism". These essays are two totally different views on how diversity and multiculturalism is to be applied in America or taught in the college writing classroom.
While the difficulties in teaching students not only to be good writers, but also to enjoy writing are easy to complain about, they are not immediately changeable. Consequently, as a teacher of young writers, one must find a way to make the system work. Ross Borden found a way with me, and I feel I have found a way with many of my students, but not all of them. So I continue to read, and I continue to write, and I continue to teach, though I also continue to struggle with the many problems surrounding the field.
Every animal on the planet is capable of communicating, be it verbally, physically, or possibly by some means yet discovered. Writing on the other hand is a form of communication exclusive to human beings (and maybe the occasional ape). Children are taught to read and write almost as soon as they can speak. Writing becomes a part of everyday life, and because of this it is easy to forget that writing "is a means of "communication [one] must consciously learn" (Heffernan and Lincoln 3). For this reason writing in college can be a challenge for even the most skilled of writers. While the basics of academic writing may seem like common knowledge, knowing them and understanding them can prove to be quite different. In the writing center it is our job to help writers take what they know about writing, and begin to understand it. Understanding is the basis for ...
According to the researchers, “conceptualizing this transition as a social/cognitive act of entering a discourse emphasizes both the problem-solving effort of a student learning to negotiate a new situation and the role the situation will play in what is learned” (p. 222). The view that writing is typically a socially situated, communicative act is later incorporated into Flower’s (1994) socio-cognitive theory of writing. In the social cognitive curriculum students are taught as apprentices in negotiating an academic community, and in the process develop strategic knowledge. Writing skills are acquired and used through negotiated interaction with real audience expectations, such as in peer group responses. Instruction should, then, afford students the opportunity to participate in transactions with their own texts and the texts of others (Grabe & Kaplan, 1996). By guiding students toward a conscious awareness of how an audience will interpret their work, learners then learn to write with a “readerly” sensitivity (Kern,
Many of our students are just learning to "trust" themselves as writers.Most haven't had the opportunity in high school to explore what writing can do for their thinking; they have been taught that "writing" is a product produced for a teacher.Student-centered pedagogy seeks to de-center teacher authority, and has moved away from traditional methods such as the lecture format to more group discussion.