Group items tagged

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."

a discussion of how directors handle faculty complaints a similar conversation here: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=17201123 a similar conversation here: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24467351

a discussion of the types of WC work beyond tutoring that tutors perform

"Using Regionally Oriented Materials in a Writing Center" (on dialect); "A Five-Minute Diagnostic for Writing Labs" (predicting student performance via error-finding exercise); reports from labs; "Handbook for Tutors" (description of an in-house training manual)

includes sample evals and questionnaires

Article in NCTE's Forum by Nicole Caswell, Jackie Grutsch McKinney, and Rebecca Jackson, "A Glimpse into the Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors." pp. A3-7. This issue of Forum focuses on "Issues about Part-Time and Contingent Faculty." Vol. 18.1 (Fall 2014). Access on the NCTE site is limited to NCTE members, but readers may have access through institutional libraries with databases of online publications. Article focuses on who does the work of directing and what work do new directors perform.