Group items tagged

Suggests that writing centers should look to Long's Reactive Behavior Patters in order to better understand writer and writing center consultant behavior.

a discussion of policies related to tutee behavior in the center see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24551507

ABSTRACT. This article investigates tutor dominance in academic writing tutorials within the framework of institutional discourse. Tutor gender and tutee gender and language proficiency, as well as the interaction of the three, are considered as exponents of interactant dominance. Pragmatic measures of tutor dominance selected are frequency of directives, directive type, and mitigation strategies. Analysis indicates that these features of tutors' speech remain relatively constant in interactions with male and female tutees or with native and nonnative speakers of English. These results suggest that institutional context outweighs gender and language proficiency in the definition of participant roles and the sanctioning of tutor dominance behaviors.

From abstract: ncludes recommendations for "tutor preparation and in-service training" that "emphasize less idealized, more pragmatic conceptualization of tutor roles and actions and focus on behaviors demonstrated as constitutive of success"

a discussion of how to promote collaboration and professionalism among staff members in conflict discussion continues: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=1822108

a discussion on how to cope with students who make consultants uncomfortable by scheduling multiple appointments, attempting to see consultants outside of hours, etc.

From Neal Lerner's July 2011 message to WCenter: Folks, the latest issue (July 2011) of the Journal of Writing Research includes a very impressive study by James Williams and Seiji Takaku of the relationship between college students' self-efficacy, help-seeking behaviors, writing center visits, and writing performance. Here's a link to a pdf of the study: http://www.jowr.org/articles/vol3_1/JoWR_2011_vol3_nr1_Williams_Takaku.pdf Here's a snippet to take to your dean: "The analysis showed that those students who frequently obtained writing center tutoring received higher grades in composition than those who did not, regardless of their ESL or native-English-speaker status. The frequency of writing center tutoring seemed to be especially valuable for the ESL students, who outperform their domestic cohorts, receiving significantly higher grades in composition."

handing a situation where tutors aren't getting along

Includes sample honor codes

a discussion of how to handle tutors with a gossip problem

discussion of swearing policies; also includes policies on pay rates for tutors (from 2008)

discussing how to handle students who don't want to be in the writing center