This dissertation centers on the value of work in the institution and composition and rhetoric in the same vane as texts such as Evan Watkin's --Work Time-- and Ernest Boyer's --Scholarship Reconsidered--. The major difference between this project and the others is that I choose the writing center as the site through which I examine academic work. The project is specifically attentive to the hierarchy of research, teaching, and service. It examines how the hierarchy plays out in the center and how writing center workers interpret and apply the hierarchy. While in many instances, the writing centers conform to it, they also resist it and revise it to suit their needs. The institution and composition and rhetoric can learn from and apply their acts of resistance to strengthen higher education as a whole.

Cooperative tutoring in a writing center setting consists of two tutors who work collaboratively with one student. It is a variation of one method of training new tutors, where the novice tutor observes the expert tutor during a tutoring session and eventually participates with the expert tutor. This study focused on the interactions between the tutors. Through cooperative tutoring, tutors learn new or different tutoring approaches from each other, which in turn serves as ongoing professional development. I explain the methodology used in the study, and I analyze the data. From the data analysis, I identify three preliminary categories, which are Equal Partners, New Alliance, and Trainer/Trainee. Equal Partners sessions are characterized by a strong sense of camaraderie between the tutors and a willingness to share both tutoring and academic writing strategies with each other and the student. During an Equal Partners session, tutors acknowledge the other tutor's strategies and incorporate parts of it into their own tutoring style. These sessions are more directive, and the tutors' focus is on teaching specific strategies for academic writing as well as passing on college survival lore. New Alliance sessions occur when both tutors are more actively engaged with the overall topic of the student's paper. Both of the tutors and the student share experiences and ideas on a personal level, working towards understanding how to craft ideas through academic discourse. In this way an alliance is formed with the writing center tutors and the student. During the Trainer/Trainee sessions, the tutors involved attempt to apply cooperative tutoring techniques but were unable to make the shift from the roles they once held as a trainer and a trainee. Finally, I present a summary and interpretation of my findings. I also discuss the limitations of the study and indicate areas for further research.

Thesis (M.A.)--Texas State University--San Marcos, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-68). Also available on microfilm.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-136). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2008 Jun 1

Thesis (D.A.)--Illinois State University, 1995. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 12, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Douglas D. Hesse (chair), Janice Neuleib, Ronald J. Fortune. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-213) and abstract. Also available in print.

Peer tutors -- Collaborative learning methods -- Peer dialoguing skills -- Peer composition or writing skills -- Critical points of argumentation.

<p>Sustainability and reciprocity are critical and persistent obstacles in community-engaged projects. While deeply theorized at a local level, they are rarely compared in large-scale analysis—leaving sustainability and reciprocity as assumed staple points in community literacy work but difficult in transfer since written accounts are contextually and culturally specific to a local community.  Methodology becomes an essential component to how researchers negotiate knowledge practices, the intent of their research, and their relational stake in the community contexts they work within. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In order to understand how researchers name and frame methodologies in community literacy work, I synthesize fifteen years of scholarship in <em>Community Literacy Journal</em> (<em>CLJ</em>), accounting for 128 published pieces by employing qualitative meta analysis. Three questions are central to this dissertation: 1) What methodologies allow for sustainable and reciprocal work in the varied contextual circumstances of community literacy projects? 2) What might these methodological lessons mean for the larger field of Writing Studies and in turn, for writing centers? 3) How do scholars challenge academic boundaries and grand narratives so our methodological decisions in community literacy projects are grounded in cultural humility?</p> <p><br></p> <p>As most <em>CLJ</em> publications describe small-scale projects and case studies, I uncover methodological grand narratives, or lore, that become easily unseen without persistent large-scale comparisons. On the surface, grand narratives are useful for general conception. In practice, grand narratives overgeneralize the methodologies needed for working with location-specific and culturally-unique community members. What works in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago’s Northside functions differently in the South Side of the city, but the grand narratives found in accessible scholarship blur those borders.</p> <p><br></p> <p>Through analysis, I discovered surround three dominant dilemmas that <em>CLJ</em> researchers face: 1) positionality—who we are as academics within non-academic communities; 2) approach—how academics work with communities outside of academia; and 3) representation—what academics do with that work and who takes credit. </p>

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