...INSIDE......FROM THE EDITOR...

THE RITING LABN E W S L E T T E R

WVolume 28, Number 1 Promoting the exchange of voices and ideas in one-to-one teaching of writing September, 2003

Collaborative work,competitivestudents, counter-narrative: A talefrom out of (theacademy’s) bounds

CATS CLAW is a writing centersatellite in which student-athletes canimprove their composition skills andalso expand their sense(s) of what itmight mean to be writers in andmembers of an academic communitythat often defines them in limitingways. Working within the confinesof an old-fashioned “study hall,” Ihave, for the past three years, at-tempted to coordinate and accommo-date the interests and requirements ofa high-powered athletics departmentand a politically potent compositionboard, and erstwhile manage to servethe varied interests of students, ad-ministrators, academics, and myself.

That’s a mouthful. One thing is forsure – actually pulling this off hasbeen equally interesting. Enteringmy third year of teaching collegewriting, I still have spent more timeon the “other side of the ball,” so tospeak, having competed as a varsity

Collaborative Work,Competitive Students,Counter-Narrative: A Talefrom Out of (theAcademy’s) Bounds

• William Broussard 1

Superheroes

• E. Stone Shiflet 7

Conference Calendar 8

Honoring Lady FallsBrown

• Tim Hadley 9

“Sins of a Writing God-dess”

Tutors’ Columns:

• Evelyn Biler Menz 10

“Talking About My Omelet:Why and How?”

• Jui-Chuan Chang 11

Welcome back to a new academicyear, and welcome to Volume 28 of theWriting Lab Newsletter. WilliamBroussard starts us off by offering his ra-tionale for establishing a satellite centerin an athletic department. Several callsfor proposals invite us to contribute tocollections of writing center issues, andfor those of us who meet daily onWCenter, we can enjoy the tribute toLady Falls Brown, WCenter’s originatorand listowner, on her retirement. E.Stone Shiflet shares methods of playingwith metaphors, and Evelyn Biler Menzand Jui-Chuan Chang remind us howmuch tutors educate us all about tutoringconcerns.

In addition to writing articles, you toocan contribute to the newsletter in otherways. If your Web site has new content,material that will be useful for others tolink to, or other aspects you’d like toshare, please send me (harrism@cc.purdue.edu) the URL and a few sen-tences describing what you are drawingattention to (see page 15). Finally, ifyour region has this year’s conferencedate set and would like a notice in thenewsletter, send that along too.

We have much to share and much todo in this coming year, and I hope thenewsletter will contribute to these ef-forts.

• Muriel Harris, editor

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The Writing Lab Newsletter, published inten monthly issues from September toJune by the Department of English,Purdue University, is a publication of theInternational Writing Centers Association,an NCTE Assembly, and is a member ofthe NCTE Information ExchangeAgreement.ISSN 1040-3779. All Rightsand Title reserved unless permission isgranted by Purdue University. Materialwill not be reproduced in any formwithout express written permission.

Editor: Muriel HarrisManaging Editor: Mary Jo TurleyEnglish Dept., Purdue University, 500Oval Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2038 (765)494-7268.e-mail: harrism@cc.purdue.edu

mjturley@purdue.eduweb site:http://owl.english.purdue.edu/lab/

newsletter/index.html

Subscriptions: The newsletter has nobilling procedures. Yearly payments of$15 (U.S. $20 in Canada) are requested,and checks must be received four weeksprior to the month of expiration to ensurethat subscribers do not miss an issue.Please make checks payable to PurdueUniversity and send to the ManagingEditor. Prepayment is requested for allsubscriptions.

Manuscripts: Recommended length forarticles is approximately 2500-3000words, 1500 words for reviews andTutors’ Column essays. If possible, pleasesend as attached files or as cut-and-pastein an e-mail to mjturley@ purdue.edu.Otherwise, send a 3 and 1/2 in. disk withthe file, along with the paper copy. Pleaseenclose a self-addressed envelope withreturn postage not pasted to the envelope.The deadline for announcements is 45days prior to the month of issue (e.g.August 15 for October issue).

football player at Northwestern St.University (La.). To me, thewounds are still fresh – I can stillremember encountering teacherswho felt as if athletics had no placein the academy.

The scouting report: A prefaceMedia outlets routinely depict

professional athletes in America aslarger than life characters who arepurveyors of materialism, lawless-ness, and greed. In turn, its athletes(particularly males in the “Big

Three” Sports, baseball, basketball,and football) are constructed as thebeneficiaries of undeserved, exorbitantwealth and affluence. These traits areoften unwittingly transposed into col-lege athletes, leading many membersof campus faculty, staff, and even fel-low students to believe that collegeathletes (again, mostly male) are of thesame ilk, benefiting by taking awayscholarships from more deserving stu-dents and receiving leniency in termsof class attendance and evaluation.This construction, coupled with unfor-tunate events involving academicfraud/plagiarism at Division I athleticsprograms, pervasive lore regarding ex-periences with college student-athletes,and a lack of publications in the fieldof Rhet/Comp on the subject has led toa general uneasiness about workingwith college student-athletes on thepart of writing programs, particularlyin writing center settings.

Few are the opportunities in whichcollege student-athletes actually havethe opportunities to represent them-selves—opportunities to critique andconfront the stereotypes that threatentheir academic careers, psychologicalwell-being, and for a select few, theirfuture livelihood. Because thesemyths/stereotypes represent ‘the natu-ral order of things’ to so many, fewstudent-athletes or faculty are willingto examine their troubled and trouble-some relationship to one another onmany college campuses, nor are manywilling to reconsider their unwilling-ness to work with one another. This isevinced by a recent experience I hadwith a varsity football player withwhom I worked on a revision assign-ment from his first-year compositioncourse. After receiving a D+ on hisfirst draft, the student began the ses-sion by berating the instructor, accus-ing him of grading him unfairly. Afterallowing the student to vent, and assur-ing that the student’s misgiving wasprobably unfounded (the student’s pa-per was average, and to boot, wasmissing a “Works Cited” page, a keycomponent of all research assign-

ments), we addressed the teacher’scomments and he later completed therevision. Weeks later, he received theevaluated essay with a score of a B+— the highest score in the class.Though he was quite pleased with thescore, jubilant even, he became reticentwhen I reminded him that the sameteacher who “hated student-athletes”had just given him one of the highestscores in the class.

This is the sort of dilemma I facewhen I work with student-athletes whodo not feel welcome in the culture ofthe academy. In fact, it cuts bothways. In my experiences as an instruc-tor of first year composition, I have of-ten dealt with instructors who make thesame sorts of generalized, unfoundedcomments about student-athletes. Forexample, recently, at a regional writingcenter conference presentation, Iopened up with the question “Who areStudent-Athletes?” The unified, andsomewhat troubling response from theaudience of college/community collegeEnglish instructors was that they werea) Poor students, b) Poor writers, andc) Not concerned with/interested inacademics.

After directed questioning, it was re-vealed that these generalizations werebased on limited experiences with stu-dent-athletes, and based more onteacher lore and negative public senti-ment about student-athletes and theirrelationship (or perceived lack of one)to the academy. This lore is informedby many things such as isolated experi-ences, media depictions of college andprofessional athletes as money-hungryfame seekers, or maybe the resentmenttoward professional athletes who signmillion-dollar contracts (whom pre-cious few of these student-athletes willever become) while educators struggleto make ends meet. The result of themisperceived privilege of student-ath-letes and their nihilistic/apathetic reac-tion to this resentment is a discordantstate in which there are no open linesof communication between the in-volved groups. In many cases, this has

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created a wall between athletic depart-ments and academies who are bothschizophrenic with the fear that one isout to get the other, and meanwhile,student-athletes suffer because whilethey may be successful at athletics, inthe academy, they are often not evenallowed on the field of play.

When students are socially con-structed as “uninterested” and “unmo-tivated” on one end and alienated fromtheir labor on the other before theyever enter their classrooms, then whathope do they have of succeedingwithin its walls unless the stereotypesare destroyed? The answer, I propose,is to find ways to help student-athletesdevelop critical consciousness, givethem the recourse to develop pride inthemselves through their academicwork and their relationship to the acad-emy, and advocate their attempts toachieve these ends. The process be-gins with opening up the channels ofcommunication between groups whohave, for a number of reasons political,social, and economical, created animpasse.

The “game” face: Material cultureof a student-athlete writingcenter satellite

Tonight is as any other. An inordi-nate number of students have walkedthrough the double doors down here,Room 109F, in the McKale AthleticCenter, home of the University of Ari-zona Athletic Department. Metaphoricin its imagery, the tutorial program,STARTFAST, takes place in this corri-dor of classrooms and carrels in thebasement, and the students walkingthrough those doors are student-ath-letes: football players, gymnasts, golf-ers, tracksters. Instead of carryingballs and shoes, they are toting text-books and classnotes. Instead of in-quiring about snap counts and courtpresses, they raise questions aboutPlato, the “Big Boom,” and social con-struction. Other than the occasionaljog to the computer lab, or the adroitcatch of a pencil as it falls from thetable, this space does not require these

students to be particularly athletic.But I can be quite sure that this is apart of their identity that is never farfrom their minds, tackling Descartes,DeCerteau, and Derrida though wemay.

I run a writing center satellite for stu-dent-athletes, under the aegis of theEnglish Department and the WritingProgram, and under the sponsorship ofthe Athletic Department. Four days aweek, from 5:00 to 9:30 pm, we (twowriting tutors and myself, the coordi-nator of the program) work with thestudent-athletes on their writing as-signments—from invention to revision.Though that’s not particularly interest-ing or out of the ordinary, perhaps thespace in which we do this work is in-teresting, and rather extraordinary.

Our writing center satellite is in thebasement of the McKale Sports Arena.To get there, I walk by the footballteam’s locker room, then the trainingroom, and all the while, my walk en-circles the basketball arena that is oftenpacked with nearly 15,000 for our na-tionally ranked team’s home games.My room is directly across from thefootball team’s “ready room,” and I’veoccasionally been displaced by the me-dia for post-game interviews. In fact,at least a half a dozen times a semester,we cancel hours completely because ofhome basketball games. It wouldn’tmatter if we didn’t cancel hours . . .finding a parking space would be im-possible on those nights, anyway.

Our room is a meeting room, eighttables and twenty-four chairs evenlyspaced throughout. Just over mystudent’s head, I see the outlines offootball players . . . a mural on thewall in red, white, and blue. The muralis nearly seven feet high and depicts afootball player making a block whilethe running back judiciously cuts backagainst the grain to make an extra yard.His number is 26.

As I diagram sentences on the dry-erase board, I can clearly observe

“ghosts” . . . outlines of the “x’s ando’s” one proverbially associates withfootball plays. I erase them and beginto explain the receiver of the action ina sentence with passive voice. In thefront of the room, there is a VCR and abox full of tapes. The labels on thetapes say things like “New MexicoState vs. UNLV: 9/14/98.” And pro-truding from the ceiling is a film pro-jector. A cursory analysis of thesmells, murals, and blocking schemesquickly reveals that it is the offensiveline’s meeting room, a place wherefootball players and coaches watch thefilm of their opponents to learn abouttheir opposing team’s personnel beforegameday. Meanwhile, my student andI talk about the consequences of usingpassive voice —though, I would as-sume I speak with less grit, less ur-gency, than the coach who warns aboutthe consequences of eyeing the defen-sive end’s drop too closely during azone blitz, and failing to recognize theoncoming strong safety.

As the WC Satellite coordinator forthe University of Arizona AthleticsDepartment, I am given the opportu-nity to empathize with and understandthe perspectives of the student-athletesas much as anyone in the English De-partment can ever hope to. As aformer collegiate athlete, I know thatthe aches from their morning workoutsand pains from afternoon sessions donot magically disappear once the prac-tices end. I know that wounds do notheal that quickly. And I know that thelast thing a young man or womanwants to think about after expendinghimself/herself on the field is verb con-jugation, parallel agreement, or the in-vention phase. Knowing these thingshelps me understand how to motivatethe students I work with.

In the CATS CLAW writing center,student-athletes are not expected tocompete—collaboration is encouragedand often expected. They are notjudged on either athletic or intellectualability – we take on all comers andwelcome many forms of conversation.

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Most importantly, the students are notrequired to attend sessions. I haveavoided “institutionalizing” the workthat the tutors and I do with student-athletes, in hopes of avoiding the mod-els of pedagogy that have alienatedthem for so long. By doing so, wehope to give student-athletes an oppor-tunity to build an academic addendumto their already tight-knit communities,along with tutors who give themchances to talk about their writing,themselves as writers, or the obstaclesthat keep them from writing. We offeran empathetic and perspective-takingaudience. This, in turn, gives them theability to begin, in the words of Pratt,“healing and feeling mutual recogni-tion . . . sharing understanding andknowledge” in ways that they couldnot have in any other arena.

My ultimate goal, with the help ofthe student-athletes themselves, is toconvert this space into a space for in-tellectual and social growth, ratherthan specifically for athletic develop-ment. To give them a space wherecompetition is not the only aesthetic –a space where critical consciousness isencouraged and praxis engaged. Aspace for the student-athletes, as wellas myself, to come to terms with theways they are constructed by others,and the ways in which they representthemselves.

I was, and still am, a bit perplexed bythe fact that writing instructors, peoplewho have, or, are working towards ad-vanced degrees in the study of lan-guages, are so unaware of how theyhave allowed these stereotypes to de-velop without critically assessing thelanguage used to construct them, or,consider the pedagogical implicationsof constructing a student-body in thismanner. I am also distraught becauseintercollegiate athletics departmentsoften place the kinds of restraints onstudent-athletes that force them tocommit actions which perpetuate thesedangerous constructions. Given the

WPA’s history for advocating andfighting for the needs of students, Ithink WPA’s should be far ahead ofthe curve when it comes to workingwith student-athletes to ensure thatthey have productive academic, as wellas athletic careers. I hope to provideillustrations from my own experiencesas a graduate teaching assistant work-ing in a composition program, in an in-tercollegiate athletics department, andas an aspiring WPA, which will articu-late with one another to provide theimpetus for conversations that we haverarely participated in, and conversa-tions that, for all those involved, wesorely need to re-visit. All three groupsinvolved (faculty, especially WPA’s,Athletics Department Administrators,and student-athletes) should be givenopportunities to voice their concerns toone another in hopes that compromisecan be achieved and new hope encour-aged in the process.

Taking one for the team: Irony,hegemony, and “checkin’myself”

I began working with a young manon the football team several weeks agoon an essay for an African-AmericanStudies class he was enrolled in. Min-utes later, two of his teammatesstrolled in and after dispensing withgreetings, all had a seat at the roundtable. We discussed the essay topicthey had been handed, and after a fewminutes of an extremely engaging dis-cussion, they all began writing, takingnotes, and circling important passagesin their textbooks. I told them to comeback and see me if they needed help.They assured me they would.

Two weeks later, all three of theyoung men stopped by to see me atwork, quite pleased with themselves.Two of them had received A’s on theirpapers and the other a B. They thenpulled their papers out and asked me ifI would read them. I assured them thatI would love to, but sensing the oppor-

tunity for a read-around, I asked themto exchange papers with one another.They handed them over, in a clockwisemotion, and dove in. Within minutes,a conversation had arisen:

“What do you mean here?”“Is that what you think West

means by “nihilism”?”“I can’t see how we’re exploited,

and I don’t think we deserveequity. . . but that would bepretty cool if we did.”

Meanwhile, I stepped out of theroom to find other students who mayneed help, primarily because I feltguilty about asking the young men toquiet down because they were disturb-ing others in the room— as guilty asany classroom teacher would feelabout quelling a generative debate thathad arisen so from a class discussion.They later thanked me for getting thatconversation started (although I hadn’tdone much other than give them thesuggestion, and the time and space todo it).

Later that evening as I filled out stu-dent feedback sheets and made mynightly notes about that evening’s ses-sions, I felt a strange sense of accom-plishment, and I was quite amused bythe irony of the preceding moments.There I sat, in the company of threelinebackers, one of them a two-timeall-conference performer, having an in-tellectual conversation and not oncementioning women-chasing, beer-swilling, or the upcoming party thatwas supposed to be “off the chain.” Ithad been straight out of a movie, oneof the line of Hollywood’s awful, pa-rodic movies that have been so popularas of late. Or, maybe the beginning ofan academic’s really bad joke—“Fourfootball players walk into a Burkeanparlor and discuss West (___insertyour own punchline here____).” Eitherway, it had all been too much forwords at the moment. Unfortunately,the very surrealism of that momentproved that the hegemony I so oftencriticize others for replicating had been

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reproducing itself, insidiously, withinmy own body.

I immediately began to feel a senseof shame. How could I, in the very be-ginnings of my work as an ethnogra-pher of student-athletes, and formerstudent-athlete myself, hope to telltheir stories and represent them ethi-cally if I replicated the same hegemonyas the groups which I believe alienatethem? Could my years as a student-athlete, the labels, the stereotypes, theunfair and derisive generalizationshave spawned a callous contradictoryconsciousness within myself—one thatI would subconsciously pass on to thecolleagues and students I work with?Rather than allow myself to be de-feated by my sense of uncertainty, Iused it as an opportunity to reconsidermy desire to work with student-athletesin order to understand not only how Icould help them, but how I could helpheal myself through the process ofworking with them and sharing theirstories. I am hoping that fellow in-structors and WPA’s, possibly hearingsuch stories for the first time, realizehow often they are guilty of stereotyp-ing their students, and thus, limitingtheir ability to succeed in their minds.I was able to discover there was aspace for transformative pedagogyhere– maybe even more so for the in-structor than the students involved.And how fortunate that I, too, was ableto begin developing the awareness Ihoped that student-athletes, administra-tors, and academicians alike would de-velop through this process of analysisand advocacy.

Finding daylight: The evolvingresponsibility of the WC coordi-nator

When I first began my work withstudent-athletes, collegial response waspredictably discouraging. Colleaguesin the English department thought myideas were compelling, but that theymay be better suited for post-graduate,or even post-tenure work. But what

happens to the student-athletes who be-gin matriculating during this time andfall victim to the capitalist system thatforces a wedge between themselvesand the academy, and prevents themfrom developing self-actualization andcritical consciousness? Athletic de-partment administrators were equallysuspicious and skeptical, quick to bringup NCAA by-laws, and to questionwhy I wanted to do more than parsesentences with remedial writers in thewriting center. However, the groupwhose opinion mattered the most tome, the student-athletes, were refresh-ingly hip to the notion of developingan academic community of their ownto complement their athletic commu-nity, and so my subversion (which gotme called in for several “conferences”with English Department professorsand Athletic Department Administra-tion) was paid off by the thanks, praise,and encouragement of the student-ath-letes with whom I worked.

In our tutorial sessions, we do morethan tackle sentence level problems,difficult essay prompts, and detailedrevisions, we give the students thechance to take part in the constructionof an academic community—one inwhich they are not valued solely fortheir athleticism. They are also giventhe opportunity to work with non-ath-lete tutors and a coordinator who is agraduate associate in the English De-partment, who are all beginning to en-sure them that there are members ofthe academy who are sensitive to theirneeds. Finally, the project is funded bythe athletic department, and eventhough the administration is not in-volved in a hands-on role, this gesturedoes at least say that they are willing toprovide for the student-athletes’ per-sonal and intellectual growth, even ifthey wouldn’t even know where to be-gin themselves (nor did I, at first).

Next season . . .As much work as all of the involved

groups have undertaken, we can’t have

expected members of the academy, ad-ministration, and student-athletes toquestion their cultural values morethan cursorily in such a short time.Meaningful revision will come alongslowly, as slow as the machinery of ad-ministration dictates, but as long as thegroups are willing to push towards it,we can take the necessary steps to be-gin reconsidering the academic cultureof college student-athletes in America.This begins, then, with realizing howwe construct students unfairly, and of-ten, without reference or experience todraw from. Once we can recognizeour part as WPA’s, writing instructors,and agents of instructional change indeconstructing these notions, we cancritique them and look into ways tohelp student-athletes succeed off thecourt, off the field, within theacademy’s bounds.

William BroussardUniversity of Arizona

Tucson, AZ

Pacific NorthwestWriting CenterAssociationforming

Given that the current Pacific Coastassociation encompasses so vast a ge-ography as to make regional assemblyimprobable, several of us salmon-sav-ing tree-huggers are organizing asmaller region to include Washington,Oregon, and British Columbia. If youwould like invitations to upcoming re-gional soirees—or if you’d like to vol-unteer for our new board, please con-tact Roberta Buck, 360-650-7338,Roberta.buck@wwu.edu.

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Call for PapersInternational Writing Centers: Issues and Answers.

Edited by Joan Mullin and Leigh Ryan.

While writing centers have a strongrecorded history in the United States,the accomplishments of colleaguesaround the world have not been as ex-tensively documented. The recent pub-lication Teaching Academic Writing inEuropean Higher Education focuseson the many ways in which writing istaught in Europe, and includes writingcenters. However, we seek submis-sions not only from Europe, but fromaround the world in order to compile apublication that views specifically howwriting centers operate, using theory,pedagogy and administrative knowl-edge as it emerges within particularcontexts. In a community of scholarsseeking to reflect on and recreate newknowledge, we would like to challengeand/or support our idea of a writingcenter by expanding our understandingof the term “writing center.” Addition-ally, we want to establish an exchangeof global writing center perspectives

that will be useful for practitioners aswell as for the writers with whom wework and send into the world.

So that a variety of facets that makeup writing center work can be exam-ined in depth, we would like each con-tributor to focus on the most signifi-cant issue/problem/question confrontedin theorizing, establishing, maintain-ing, or making changes in a writingcenter. By September 30, 2003, submita (maximum) two-page summary ofyour proposed chapter in which youexplain what issue/problem/questionyou will address; how/why that issue/problem/question manifests itself; howyou handle it; what was and/or wasn’tsuccessful; or what you have learnedfrom confronting the issue/problem/question that is of use to the interna-tional writing center community.

Final drafts will address the context

in which the issue/problem questionarose, but timely topics to propose in-clude the material conditions and place-ment of a writing center (e.g., gettingadministrative support, physical locationand structure, fitting into the academic/community structure, funding andworkloads); theoretical impact of writ-ing centers (e.g., changing the curricu-lum; getting faculty support; finding andtraining staff and tutors; changing fac-ulty pedagogy); challenges to currentmodels (reflective practice that led tonew pedagogies; and theories emergingout of practice.

Authors of proposals will be notifiedof acceptance by October 31, and com-pleted manuscripts (MLA format) willbe due May 1, 2004. Please send elec-tronic proposal by September 30, 2003and all questions to either: Leigh Ryan(LR22@umail.umd.edu) or Joan Mullin(JMullin@UTNet.Utoledo.Edu).

International WritingCenters Association (IWCA)/ National Conference onPeer Tutoring in Writing(NCPTW)

October 23-25, 2003Hershey, PA“Writing Back”Keynote address: Rebecca Moore

HowardFeatured presentations: Aesha Adams

and Howard Rambsy

Pre-registration for this joint conference ended July 15, 2003. Please visit our Web site to register and to discovermore information about our conference and venue: <www.wc.iup.edu/2003conference/index.htm>.

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SuperheroesThe writing center community has

historically been receptive to meta-phors. In fact, it was the metaphor ofwriting center as “fix-it shop” that in-spired North’s now landmark call toarms for writing center practitioners toband together to become more thanjust proofreading services. His call wasanswered in ways that continue to mul-tiply with every conversation in a writ-ing center session. I was recently re-minded of just how willing writingcenter practitioners are to delve intothe creative potential of the metaphorat a recent Southeastern Writing CenterAssociation Conference. The theme ofthe conference, “Making a Difference:Writing Centers and Change,” reso-nated strongly throughout the three-day gathering. The keynote speaker,Patricia Lambert Stock, set the tone forcollaboration, asking that her listenershelp her “name” a new positioning forwriting centers in and outside of theAcademy. Stock’s workshop methoddovetailed with my own presentationfor the conference, and this perhapsnot-so-coincidental symmetry of ideasinspired me to write this.

The circumstances that led to myparticipation in the conference actuallystarted last summer. I was workingwith my dissertation director on theimplications of metaphors in the En-glish language, and while I was re-searching the topic, I noticed an on-go-ing discussion on the WCenter listservaddressing the prevalence of meta-phors in writing center consultations.Practitioners from across the countryeagerly shared metaphor systems thathelped student writers perceive theprocess of composition in more famil-iar terms. I became interested in thesemetaphor systems in my ownuniversity’s Writing Center, a center inwhich I was moving from consultant tocoordinator in the coming fall semes-ter. My role as coordinator involvescollaborating with five graduate stu-

dents who are paid employees, lessthan dozen graduate students who areworking in the center unpaid as part ofa practicum, and a handful of volun-teers who are not in the practicum, butare committed to spending time in one-to-one consultations with writers. Be-cause we are limited in funds, we werenot able to begin this academic year byimplementing all of the changes thatwe could imagine. So during staffmeetings, I invited the staff to think ofways to bring about innovation withoutspending any money.

During one of our first meetings, Ishared with my co-workers my interestin metaphors that had developed overthe previous summer. I suggested thatthe center could be referred to meta-phorically as the “Academic Hall ofInnovation,” a center staffed withgraduate students who possess “super”expertise in disciplines ranging fromComparative Literature and RhetoricalTheory to Whiteness Studies andPostcolonial Theory. So often, I hadlistened to these dedicated center con-sultants play upon the strengths of theirparticular areas of specialty and mar-veled at how well these areas of exper-tise had informed the consultants’metaphor of explanation to a studentwriter visiting the center. In responseto my realization, I started seeing mycolleagues not as Ph. D. candidates ormaster’s students, but as versions (orinversions!) of the superheroes I hadgrown up with on network televisionduring the 1970’s. I invited my col-leagues to do the same.

When I shared this “revelation” withmy colleagues in a staff meeting, thereviews were mixed at best. It seemsthat graduate students are always askedto speak in strictly scholarly termswhen discussing their work within theacademy, so the notion of applying to aconference with a proposal based oncartoon characters didn’t exactly fit

into the category of “scholarly,” atleast on the surface. Additionally, noneof my colleagues was eager to seemboastful, as none of them are, and mostwere reluctant to describe any of theirspecial training as “super” or “heroic.”But then something very interestinghappened. I noticed that none of us hadthe same definition of or understandingof what a superhero was, exactly. Infact, our two second-language consult-ants—Deepa, who grew up with Rus-sian cartoons in India, and Elisabeth,who grew up with Japanese cartoons inItaly—did not even have a point of ref-erence for an American superhero be-cause they did not grow up in Ameri-can culture. Therefore, we decided notto even try to offer one clear definitionof what a superhero within the Ameri-can writing center community shouldbe. The results were as creative and di-verse as the center staff members.

Additionally, while no one wanted tolist his or her own personal expertise orexperience as super, no one had anydifficulty in identifying something thatwas “super” and “heroic” about theconsultation practices of colleagues. Atthis point, we decided to explore thenotion of forming a metaphorical Aca-demic Hall of Innovation with the un-derstanding that the mission was tohighlight and learn from the specialtraining and interests of each staffmember and not to elevate any egos.We each developed our own personalinterpretation of the superhero in thestandard journalistic format: each con-sultant completed the “who, what,when, where, and why” of the charac-ter in an effort to highlight the trans-formative power of incorporating areasof academic expertise into the writingcenter arena. Our lineup included thefollowing:

• Stone: Scarlett O’Hara• Deepa and Elisabeth: The

Wonder Twins (Zan and Jayna)• Kathleen: Sydney Bristow from

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ABC’s Alias• Toni: The Shapeshifter• Allison: The Transformer• Susan: The Lady of the Lake• Julia: The Cyborg

During the following months, we alldeveloped handouts explaining eachsuperhero’s strengths, then translatingthose strengths into terms applicable towriting center consultations.

Armed with the idea of using ourpersonal superhero metaphors into aspringboard for a collaborative confer-ence session, we headed to the confer-ence. Six center staffers and our Direc-tor made the journey in minivandesigned for, I would say, no morethan 5—total. Finally, after months ofrevision and collaborative work duringCenter staff meetings and eleven tryinghours through the back roads of threeSouthern states, we arrived and beganthe public relations campaign to en-courage conference attendees to attendour presentation. We placed a flyer forour session around the hotel invitingeveryone to witness the powers of theour Academic Hall of Innovationworking against the “injustices” of un-der-funding and limited staffing. Andour campaign paid off, as more thanthirty people sat in attendance whenwe gathered at the podium and beganour explication of the superheroes wehad selected and our explanation ofhow such an exercise can be useful in awriting center. After delivering our“introduction by example” and headinginto the audience to begin the work-shop, I sensed that I was not the onlymember of the Academic Hall of Inno-

vation who was a little concernedabout audience response.

Of course, that apprehension formedonly because I had forgotten one littledetail about my context—I was amongwriting center practitioners, scholarswho know that every day brings differ-ent circumstances and different possi-bilities. Within my own workshopgroup, senior cadets at the Citadel, be-gan collaborating with me immedi-ately, becoming Bart Simpson andBruce Wayne, respectively, in the con-text of my group’s Academic Hall ofInnovation, and they were given lessthan twenty minutes to invent thesecharacters, which included answeringthe same set of journalistic questionsthat my league had answered over sev-eral months. Bart and Bruce were ac-companied by Anastasia and Leah, re-spectively Toni Morison’s Sula andABC’s MacGyver. Along with thesespontaneous metaphorical develop-ments came a myriad of multiculturalexplanations of why each practitionerhad selected a particular superhero fig-ure. In other words, Rhetoric and Com-position was unified with Literarystudies in a questioning strategy that isas old as the academy. I suppose what Iam suggesting is that the practice ofexperimenting with a loosely-definedmetaphor of the American superhero ina writing center environment is an ex-cellent opportunity to summon manyareas of English studies for infusingmulticulturalism into the Academy.

In fact, this supposition was finally“named” for me after listening to theconference’s keynote speaker who

asked her listeners to participate in“naming” the terms for a currentproject. Stock spoke about finding ter-minology to enhance the role of thewriting center inside and outside of theacademy. Immediately, her listenersbecame speakers, offering ideas rang-ing from terminology to pedagogicaltheories from across the discipline ofEnglish studies. She generated amethod of collaborative critical think-ing that married all areas of literarystudies into one united force. She, inessence, was much like a superherocalling her colleagues to arms. So inthe spirit of her invitation, I extend myown, offering an outline of our super-hero project that aided in our collabo-rative development of our AcademicHall of Innovation. The steps are thefollowing:

• Simply begin by naming the“who, what, when, where, andwhy” of your chosen superhero.

• Then answer the same questionsabout yourself in the context ofyour superhero.

• Invite your writing center col-leagues to do the same.

What you should be left with is a se-ries of diverse superhero representa-tions that represent many cultures andmany disciplines. While the results ofthe exercise are multi-layered, eachlayer offers new ideas for highlightingstrengths and spotlighting diverse in-terpretations of what a writing centercan and should be.

E. Stone ShifletUniversity of South Florida

Tampa, FL

Calendar for Writing Centers Associations

October 4, 2003: Michigan Writing Centers Associa-tion in Flint, MI Conference Web site:<www.flint.umich.edu/Departments/writingcenter>.

October 23-25, 2003: International Writing Centers Confer-ence and National Conference on Peer Tutoring inWriting, in Hershey, PAContact: Ben Rafoth, brafoth@iup.edu. ConferenceWeb site: <www.wc.iup.edu/2003conference>.

September 2003

9

Honoring Lady Falls BrownLady Falls Brown—An endowment

Lady Falls Brown, who has contributed in major ways tothe profession of writing centers through her scholarship andher work as the listserv owner who started and maintainsWCenter, is retiring in September, 2003. To honor herequally impressive work as Director of the Texas TechUniversity’s Writing Center which has spanned nearly twodecades. several members of the English Department, led byDirector Kathleen Gillis, are working to establish an endow-ment in her honor. A minimum endowment at Texas Tech is$10,000. This endowment would be the first of its kind in thenation to honor a writing center director and would illustratethe university’s enduring commitment to and support of thevital work that occurs daily in the writing center.

On July 22, 2003, a reception in her honor was held in theUniversity Writing Center where the endowment effort was an-nounced. If you would like to assist, please make checks pay-able to the Texas Tech Foundation, Inc. for the Lady BrownEndowment. They should be mailed to the following person:

Todd W. Rasberry, Senior Development OfficerCollege of Arts and SciencesTexas Tech UniversityBox 41034Lubbock, Texas 79409-1034

If you have any questions about the Endowment, please e-mailSusan M. Lang (Susan.Lang@ttu.edu) or Kathleen Gillis(Kathleen.Gillis@ttu.edu).

Lady Falls Brown—A writing center legend

Lady’s writing center career began in 1982. As JeannetteHarris, the founding director of the Writing Center at TexasTech and recently-retired director of the Writing Center atTexas Christian University, said, “I had been at Texas Techonly a few days when Lady showed up at my office and an-nounced that she was one of the graduate students assigned totutor in the Writing Center I had been hired to establish. Fromthat moment on, her enthusiasm for writing centers was obvi-ous. Later she became director of the Writing Center at TexasTech and, with her great energy and vision, developed it into auniversity-wide program known for its innovative use of tech-nology and its service to public school students in remote ruralareas of West Texas. And, of course, in her spare time she es-tablished and managed WCenter, which has played a majorrole in connecting the world-wide writing center community.”

From 1982-1986 Lady was a writing center tutor at TexasTech. In 1988 she became the interim director, and in 1989was appointed as director. In 1991, with the help of FredKemp, she established the WCenter listserv, which continuesto serve as a primary communication medium of the writingcenter community. WCenter, an electronic bulletin board forpeople interested in writing center theory and practice, has1100 members in the United States, Canada, Europe, the Mid-East, and New Zealand. Lady remains list owner and sponsor.In 1994, Lady received the National Writing Centers Associa-tion Award for Outstanding Service for WCenter.

In 2000, again partnering with Fred Kemp, Lady set the Uni-versity Writing Center on an ambitious project to provide writ-ing help for 4th-grade and 8th-grade students in Texas rural pub-lic schools. The project, known as the “Texas Tech/K-12

Instructional Partnership with Schools” (TIPS), lasted twoyears and served hundreds of students in dozens of Texasschools. For this service, Lady Brown and the UniversityWriting Center at Texas Tech were awarded the 2001Texas Higher Education STAR Award, one of only fivesuch awards given that year. Lady has also served as SouthCentral Writing Centers Association representative to theNational Writing Centers Association and has served as amember at large to the NWCA.

Sam Dragga, chair of the Texas Tech English depart-ment, in summarizing her work describes her as “a teacher,a scholar, a genuine pioneer.” Brown says, “My writingcenter philosophy [is]: Some people are born writers; then,there are the rest of us. My purpose has been to helppeople become aware of the conventions of their specificdiscourse community so they can succeed in their field.”When told of the various ways she is being honored now,she stated, “How nice! I swear; nothing has become my ca-reer like the leaving thereof!” Now, as she awaits the birthof her first grandchild in September, Lady plans to takeuniversity courses, travel, work on the ranch that she andBo own, and enjoy her granddaughter—among many otherthings, no doubt. Lady Falls Brown’s entire career, but es-pecially her work at Texas Tech, can be described as a lifewell lived, a service well rendered, and a job well done.God bless you, Lady, for all you have done for so many.We will miss you.

Tim HadleyTexas Tech University

Lubbock, TX

Editor’s note: Because of space limitations, only a portion of Tim Hadley’s essay appears here. The full text is available ontheir Writing Center’s Web site: <http://english.ttu.edu/uwc01>.

The Writing Lab Newsletter

10

UTORS COLUMNT’

Sins of a writing goddess

When I was offered an opportunityto work at Southeast Missouri StateUniversity’s Writing Center as a tutortwo years ago, I jumped at the chance.Like most tutors, I enjoy writing, and Ienjoy helping other people. So, Icounted my blessings twice when Iwas offered a graduate assistantshipthat allowed me an opportunity to doboth. It seemed a dream come true.

Of course, in the beginning, I wasconcerned that I did not possess theknow-how necessary to effectivelysupport the writing efforts of “SEMO”students, but that worry was short-lived—thanks to the encouragement ofmy supervisor and the other tutors inthe Center. So, after a brief orientation,I began my tutoring career two yearsago. My support-skills bag wasequipped with little more than afriendly smile, an interest in writersand their writing, a little experience inone-to-one conferencing, and a hugedesire to be helpful. Almost two yearshave passed since my first one-to-oneconference. It is with pride that I say toyou today that I am now a very differ-ent tutor than I was two years ago.

Oh yes, as I look back over the pasttwo years, I can recount with certaintythat in the beginning I did not make thekind of difference for student writersthat I, as a tutor, was expected to make.I can remember thinking so manytimes, as I locked the door to the Cen-ter after having worked all Sunday af-ternoon, that I probably hadn’t madeany difference in the writing efforts ofthose students I had worked with. Youknow, the kind of difference in studentwriting that tutors should be making—that long-term difference, the one thatrepresents an improvement in their

overall ability to compose. Instead, Ifixed their papers.

There, I said it. And, yes, I did it,sometimes boldly marking through er-ror-filled passages and creating newones, sometimes making little notes inthe margins or between the double-spaced lines, indelicate instructionsthat left still disabled writers with littlemore than instructions on final clean-up efforts. Indeed, as I read the textshanded to me by those novice writers, Iworked diligently to make immediatedifferences in the compositions beforeme. I took the “directive” approach toa whole new level.

The students seeking help were oh-so-unsuspecting of the treachery aboutto befall them. They entered the Writ-ing Center with concerns about theiressays, and I alleviated their concerns.No, these students were not wise to mydeceit. Because these writers were in-terested in improving the “grade” theywould receive for their efforts, and be-cause I was concerned with improvingthe overall quality of their papers, wehad an agenda we both could live with!So I reacted to essay after essay by ex-pending large quantities of writingleadership and lead. When I had com-pleted this step of my tutoring, I wouldhurry back through their texts, explain-ing confidently my revisions, mysquiggles, my underlines, and myquestion marks. I ruled!

But wait. I left out the best part. I didwant the sessions to have some kind ofredeeming, “tutorial” quality. Well, Iremembered learning in orientationhow important it is to engage the stu-dent during a tutorial. So I decided thatengagement could act as my agent of

deliverance. Oh yes, my tutees wouldbe engaged. So, before I began readingtheir essays, I would turn toward thestudents (body language, you know) inhopes that they would turn their focustoward me. (If they didn’t, I wouldwait patiently until they finally did.)Then I’d lay their paper between us onthe table and begin reading, usuallyaloud, looking up now and then tomake sure they were attentive to mysupport of their writing needs. I did notwant them gazing across the room, or,heaven forbid, fumbling with othermaterials they had brought with them.No, no, no. I wanted them to be audi-ence to my efficient efforts. I wantedthem engaged in my revision process.And, I am compelled to report thatmost of them absolutely delivered. I’mnot sure why. Perhaps it was fromsheer astonishment, or maybe theywere thinking, “Thank you, God. She’sfixing my mistakes.” (I did witness acouple of students clasp their hands asif in prayer when I handed my workback to them). Regardless, they weretruly engaged in watching me work.Whew!

I always ended those tutoring ses-sions that first semester by filling outthe appropriate Writing Center form(another requirement of the tutor) andhanding my casualties the proof theyneeded to present to professors: confir-mation that they had indeed receivedattention in the Writing Center. For alittle instant gratification for myself, Iwould also make sure they filled out athank-you—I mean comment—card.With that, I’d send them on their way.I’d push my chair back from my al-tar—I mean table. I’d stand up, shakeoff my cloud of pencil-dust profi-ciency, then walk proudly over and

September 2003

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smile as I shook hands with the nextvictim of the Writing Goddess. WritingGoddess? Of course. I earned this titlethat first semester I “tutored.” In fact,one of the many students I encountereddeemed me so. On a comment card, af-ter evaluating my performance, thisstudent wrote simply, “She is a WritingGoddess.” And, I have to admit, I trulywas, at least in the realm of paper fix-ers.

Fortunately, for the hundreds of stu-dents seeking support from the WritingCenter, my goddess-ship was fairlyshort-lived. My supervisor encouragedme—forced is too strong a word, al-though I am positive it would havecome to that if I had not been coopera-tive—to attend his tutoring seminar. Inthose sessions, I began to learn how toconduct myself differently when I tu-tored. I learned that I could not takeownership of others’ work. My respon-sibilities instead lay in helping thosereal proprietors develop new writingskills and/or enhance the ones they al-ready possessed so that they couldmake a difference in their writing.

Armed with the excellent training Ireceived, and a renewed sense of pride,I began to provide assistance that wastruly worthy of our Center’s intentions

as a support service. I am happy to re-port that on Sunday afternoons aftermy formal training and day-to-day ex-perience began to take root, I stoodmore ready for the challenges pre-sented me by the writing students atSoutheast Missouri State. I am alsohappy to report that the students I thenencountered left the Writing Center,more and more, with new skills thatwould help them in their future writingendeavors—empowered with newcompetencies they could rely on whenconfronted with the need to compose.

With enthusiasm, I must also reportthat it has been quite some time since Ihave been referred to as the WritingGoddess. My student-feedback cardsare no longer testimonies to my keenabilities as a “paper-fixer.” They nolonger sing praises of my holding hos-tage the work of others, incorporatingmy own methods of revision redemp-tion, allocating my own compositionskills, ultimately ignoring the realneeds of those unsuspecting studentwriters. Of late, students’ commentsare genuine critiques of genuine tutor-ing sessions. They often begin with “I”instead of “she.” And, of late, theforms I must fill out are true evidenceof the work that has been done.

Last Sunday, as a young womanstuffed into her book bag a draft filledwith comments she had written in themargins, I handed her the copy of theform on which I had summarized ourwork, evidence of her accomplish-ments during the session. On it, I hadwritten proudly, “We discussed varioustechniques this writer might considerwhen revising this text. This writer dis-covered that her draft needed attentionpaid to focus. Armed with new possi-bilities, she has come up with severaloptions she can consider when revisingthis composition.” On the feedbackcard, she had written, “I feel like I amfinally able to do something that willmake a difference in how and what Iwrite.” Just below this statement, sheadded, “Thank you.”

So, as I sadly announce that I will beleaving our Writing Center soon, mymaster’s degree in hand, I gladly an-nounce that I will take with me incred-ible learning experiences. For it is theones I have had in the Center that havehad the most impact on me as a stu-dent, as a teacher, as a goddess, and asa human being.

Evelyn Biler MenzSoutheast Missouri State University

Cape Girardeau, MO

Talking about my omelet: Why and how?

An international student from Africacame to the Writing Center a fewweeks ago with a draft having a sen-tence that says, “Mom made me anomelet that morning, but I did not wantto eat it because I felt sick.” I askedhim curiously if there was any omeletin his country. He hesitated and thensaid no. He said it was something thatlooked like an omelet, but it did noteven taste like one. They did not evenput eggs in it. Somehow an odd feelingcame to me all at once, and I did notknow how to respond to his explana-tion. But soon I suggested that he try to

describe that food a little in one or twosentences, and told him that he did nothave to sacrifice his own culture in or-der to be understood by another cul-ture. He looked perplexed, and perhapsso did I. After ten minutes, he wrote aparagraph about the origin and tradi-tion of that African food. I found thatthe paragraph connected everythingthat I originally thought was irrelevantand confusing. Before he left, he toldme that this was the first time he felthe was really saying something hewanted to say in another language.

I am an ESL (English as a SecondLanguage) student from Taiwan whohad been in this country for only twomonths at the time of writing thisanalysis. Like any ESL student, I seethat American culture is so dominantthat sometimes it makes people withdifferent cultural backgrounds neglect,or even abandon, their own cultures.In a sense, the English language hashelped enforce the postcolonial side ofthis culture, purposefully or not. Nev-ertheless, most native English speak-ers are only scapegoats, or victims, of

The Writing Lab Newsletter

their imperial histories and seeminglyunconscious egocentricity. TakeDaniel Defoe’s The Life and Adven-tures of Robinson Crusoe as an ex-ample. Crusoe gives an aboriginal afunny English name “Friday,” askshim to learn English, and tells him thathis name is “Master” without explain-ing what “Master” means. He evendeems Friday’s tribal religion as sav-age and asks him to convert to Chris-tianity (192-205). Like Crusoe, some-times ESL instructors’ failure toexplain the implications of certain En-glish phrases and their lack of under-standing of other non-English culturesmay be interpreted as ignorance of ex-isting ethnic identities.

On the other hand, many ESL stu-dents think of coming to the writingcenter as not only a way to learn howto write but a way to learn more aboutthe language and culture. In effect, ahardworking ESL student would takeevery opportunity to verify and en-hance what he or she has learned be-fore coming to this all-English envi-ronment. That might includepronunciation, grammar, listening, andwriting, as well as food, culture, andhistory. As a result, it is unrealistic andeven irresponsible for tutors to assumethat we should only teach them writ-ing. Moreover, tutors in the writingcenter may assume greater responsibil-ity than teachers because tutors canwork with tutees one-to-one for thirtyor fifty minutes and give full attentionto them while teachers can hardly dothe same in class.

I am also convinced that tutorsshould be more careful and sensitiveabout what we convey to tutees, for wemust confirm that we will help themimprove their writing and Englishwithout taking away what belongs tothem. Elliot L. Judd suggests that suchconsideration is substantially “a moralquestion”: “If we [ESL teachers] didnot expect our students to learn En-glish and change their English lan-guage use, why would we be teachingat all? In some cases, we may be ask-ing our students to abandon their na-

tive language(s) entirely” (267). Withthis question, he synthesizes those de-bates related to the issue into two waysof thinking. One view argues,sociolinguistically, “[t]he forces whichaffect these movements are part of lan-guage evolution,” which is inevitable.The other is that second languageteachers, as social scientists, should beaware of all the possible consequencesthat result from their pedagogies and“aid diverse groups in implementingtheir own educational destiny” (269).Judd comments, “[W]e as teachers in-volved in the political process are re-sponsible for the political and socialeffects that our instruction causes”(268).

Many ESL instructors have advo-cated diverse approaches to deal withthe political infrastructure in theirpedagogies. Carol Severino exploresthree stances—assimilationist,accommodationist, and separatist—which instructors may consider whenresponding to ESL students’ writing.Instructors and tutors do not have tostick to one specific stance; they maytake more than one for different stu-dents, different classes, or just one stu-dent, according to the degree of accul-turation needed in various instructions(188). Assimilationists usually askESL students to write in standard En-glish and tolerate no linguistic diver-sity in writing (190). Accommo-dationists encourage ESL students toacquire new oral and written discoursepatterns without giving up their naturalones; they appreciate cultural and lin-guistic differences and expect to seedetailed explanations for these differ-ences (191-92). Separatists accept “dif-ferent culturally influenced logics andrhetorical patterns” and assert thatreaders are supposed to understandESL texts without their writers chang-ing written patterns or giving addi-tional information (190-91). For in-stance, I took the accommondationiststance by encouraging that studentfrom Africa to embrace and further ex-plain his cultural differences after real-izing what the “omelet” in his articleactually was.

In the section that follows, I will ex-amine my tutoring session with an ESLstudent from China, who continued hishigh school education in the States andnow is a freshman. I find the sessionexemplary for my analysis because, al-though he has relatively rich Englishrhetorical skills, the essay he wroteshows that he is still having trouble ac-curately conveying to English speakersthose ideas he had before he came toAmerica. It is said that an attempt touse a language to depict any eventsoutside its discourse could be substan-tially problematic. But I assume thatthe Chinese student’s writing problemsmainly result from the different wayshe identifies himself with the audi-ences from the two contrasting culturesand the way he gets along with the twocultures in his life.

On a sunny afternoon, Senhan Lincomes to the Writing Center straightfrom his class. He explains to me thathe is working on an English 102 as-signment, and the paper in his hand issupposed to be the final draft. Hewants me to check on his grammar andfluency only, since he has beenthrough everything, including drafting,rewriting, and so on. Looking at hispaper’s title, “Things that ChangedMe,” I think of the examples thatSeverino gives in her research (1998),a Vietnamese student’s essay that men-tions his mother’s death and a Koreanstudent’s assignment that compares hertwo homes, one in Korea and the otherin America. In addition, topics likethese always embrace a vast amount ofcultural background. Therefore, I de-cide to start a deeper, even personal,conversation with Senhan before weget down to anything in his essay.

He tells me that he was born inBeijing, China, and came to the Statesalone when he was fifteen. Before at-tending college, he spent his first yearin Nebraska and the next two years inMississippi for senior high school, inboth of which I guess he was quite eth-nically alone. He has no family here,and his mother in Beijing works veryhard to support his education. Then I

12

September 2003

ask him to give me a few minutes toread through this autobiographicalessay.

After reading his essay, I find myselfimmediately making a choice amongSeverino’s three political stances andbeing haunted by Judd’s moral ques-tion rather than focusing on Senhan’sgrammar and fluency. After all, beforecoming to the States, he received threeyears of English courses, followed bythree years in American high schoolsthat enriched his linguistic repertoireand helped him get rid of commonESL writing weaknesses, such as tense,articles, and indirectness. Overall, hisideas are clear and remain fairly fo-cused throughout the essay, although attimes I need to pause a while and thinkacross two cultures for a possible linkbetween two sentences. Therefore, Idecide to work with him on clarifyinghis ideas by adding transitions, split-ting run-on sentences and, most impor-tant of all, supplementing his text withsufficient cultural information for hisreaders.

“Who do you think is the reader ofthis article? Who’s gonna be readingit?” I ask him. Since I started tutoringin the Writing Center and read enor-mous amounts of student writing, Ihave found that, although some stu-dents try to have a teacher or widerrange of audience in mind, they in factaddress themselves mostly when writ-ing essays. Consequently, they expectthe audience to see the ground onwhich they stand automatically withoutgiving enough background informa-tion. “I’m not sure. I think it’s my pro-fessor,” he scratches his head and says.“Good,” I say, “then now I want you toimagine that you are the professor.Please read the essay for me, pauseanytime when you think you havetrouble understanding the phrase orsentence, and then mark it with thepencil.”

After going through the entire essay,he circles most of the sentences thathave got me “political” in my firstread-through, along with a few run-on

sentences, which I am happy to see be-cause I can thus start from text-clarify-ing strategies for readers rather than apolitical lecture on how to preserveone’s home culture. “When I was writ-ing this article, I didn’t think too muchabout the role of an audience,” he says.“Now I think my professor probablywouldn’t understand a few things inthe essay that mean much to me.” I askhim to explain what he sees in his textas a reader. “Here, my father gave mea nickname, ‘Little Dragon.’ It’s alsothe given name of that martial art mas-ter, Bruce Lee, you know. In Chinesemythology, a dragon is a strong, pow-erful animal that brings blessings topeople. But in the book I just read lastweek about medieval knights fightingdragons that blow fires, they seem eviland savage. I think I need to say moreabout this.”

“And that friend of my father’s whocame to see me at the summer campcalled my father ‘Comrade Han.’ Forthe past few years, I’ve met somemean guys who would call me‘Commie’ just because I’m fromChina. I want people who read this pa-per to know that not everyone fromChina is that political. We call eachother ‘Comrade’ just like Americanscall each other ‘Mister’ or ‘Miss,’ andthat’s it. Maybe I should just replace‘Comrade’ with ‘Mister’?” he says.“I’m not sure,” I say, “but if you put‘Mister’ here, for me, it’s like in somemovies back in the eighties where ev-eryone speaks English whether they’refrom Russia, France, Japan, or Cambo-dia. But you’re free to make your ownoption. You can always think about itlater.”

He uses an English expression, “calla spade a spade,” when describing hisgrandmother’s reaction to his decisionto study in the States. I feel awkwardabout it because almost any saying orexpression has its cultural allusion, andI am nearly sure that his grandmotherwas not brought up in the company ofpoker and Western cultures. AlthoughI am convinced that the principalmeaning of “call a spade a spade” ex-

ists in the Chinese language, I amafraid that it could carry more thanwhat is intended thanks to its underly-ing cultural aspects. “Why do you usethe saying here? Did your grandmothersay anything like that in Chinese?” Iasked him. “Not really,” he giggles. “Ijust think that I can use an English say-ing in my essay. That looks better, Iguess.” “Yes, indeed,” I try to explainwhat I think without criticizing his ef-fort, “but it also makes me feel that it’snot what a native Chinese elder wouldsay. Perhaps you can just put her plainwords here and that might sound allright.”

I am also curious about the Christ-mas setting he refers to when he remi-nisces that his mother was sad becausehe ran away from home around Christ-mas; for, traditionally, Chinese peopledo not celebrate Western holidays. Theanswer I get from him resembles theanswer I got from that African student:“Well, actually that wasn’t Christmas.That was Moon Festival. It’s just liketheir Christmas, you know.” MoonFestival, also known as Mid-AutumnFestival, usually comes in Septemberbecause it is celebrated on the fifteenthday of the eighth month on lunar calen-dars. Accordingly, the moon can beseen roundest only on that night of theyear. Most Asian countries have it asan official holiday on which people gohome for family reunions. “I knowwhat I did here is very weird,” he says,“but I don’t know how to explain theholiday concisely without distractingthe reader from my main point in thisparagraph.” He has a point, though.Therefore, I suggest him to either omitthe name of the holiday in the text andsimply refer to it as an important holi-day for Chinese people, or keep itsname there and add a brief descriptionthat relates his mother’s sadness to theholiday.

When helping Senhan write acrosscultures, I prefer the accommodationistview mainly because I think the role ofa tutor and that of an ESL teacher varyto a certain extent. For example, a tutor

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(continued on page 16)

The Writing Lab Newsletter

14

Call for PapersUp Close and Personal: The Possibilities of Narrative Inquiry in Writing Centers.

Edited by Rebecca Jackson and Valerie Balester

Researchers from across the disci-plines have begun to (re)discover thevalue of narrative approaches to quali-tative research. Interests are varied,ranging from analysis of individual,group, organizational, and cultural nar-ratives—narratives as the focus ofanalysis—to the use of narrative as amethodological tool, a way of both in-viting and writing “stories” that cel-ebrate subjectivity, contingency, inti-macy, and possibility. To date,discussions of narrative in writing cen-ter studies have focused almost exclu-sively on this last objective, on the useof researchers’ and participants’ narra-tives as both a legitimate—epistemo-logically appropriate—form of schol-arly discourse and way of knowing.

The emphasis on researchers’ storiesis an important one, particularly be-cause it lays the groundwork for an ex-tended discussion of narrative researchin our field, on narrative as a mode andsite of inquiry. As writing center re-searchers, teachers, administrators, andtutors, we have much to gain by mak-ing a full and formal “turn toward nar-

rative.” Narrative analysis of previ-ously published work in writing cen-ters, for example, would enable us tomap changes in our disciplinary iden-tity over time; narrative analysis wouldoffer insight, as well, into tutor social-ization, the nature of consultant-writertalk and interaction, or the institu-tional, disciplinary, and cultural narra-tives that shape our approaches to suchthings as tutor training or work withfaculty from across the disciplines.As a mode of inquiry, narrative inter-views might be used to illuminate tu-tors’, students’, administrators’, andfaculties’ writing center-related experi-ences, attitudes, identities, and/or con-structions of others, or to encourageactive tutor, student, and/or administra-tor reflection. As we hope these poten-tial topics illustrate, narrative inquiryin writing centers is rich, yet largelyunexplored, territory.

We invite proposals for an editedcollection entitled Up Close and Per-sonal: The Possibilities of NarrativeInquiry in Writing Centers. We envi-

sion the collection organized aroundthree key sections: (1) research usingnarrative as a mode of inquiry; (2) re-search on narrative(s) as a site of in-quiry; and (3) theoretical and practicaldiscussions of the promises and limita-tions of narrative inquiry in writing cen-ters. We are particularly interested inessays that explore the intersections ofnarrative, culture, and identity and theways in which narratives are both ines-capable and malleable—shaping, yet ca-pable of being resisted, transformed,and/or altered.

Please send 2 copies of a 300-500word proposal, including your name, in-stitutional affiliation, and tentative papertitle, by November 15, 2003 to RebeccaJackson, Department of English, South-west Texas State University, SanMarcos, TX, 78666. E-mail submis-sions are also welcome and should besent to Rebecca Jackson (rj10@swt.edu).For information or inquiries, please e-mail Rebecca Jackson or ValerieBalester (v-balester@tamu.edu).

Call for ProposalsCenters for Learning: Writing Centers and Libraries in Collaboration.

Edited by Jim Emborg and Sheril Hook

Over the past ten years, a number ofacademic resources have been in theprocess of merging into multi-use aca-demic “centers.” Two active partici-pants in these mergers have been li-braries and writing centers. Althoughthese partnerships may be seen as partof a larger emerging model of thelearning center on the academic cam-pus and the challenges and rewards ofthe attendant relationships, the focus of

this book will be specifically on thecollaboration between writing centersand libraries. Editors are especiallyinterested in the role libraries are play-ing in locating and shaping these cen-ters and in the relationship between thewriting center and the library.

This book will include two parts: 1)a critical introduction providing anoverview of the writing center/library

collaboration and 2) case studies thatwill examine the relationships betweenthe writing center and the library. Theeditors seek submissions from writingpartners for the second half of thebook. Writing partners will be com-posed of a writing center administratorand a librarian. These partners shouldbe able to speak equally and with expe-rience about their collaboration. Theywill be responsible for writing a criti-

September 2003

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cal case study of their multi-functioncenter. The editors hope that essays inthis collection will demonstrate the po-tential for shared vision that can beused to further develop and understandthe educational value inherent in thiscollaborative model. Our goal is tocreate a book with broad appeal toboth librarians and writing center per-sonnel.

Submissions for this collectionshould examine both the practical andtheoretical aspects of the shared center.These include (but are not limited to)administrative philosophies and theirrole in shaping the center; educationalphilosophies and their role in shaping

the center; shaping of best practicesthrough collaboration; assessmentmodels that have emerged in the col-laboration; peer tutors and fellows pro-grams, their management and training;establishing boundaries and sharing re-sponsibilities; the theoretical and his-torical underpinnings for the collabora-tion; campus politics and strategicpositioning; finding the mission for ashared center; expanding definitions ofliteracy and pedagogies to addressthem

Please respond to either of the edi-tors below by October 15. Include thenames of your writing partners and

their titles, the name of your institutionwith a description of the institution(e.g., size, public, population, compre-hensive) and a brief (one hundredwords or less) history of your collabo-ration. Preliminary deadline for com-pleted case study chapters is February15, 2004. Jim Elmborg, The Universityof Iowa School of Library and Infor-mation Science, 3070 Main Library.Iowa City, IA 52242-1490, 319-335-5717 ( james-elmborg@uiowa.edu);and Sheril Hook, University of Ari-zona, Main Library, A204, Tucson,Arizona 85721, (520)621-9919(hooks@u.library.arizona.edu).

What’s new and/or interesting on your Website?WLN invites writing center folks who want to share some special feature or new material ontheir OWL to let us know. Send your URL , a title, and a sentence or two about what tolook for to the editor (harrism@cc.purdue.edu).

• Starting small and local at California State U. at ChicoThe Writing Center at California State University, Chico, now has a Web site with resources for students and faculty,

including synchronous on-line tutoring via WebCT: <http://www.csuchico.edu/uwc/>. The site, designed for local audi-ences, is our first step in joining the Web-based writing center community.

Mark HallCalifornia State University, Chico

MHall@csuchico.edu(Editor’s note: A full—and interesting— account of how this OWL started and proceeded to develop to meet local needswill be printed in a forthcoming issue of WLN, co-authored by Mark Hall and Thia Wolf.)

• A Webliography at Texas A&MDebbie Pipes recently constructed a Webliography for their University Writing Center Web site: <http://

uwc.tamu.edu/faculty/webliography/>. A webliography is a collection of annotated World Wide Web links useful towriters. The site is organized in two ways:

1) Sections. Here writers can check out the appropriate section they need, such as “writing process,” “researchprocess,” or “types of documents .” Each section has annotated live links to sites with information about thattopic.

2) Alphabetical list. Here writers can look up a topic from an alphabetically organized list of topics. For example, ifthe writer needs assistance with quotation marks, she looks it up in this list and will find annotated links to othersites.

The contact person is Debbie Pipes (dpipes@neo.tamu.edu).

The Writing Lab Newsletter

Muriel Harris, editorDepartment of EnglishPurdue University1356 Heavilon HallWest Lafayette, IN 47907-1356

THE RITING LABN E W S L E T T E R

WNon-profit Organization

U.S. PostagePAID

Purdue University

Address Service Requested

at the writing center deals with one stu-dent at a time while a teacher mighthave twenty-five students in a class.Teachers might tend to extend anassimilationist view to every student’swriting due to a great number of pa-pers. Therefore, tutors have more time(and responsibility) to hear ESL stu-dents explain their essays and to pro-vide them with as many solutions totheir problems as possible, especiallywhen cultural and linguistic differ-ences are noticed in their essays. Fur-thermore, I would suggest that we astutors not select any of the solutionsfor these ESL students; instead, theypick one for themselves. They canfreely choose the one they think canbest express what they want to expressin English, and we help them do so.Thus, we avoid imposing our values,or Western values, upon these ESL stu-dents who come to the writing center.At the same time they feel respected inthe process of making their own deci-sions about their writing, and most im-

portantly, first languages. We must domore than Crusoe to help them under-stand themselves instead of turningthem into Fridays.

Before we wrap up the session,Senhan tells me that he used to think itis useless to talk about his story be-cause no one would care about a Chi-nese student like him. After workingwith me, he starts wondering whetherpeople’s ignorance of him has resultedfrom his own ignorance of himself aswell as from his confusion of self-iden-tity in the two cultures. Smiling andnodding to him reservedly, I am afraidthat his revelation is only halfwayreached, since it is always easy for anoutsider to succumb and hard to standfirm in such a dominant culture. But Ido not really say anything, for I believethat he will modify his assumption bylearning more about the world sooneror later, and so would I. We are bothtrying to locate our new identity in thisdominant American culture. I havenever met Senhan since, and so I do

not know if he rewrote his Moon Festivalexperience. But I know that I might haveto find a way to talk about my own om-elet too, or I might be missing it in mymemories someday.

Jui-Chuan ChangDePaul University

Chicago, ILWorks Cited

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventuresof Robinson Crusoe. Oxford:Clarendon, 1910.

Judd, Elliot L. “TESOL as a Political Act:A Moral Question.” Proceedings ofthe Seventeenth Annual Conventionof Teachers of English to Speakers ofOther Languages, Toronto, Canada,15-20 March, 1983. Ed. JeanHandscombe. Toronto: n.p., 1983.

Severino, Carol. “The Political Implica-tions of Responses to SecondLanguage Writing.” Adult ESL:Politics, Pedagogy, and Participationin Classrooms and CommunityPrograms. Ed. Trudy Smoke.Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum,1998.

“Talking”(continued from p. 13)