This study assesses the influence of writing center tutorials on student writing and presents tutoring best practices. Writing center scholars have emphasized the need for evidence-based studies to understand how one-on-one tutorials influence student writing practices. After examining twenty tutorial recordings along with their pre-and post-intervention drafts in two state universities (ten in each university), the author traced the influence of writing center tutorials on students' post-session revisions and identified tutoring best practices. The findings show that all the twenty students included in the study followed up on the issues addressed in their tutorials, in some form or the other, in their post-session drafts. In terms of tutoring strategies, the findings revealed that although most of the tutors in the study could identify and speak about global concerns (i.e. development, structure, purpose, audience), many lacked specific strategies to address these concerns effectively. To address this concern, this study identifies tutoring best practices related to global concerns. Furthermore, the findings also revealed that the tutors faced challenges navigating the directive/non-directive continuum of tutoring. To address this concern, this study presents tutoring best practices to demonstrate how tutors can shift flexible between directive and non-directive strategies during a session. / Ph. D. / Writing center scholars have emphasized the need for evidence-based studies to develop a deeper understanding of how one-on-one writing center tutorials influence student writing practices. My aim in this study was to examine how writing center tutorials influence student writing and to identify tutoring best practices. To assess how writing center tutorials influence student writing practices, I asked this question: Do students carry over what is discussed in their writing center sessions into their post-session drafts? To assess tutoring best practices, I asked: What tutoring strategies influenced students to revise their drafts? To examine these two questions, I recorded twenty writing center tutorials in two state universities (ten in each university) and collected the drafts that students brought to their tutorials (i.e. the pre-intervention drafts) as well as the drafts that students revised after their tutorials (i.e. the post-intervention drafts). By comparing the pre-and post-intervention drafts and listening to the tutorial recordings, I was able to determine not just what issues were discussed in each of the twenty tutorials, but also how much of this discussion was carried over by students in their post-intervention drafts. As a result, I was able to demonstrate how students make use of their writing center instruction after attending a writing center session. In other words, I was able to show what aspects of a session students’ carried over into their post-intervention draft. My analysis revealed that all the twenty students included in my study incorporated their tutors’ suggestions, in some form or the other, in their post-intervention drafts. Thus, I was able to show the various ways in which a writing center tutorial can influence student revisions. I also used my data to identify tutoring best practices. For instance, my data revealed that although most of the tutors in the study could identify and speak about global concerns in a student’s paper (i.e. development, structure, purpose, audience), many lacked specific strategies to address these concerns effectively. To address this need, I examined the tutoring strategies used by the tutors in my study to address such global concerns and identified best practices related to such interventions. I also analyzed my data to examine how tutors use directive (i.e. providing direct instructions or suggestions) and nondirective (i.e. engaging students by soliciting their views) methods of tutoring. Although many writing center scholars and practitioners recommend using a flexible approach to alternate between these two methods depending on the nature of each session, tutors often find it challenging to do so in actual practice. Through my analysis, I identified best practices to demonstrate how tutors can adopt a flexible approach between directive and non-directive tutoring strategies. Such tutoring best practices can be a useful resource for tutor training programs and contribute to the overall development of writing center pedagogy.

While working for four years in a college writing center, often with dual enrolled high school students, I began asking myself why our local high schools do not have writing centers of their own. The effectiveness of writing centers in helping students advance their critical thinking and written communication skills is well documented, and yet students of diverse geographical locations and socio-economic status often arrive at college under-prepared for the rigor of academic written discourse. Employing a combination of institutional analysis and constructivist grounded theory, I conducted case studies on three Florida college writing centers, focusing on staffing models, training methods, services offered, and dissemination of information about these services. Drawing on experiential evidence and both qualitative and quantitative studies completed by Ben Rafoth, Jesùs Josè Salazar, and more, I propose adapted and adaptable writing center models for various Florida high school settings, grounding the options in current writing center theory and composition instruction pedagogy, laying the groundwork for further scholarship on the creation of flexible models of supplementary writing development education in Florida’s public school system. I conclude with a set of recommendations for key elements schools must address when creating and maintaining a writing center, including designing classroom space, recruiting and training peer tutors, and identifying a theoretical approach to student writing.

No description available.

Intrigued by the English language and its far-reaching applications worldwide as a standard means of communication, I begin my disquisition with a focus on the meaning and derivation of grammar and its place in the trivium of ancient and modern study. I stress the need to reemphasize college-level instruction in grammar and mechanics as a complement to rhetoric and logic by studying and teaching editing, which involves semantics, syntax, phonology, morphology, conventions, mechanics (spelling, punctuation and format), in writing centers and classrooms. Noting growing nationwide illiteracy, I research the pedagogies and writing of experts in the field of rhetoric and composition to develop and share a balanced philosophy of learning and teaching the art, science, and mathematics of writing with a focusing on conscientiously creating sentences with an Isocratean sense of perfection. Continually learning methods to reintroduce grammar in a novel way, I present antidotal information, statistics, and expert opinions and interpretations of pedagogists and rhetoricians of both sides of the Grammar Debate, a polemic over the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of teaching grammar. From my experience as a composition teacher at the University of South Florida and Hillsborough Community College in Florida, I present suggestions from students, who through their questions and overwhelming documented requests for grammar help and attention to sentence-level concerns, helped me rediscover myself through the reflective and recursive aspects of writing. Teaching students Standard English for academic discourse and for writing with computers across the curriculum, I share the power of words and explain the negative effects of errors and how to eliminate the serious ones. Graphs and tables of data collected from conference information forms and questionnaires filled out by students in writing centers or classrooms reveal the objectives and viewpoints of students, those whom institutions and teachers serve. Having developed a "polypedagogy," I share the knowledge I have gathered from others with innovative and creative ideas for teaching the historically boring or abstract subject of grammar.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

The writing center provides individualized instructions for students to improve their writing. Though a lot of writing center research focuses on English as a Second Language (ESL) students, there is no study on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in mainland China context. This study attempts to bridge that research gap by examining writing center interaction and its succeeding influence on students’ revision. The study examines six writing center interactions by using conversation analysis to reveal interactional patterns. Students’ pre-session text and revised text are analyzed linguistically by adopting discourse analysis. Participants’ interpretations are compiled from interview data to provide their perceptions of the writing center. The findings that emerged from conversation analysis of tutorial transcriptions, discourse analysis of students’ writing, and the interview data for this study include: (1) In writing center interaction, the tutor is the dominant speaker while the student is the subordinate participant. (2) Institutional context, limited knowledge about students, and Chinese culture of learning affect the tutor-tutee interaction. (3) Issues covered in the interaction become the focus of students’ revision. (4) Lexicogrammatical issues are the focus of writing center interaction and students’ revision. (5) Students speak highly of the interaction and tutors’ help. This research provides a thorough description of the writing center interaction, its subsequent effects on students’ revision, and students’ perceptions on the interaction. The implications of this study include: (a) eliciting more information at the beginning of the interaction; (b) adopting flexible tutoring approach; (c) encouraging students to take active participation; and (d) providing training for tutors. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

In this dissertation, I explore a writing center tutor training model based on the theories and practices of Gertrude Buck, a nineteenth-century teacher and scholar. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Buck was among the few offering an alternative to the dominant view of writing as a tool to reflect existing ideas objectively and correctly. She instead held a Deweyan view of language as a practice that allowed students to explore knowledge and come to a better understanding of themselves, others, and their communities.I examine evidence that effects of prescriptive nineteenth century trends linger in our contemporary writing center setting at Ball State University; next, I describe the process of creating a tutor training model over the course of a semester as I introduce Buck's ideas, observing how Buck's principles are discussed and implemented in writing center sessions and staff training situations. Specifically, I ask the following questions for the descriptive study that I conduct: What practices emerge as a result of using the principles of Gertrude Buck in writing center tutor training? What are the relationships among this tutor training process, tutors' perceptions of writing, and their resulting practices and approaches toward tutoring writing?Findings from the descriptive study demonstrate that the use of Gertrude Buck's principles in our writing center enabled tutors to openly, productively discuss the complexities of writing and language and to more confidently meet the needs ofdiverse writers in a range of situations. The use of Gertrude Buck's principles, which emphasize collaboration, an inductive approach to learning, and continuous reflection on the relationship between practice and theory, in fact have a broader application beyond writing centers. Writing center administrators, tutors, and teachers of writing can benefit from Buck's principles as a guide for examining their own practice and theory connections and creating models for teaching and tutoring to fit their specific contexts. / Department of English

This thesis presents a case study of one tutor in two tutoring sessions using electronic drafts in the Ball State Writing Center, focusing on the sessions' power dynamics. Writing centers have developed nondirective tutoring pedagogies in order to help tutors navigate the power dynamics of sessions with paper drafts. While these pedagogies have recently been adapted for tutoring online, attention has not yet been focused on face-to-face sessions using a computer. Using conversational, textual, and user interface analysis, this study provides thick descriptions of the power dynamics of each tutoring session, analyzing the interactions between tutor, student and computer. The descriptions of both sessions show them to be vastly unique and complex, undermining strict dichotomies between directive and nondirective tutoring. The use of the computer reflects the overall dynamics of each tutorial and raises questions about the ways in which tutors and students prefer to use computers in tutoring sessions. / Department of English

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2010. / Title from screen (viewed on July 29, 2010). Department of English, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). Advisor(s): Stephen L. Fox, Susan C. Shepherd, Teresa Molinder Hogue. Includes vitae. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-70).

This study sought to form joint conceptions of success by creating a habits of mind orientational framework drawn from university administrative and practitioner scholarship and theory. Previous literature directed at university writing higher-level administrators and practitioners in first-year writing programs and writing centers was largely engaged in battle for control of determining what success means for incoming writers and how programs can support this version of success. This framework served as the basis for this study’s methodologies for the collection as well as analysis of data. Data was collected from twelve university stakeholders who support freshmen writers through first-year writing programs and writing centers at a small Catholic university in the Northeast. These data were collected using three different methods: semi-structured interviews, ranking activities and retroactive reflections. I found that the members from the three groups of university writing stakeholders shared either cognitive, interpersonal or intrapersonal orientations when conceiving what habits make writers successful and what programmatic mechanisms can help writers form these habits. These three groups did not, however, largely prioritize writers possessing or learning the same habits within each domain. The main commonality between groups sharing a cognitive domain orientation are that the habits they privileged look to preserve conventions grounded in a white Western rhetorical tradition. Yet, writing instructors and tutors mostly do not explicitly teach these conventions because they are expected to have been acquired in high school. Thus, students of color and/or from low income backgrounds are pushed to prepare themselves to meet these conventional expectations and abandon their own culture’s priorities and conventions if they are to succeed. Groups that had inter - and intrapersonal domain orientations privileged addressing each incoming writer’s individual needs through collaboration or teaching them an actionable process that can be continuously used in each new writing context. Based on these findings, I assert that utilizing a habits of mind orientational framework can benefit transitioning writers because university writing stakeholders can identify a single set of habits from each domain that can be consistently emphasized and reinforced through programmatic mechanisms. / English