During my junior and senior years of college, I signed up to work part-time at my school’s tutoring/writing center. While some of my fellow tutors were incredibly intelligent, high-achieving students, in general, the writing center was not terribly discriminate when it came to hiring tutors. On more than one occasion, I witnessed a tutor scan a student paper, fix a few grammatical errors, and hand it back to the owner, simply stating, “This is really good!”
While I am not suggesting that this is common phenomenon in most writing centers, it was a thought that came to mind while reading Hobson’s “Writing Center Pedagogy.” While I agreed wholeheartedly with Hobson’s assertions about the benefits of writing centers, I couldn’t help but have a few questions. If writing centers are, as Hobson claims, “sites within largely impersonal educational structures where students can receive individual attention” then writing centers should also continually make sure that these sites are offering the best help to student possible (169).
There is a common myth about writing centers; that they are a place where “dumb” students go to get help. Although this is untrue, I think it is a common misconception that hinders students from taking advantage of the centers (even if they really need them). Although representatives from writing centers present in class or teachers encourage visits, there is still only a small chance that students will actually take their work to the centers.
After convincing (or in some cases, mandating) a student to visit the writing center, how can we as teachers guarantee the quality of the tutor employed to teach our students? At many larger universities, it is possible to have extensive staff training (and if this training aligns with composition studies, so much the better) but this is not necessarily the case at smaller institutions. Just because someone is familiar (or excels in) a particular discipline, it does not necessarily mean that a person will good at explaining concepts to others.
However, if we include mandatory composition training, or insist that English majors be the only tutors, we are excluding a large population of potentially great writers. Just because someone is a physics major, does not necessarily mean that he or she is not as gifted of a writer as an English student. This leads me to question how to evaluate the effectiveness of tutors, which Hobson doesn’t really discuss. He mentions that writing centers can establish principles that “can be parsed out of the writing center community’s theoretical and methodological commitment to individualized instruction and collaborative leaning” but doesn’t explain how those principles are established (169). Should there be some sort of routine evaluation for tutors? A written test they must pass in order to tutor others? Is that unfair?
Looking back at this post, I realize that I seem to be cataloging the negative qualities of writing centers, when I don’t believe they are detrimental. I actually think that writing centers can be extremely helpful, especially when a school takes care that the student tutors are equipped and qualified to help others. After all, writing centers are indeed a “unique pedagogical space,” and should be a place where tutors and students can engage in meaningful relationships and mutual learning.
Impossible Things Before Breakfast 