We have moved...

...  to a new hosting site, largely for logistical reasons. Please come and visit us at http://uwcwritingcentre.wordpress.com.

Thanks for reading!

The nature and role of feedback to students during writing tutorials: from the tutors’ perspective

In the UWC Writing Centre, we as tutors need to be aware of the way we give our feedback to students so that their work can be revised with greater ease and understanding. The nature of the feedback that is given to students can either help them to understand why they have to do any form of revision, or it may further confuse the students. This blog post intends to highlight how and why we think that feedback is very useful for students’ improvement on the academic writing process, and some guidelines for giving constructive feedback.

Chaudron (1988:150) views feedback as ‘treatment of error’ that may simply refer to ‘any teacher’s behaviour following an error that minimally attempts to inform the learner of the fact of error’. Lightbown and Spada (1999:171) also refer to feedback as:

Any indication to the learners that their use of the target language is incorrect. This includes various responses that the learners receive. When a language learner says, ‘He go to school everyday’, corrective feedback can be explicit, for example, ‘no, you should say goes, not go’ or implicit ‘yes he goes to school every day’, and may or may not include metalinguistic information, for example, ‘Don’t forget to make the verb agree with the subject’.

In like manner, Lyster and Ranta (1997) define feedback as a ‘student’s generated repair’ that is successful. They suggest four ways that such a repair can be accomplished;

1. Clarification Request: indicates that the student’s writing is misunderstood by a teacher or that the writing is ill-formed in some way. In this regard, it can refer to either problems in accuracy or comprehensibility, or both.
2. Repetition: redundancy to isolate student’s work, with changes in tone or inflection to highlight the error.
3. Metalinguistic Feedback: may contain comments, information or questions related to the well-formedness of the student’s writing without explicitly providing the correct form. Points to the nature of the error but attempts to elicit the information from the student.
4. Elicitation: strategic pauses to allow students to fill in the blanks, questions to elicit correct forms or asking students to rewrite a draft.

In line with this, Chaudron (1988) argues that error corrections in writing must be based on the following questions:

•         Should learner’s errors be corrected?
•         When should they be corrected?
•         Which ones should be corrected?
•         How should errors be corrected?
•         Who should do the correcting, student or teacher?

To attempt an answer for the above, we speculated on where student writers tend to struggle with their writing. Fanselow (1977) suggests that students struggle with lack of confidence in themselves, lack of direction where the ideas are going to, the reading of related literature takes students astray (off track) and distractions. John: ‘As a writing coach, this has been very helpful to me as they help me as a tutor to identify where the student might be struggling’. Gordon: ‘Being able to identify their struggle is a first step to giving a good feedback. There are times when you prepare comments for students but during the face-to-face, you would notice that they had a different problem entirely’. Thus, we as tutors have found some of this theory useful in thinking about what students might be struggling with and how we might try to help them through our feedback.

There are two general types of feedback, summative and formative. Formative feedback entails commenting throughout the text on specific errors or missteps that encourages and informs a writer of any gaps in their writing. In view of this, we are of the opinion that feedback in a Writing Centre, focused as it is on writing as a process, needs to be encouraging and formative. Tutors and writers need to see writing a continuous process which can always be improved upon. In contrast, summative feedback is a little too general and it is usually given at the end of an assignment. It does have a place, but perhaps not in the Writing Centre, and certainly not on its own.

Based on the above argument, we believe that feedback is very useful for teachers and tutors because it helps the writers to improve on their writing (Lyster 2001). It might also help to move the text to the next step in the writing process. Feedback also helps to show the writer the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of the text – not only what to correct and how, but also why they need to correct it. As a result, feedback gives the writer opportunities to make informed choices about their revisions and it provokes critical thinking by asking writers and tutors to motivate for what works and what does not.

As a way of conclusion, we suggest a few DOs and DON’Ts (or SHOULDs and SHOULDN’Ts) of feedback:

DOs/SHOULDs

• Talk about the positives before the negatives - with the idea that we do not want the students to feel stupid, they should know that there is something that they are doing well.
• Select the most pertinent points - because if all the mistakes are brought out at once, the student could be discouraged to continue or may become completely confused.
• Be explicit enough - to make sure the student understands exactly what is being talked about, avoid the use of specialised words (or jargon).
• Read over a whole paper/assignment before commenting – this can help a tutor to select the pertinent points for discussion and see the paper as a whole
• Give choices to the writer  – avoid imposing what you would write or say on the student - so that they feel like part of their work
• Play the role of a critical peer – make suggestions and comments rather than telling them what they must do so that they can understand that the writing process treats everyone the same way

DON’Ts/SHOULDN'Ts

•  Do not use jargon or specialised terms uncritically – these words could be scaring because students might not understand what they mean e.g. coherence, task analysis etc.
• Do not be vague in your feedback - you need to clear enough to make the students understand why they have to do a revision.
• Do not be negative – that is, do not give them the impression that time is against them; let them rather understand that there can never be a perfect piece of writing but that they can always work on it and improve
• Do not feedback paragraph by paragraph – this can be at times make some of your comments redundant, or prevent you and the student from seeing the work as a whole
•  Do not force writer to own ideas they may not be comfortable with – provide them with choices and let them understand why they need to effect a change
•  Do not be subjective or biased – focus on the assignment and the student, not on your own plans for the writing or thoughts on the topic

Written by John Foncha and Gordon Igbokwe, based on their presentation at a staff seminar

References

Chaudron, C. (1988). Second language classrooms: Research on teaching and learning.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Fanselow, J. F. (1977). The treatment of error in oral work. Foreign Language Annals 10:

583-593.

Lightbown, P. M., and Spada, N. (1999). How languages are learned. Oxford, UK: Oxford

University Press.

Lyster, R. (2001). Negotiation of form, recasts and explicit correction in relation to error types and learner repair in immersion classrooms. Language Learning 51:265-301.

Lyster, R. and Ranta, L. (1997) Corrective feedback and learner uptake: Negotiation of form in  communicative classrooms. Corrective feedback in SLA.

The Real and the Ideal: do we have a ‘normative’ sense of writing tutorials?

In this post we want to reflect on the kinds of things we value in our approaches to student writing tutorials, and how these ‘normative’ kinds of judgements might shape the way we talk to students, and the way students tend to respond.

Often, there is, at least initially, a kind of ‘clash’ between our goals for the writing tutorial and the goals of the students. In some ways, this can most basically be described as a clash between a ‘process-oriented’ approach and a ‘product-oriented approach’ to academic writing. We will try to unpack this while trying to avoid essentialising these issues. 

  

To start with the product-oriented approach to writing that many students adopt (and that many lecturers adopt too): this approach is what it sounds like, really. Many students come to the Writing Centre tasked with producing a piece of academic writing, in a certain form and following certain guidelines or rules, many of which they do not fully understand at undergraduate level, and which are often tacit. Most students at undergraduate level that we tutor are very focused on that product, on getting it written as quickly and painlessly as possible and on getting the best possible mark they can. They seldom (at least at the start of coming to the Centre) see themselves as beginning a process-oriented approach to writing, where their own personal and academic growth is a focus, and where the product is one of a series of products that link together to create a sense of forward motion, personal growth, knowledge building and confidence-building. This process-oriented approach may be valued in the university in some corners and places, like Writing Centres, academic-development-type courses and with certain lecturers and tutors. But on the whole, the approach to writing, learning and assessment in higher education globally is dominated by a focus on the product, and often the person producing it is overlooked or under-considered. We in the Writing Centre take issue with this, because this is not the approach that we value. But we need to be aware of the kinds of concerns a focus on the product creates for students about academic writing, so that we can understand our own approaches to academic writing and our methods of guiding, advising and encouraging students more reflectively and critically.

When we discussed the idea behind this blog post – a musing about whether there is something ‘normative’ about our approach to academic writing, and whether and how we might be imposing this onto writing tutorials perhaps unconsciously and what effects this might have – we started with the idea of a ‘traditional’ and a ‘non-traditional’ approach to tutoring in the university. In the sense that we are using these terms in our thinking, a ‘traditional’ tutorial places the authority in the tutor to direct the tutorial and set the agenda, and it also makes the tutor the holder of knowledge and knowing about what is under discussion. In the ‘non-’ or ‘less traditional’ approach, the power dynamics are challenged, because the tutor shares the agenda-setting and authority over directing the discussion with the student, and both the tutor and student have knowledge that is included and drawn on in the discussion – the students’ knowledge about the assignment topic is actively sought because writing tutors do not have subject-specific knowledge for every assignment that they need to assist students with. We find, though, that the dominant approach according to students is the more traditional approach, and that when students are invited to work with the peer writing tutors differently they tend to initially find this disconcerting or challenging. Many of them would like us to give them yes and no answers and tell them what to write and how to write it so that they can complete their product. Many students do eventually enjoy the different way of working when they get used to it, but it is initially tricky to get many students to open up and start talking and take on some of that authority and confidence in their ideas and their writing. This leads us to wonder what we are valuing in our approach over the alternative, and why we insist on drawing students into discussion and conversation, rather than simply capitulating and telling them what they want to know. Are we making value judgements here about what counts as the ‘right’ way to assist students with their writing? Are we saying, tacitly, that a writing tutorial ought to go a certain way or have certain outcomes? And, if we are, how are these judgements impacting on how we manage our time with students?

In short, we think the answer is probably ‘yes’. Yes, we are making certain value judgements about what academic writing is and is not (and these are not just ours because they are informed by theory and practice in our field). We are saying that writing is a process, and that there are certain things that need to be valued in that process, like giving the student full ownership over their own writing, and giving guidance and advice that develops the student-writer’s capacity and confidence, rather than just developing single assignments. We are valuing a focus on the ‘deeper’ elements of writing, like the way the ideas are organised and the way the writer is creating coherence for the reader, as well as the use of evidence to support their claims and warrants, over a focus on the ‘polishing’ in terms of fixing typos and correcting spelling and grammatical errors (unless polishing is what is needed). We are, to an extent, making a normative kind of judgement – we ought to go about things in a certain way because of what we value, and not necessarily because we are trying to make the writing easier to read or nicer to look at. There are normative criteria that shape academic writing, and what we value taps into those as well, like how to structure an essay and how to argue academically and why we do so in certain ways, and why we don’t use exclamation marks or rhetorical questions, for example.

We do not always communicate these value judgements overtly; often this is tacit, in the way we gently guide the conversation through questions and prompts to the issues we think the student would benefit most from working on with us. We often know what we need to talk about based on the task before the students as well as our own experience as writers and tutors, so we don’t often stop and think about what might be underpinning what we are doing in those conversations.  This blog post was an attempt to do a bit of that reflection and thinking. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue too? What do your value in your writing centres, and how does this shape your encounters with students, and with other academics?

Adventures in tutor training (part two)

In the first part of this post I outlined part of a new approach that we’re taking at the UWC Writing Centre towards the initial training of peer writing tutors. I described briefly using a PLA approach called the River of Life, the aim of which was to get the new and returning tutors to get to know one another, and chiefly to bring the tutors’ own experiences and knowledge into the training space, to open up a more open and interactive training environment.

The second PLA technique we used was Matrix ranking. The idea behind this technique is to get groups of people to collaboratively draw up a list of qualities or items that correspond to an issue they need to think about. These get written down in a vertical column. The facilitator then gets the group to come up with criteria for choosing between the different criteria or items they have come up with. These are written along the top in a horizontal column and a grid gets drawn up. The group then gets to cast votes, using beans or buttons as counters for what is most to least important or valuable to them, and the criteria or items are ranked. The idea, essentially, is to collectively share knowledge and ideas, and to give groups an opportunity to defend their choices to one another and to try and persuade the other groups members to choose along with them (Rowley 1999). We simplified this activity by removing the horizontal column, but the essence remained – the collective sharing of knowledge and ideas, and the group discussing and voting on the most to least important criteria or items. The issues we spoke about were the characteristics of a successful peer writing tutors and successful writing tutorials – this session led on from the first session in which we drew Rivers of Life and then, using a Think-Pair-Share activity, discussed three readings we regard as fairly foundational in terms of giving us a framework and a shared language for our work with student-writers. Thus we had some of the theoretical foundation in place and this activity was designed to extend and deepen that earlier conversation we started by creating a more practical application.

The tutors got themselves into three groups and discussed amongst themselves the characteristics of successful tutors and tutorials, and came up with eight characteristics per issue, per group. These they then voted on and ranked them, and presented their matrices to the whole group. I wandered around and listened in on their discussions and voting and gave advice and guidance where needed.  I then took all the matrices home and collated them – pulling all the similar characteristics together and creating a collective list of characteristics that reflected what they had written, presented and what I had overheard during facilitation. We now have two collaboratively designed and debated matrices that, very simply, represent what we, as a team, consider to be good practice. This is informed by the experiences of the returning tutors, the ideas and input of the new tutors, and all the tutors drawing on the relevant theory they have read. The matrices are here.

Following this session, on the second day of training, the tutors received simple scenarios and were divided into pairs and small groups. They then devised 5 minute role-plays for the whole group, being as creative as they wanted to be and bringing in their own experiences with students to add colour and life to the scenario. These were videotaped and then discussed with tutors giving one another feedback and then the facilitator stepping in, consolidating and adding relevant points where necessary. This role-playing has been a part of training since 2011, but every year we challenge ourselves to be more creative and make this a more informative, rewarding and fun experience for all the tutors. For the newer tutors the role plays provide a small insight into some of what can happen in a tutorial, so that they go into their first encounters with students a little more prepared. An example of one of the scenarios:

One-on-one: tutor has not read the draft – it’s just the first part of an essay, an intro and a couple of paragraphs and the student says they are stuck and don’t know what to write next; tutor uses questions to get the student talking about the task and their ideas and what research they need to do and how or why they have to do research before they can keep writing

The feedback on the interactivity of the revised and renewed tutorial programme was very positive.

‘The role plays were refreshing – quite a hands on experience of what transpires during consultations.’

‘Very empowering and exposure to the actual tutorial sessions.  More reflective and engaging.  More enriching to personal development.’

‘Today’s session has been productive in that new and old tutors shared very varied but good experiences.  A good building block for 2013 tutoring.’ 

‘Provided opportunity for students to share their ideas, experiences and goals.’

 As a result of the feedback, and my own experience of working in these newer and more engaged and interactive ways with the tutors, I feel that making the tutor training more collaborative, and also more up to the tutors themselves in as far as leading their own discussions and contributing so much of their own experiences, ideas and expertise made these the most enjoyable and informative, and also empowering tutor training workshops we have had thus far. I am encouraged by how well it went, and also by how we, through our own support of one another and mutual teaching and learning in our ongoing training, are extending what we do with student-writers into our own training space and taking on the issues of empowerment, collaboration, friendliness and peer-ness in new ways.

Reference:

Rowley, John. 1999. Tips for trainers: matrix ranking of PRA tools. Available online at: http:// http://www.participatorytraining.co.uk/Tipsfortrainers.pdf.

Adventures in tutor training (part one)

Every January, before the start of the academic term, I get new and returning peer writing tutors together for a 2-day training workshop. In 2011 and 2012, when we were establishing our theoretical framework and basis for what we do in working with student writers and how we do it, we read a lot – on writing centres, on academic literacies, on global shifts in higher education – and we spent a lot of time talking about the readings and trying to relate the key ideas and approaches to our own work at UWC. There was always an interactive element; in both years the tutors spent some time role-playing various scenarios representing good practices and less successful practices in one on one and small group writing tutorials. However, the majority of the time was spent talking – mostly the coordinator leading the way and the tutors attempting to follow. It was not truly an interactive and tutor-focused experience on the whole, although this was the case in part.

This year I wanted to do something very different. We have seven new tutors joining our team of sixteen and nine tutors returning, a few for their 3^rd year. Thus we have some ‘old hands’ with many writing tutorials and readings and training sessions behind them, and a significant portion of the team with a lot of catching up to do, so to speak. I wanted to create a space where the experienced writing tutors could do some of the training, through sharing their knowledge and experience in ways that are relatable and real to the new tutors, and that also contribute to the building of a collegial environment and a new team morale. I wanted them to spend a lot of time talking and thinking and laughing – I wanted them to have fun and to feel confident about stepping into the tutorial space to work with students when they start coming. Most significantly, I wanted to step back and try to facilitate the discussions and guide the process rather than taking control and doing most of the talking.

In thinking about how to achieve this, I tried out various ideas, and one that really struck me as being something that would start the ball rolling in the right direction is using Participatory Learning in Action (PLA) techniques, specifically the River of Life and Matrix Ranking. The main strength of PLA techniques is that they encourage links between students’ own lifeworlds and the more formal spaces of higher education and disciplinary learning, they encourage the sharing of information through interactive and participatory processes, and they have the ability to deepen students’ own sense-making of their learning processes because they start from where the students are and proceed from there (see Pretty 1995 and Nelson & Wright 1995 for more information and resources). I wanted to try these two techniques as a way of getting the tutors to start with their own experiences and move from these into a communal space of sharing knowledge with one another, and discussing approaches to practice collectively.

We started with drawing our own Rivers of Life. Each tutor was given coloured crayons and pastels and a piece of flipchart paper and asked to draw his or her own academic journey, from the earliest moment they wanted to start at up to where they are now, or even up to what they hope will be on the horizon. They were also asked to consider their choice to tutor and how this work has played into their own journey thus far. Once they had drawn their river they were asked to share their story with a small group, and then each group chose a spokesperson to give an overview of some of the similarities of points of divergence and interest in all four rivers as a means of giving the whole group some insight into the small group stories. The tutors seemed to enjoy this exercise, with some drawing very elaborate and colourful rivers and others being a little more cautious with colour. All of them, however, were able to tell their story through drawing it, and their comments reflected their feelings about being able to think more introspectively about where they started and where they are now, and about how far they have come and what they have achieved.

‘The river of knowledge made me reconnect with my past academic experiences.  It made me know how important each step, either positive or negative has influenced my academic career.’

‘River of life exercise was interesting because it gave me an opportunity to recreate the route that I have travelled in my career path.’

‘The idea of formulating my academic journey as a river was very interesting.  It appears the motif of a river captures the context of my academic life, the struggles, obstacles, successes of my academic life.’

These are a few of the rivers they drew, used here with their permission but without the names.

The point of this exercise, in light of the revised aims and goals for training, was to get tutors to get to know one another – for the new tutors to be introduced to the returning tutors and start to feel like part of the team, and for the returning tutors to get to know one another in new ways. Collegiality is a big part of the way we build our team and support one another throughout the year and an exercise like this can contribute towards developing a sense of collegiality. It also brings the tutors’ own stories and experiences and their own knowledge into the collaborative training space as a way into the more theoretical knowledge that followed this session. In the next post I’ll conclude with the other part of using PLA that I mentioned, and some other interactive tools we used to good effect.

References:

Pretty, J. et al (1995) Participatory Learning and Action: A Trainer’s Guide. London: IIED.

Nelson, N. & Wright, S. (1995) Power and Participatory Development: Theory and Practice. London: ITP.

Writing centres as rehearsal spaces: part two – who is rehearsing and what for?

In our previous post, we discussed some ideas we have had as a team about writing centres as rehearsal spaces in the university, and who the participants in those rehearsals might be and what their roles may look like. In this post, we look at the second part of our discussion – who is rehearsing and what they could be rehearsing for, and some of the limitations of this metaphor.

As promised in Part one, the two questions we will look at here are:

2. If we think about the writing centre as a rehearsal space, who is rehearsing and what for? What role are we playing in helping students rehearse, and what constitutes the 'play' or the polished 'product' that will be viewed or read? What forms could these rehearsals take? Are you, as writing tutors, in rehearsal? What for?

3. Is this metaphor useful in thinking through the different roles we take on in a writing centre? Where are the limitations or constraints?

2.

In the first instance, the students who come to talk about their writing are rehearsing. They have tried out a piece of writing, which they bring as a draft to discuss with the peer writing tutors. In working with them we are, to delve into the metaphor of stage and plays, ‘workshopping’ the piece with them. We ask questions and draw them into discussions that try to get them to think about their writing, and whether or not the audience will receive it well; to think about themselves as writers, and what they want to say, or show, to their audience; and about the audience itself – who are they writing to, and what do they need to put into the ‘play’ to show their audience that they have achieved what they were asked to achieve? Students, perhaps, are rehearsing for a range of things. Students want to pass, so they write for the approval and marks that will ensure this. Students also write to develop knowledge and appropriate stances towards that knowledge; they write to gain recognition from the experts and insiders in their field of study; and students write to give evidence of learning, and whether they have achieved certain standards or levels of learning set by the disciplines, departments and faculties they are part of.  It can be tricky, then, for peer writing tutors who take on the roles of coach, or in some instances where additional support is needed, director, to guide the rehearsal and writing process such that students are empowered both ontologically and epistemologically – so that they can rehearse for a multitude of roles and for an appropriate audience with increasing confidence and skill.

I read somewhere that there is no such thing as a ‘final’ draft. There is only a draft that we work on until we have to hand it in for comments or assessment. There will always be work to do on that draft, and we could revisit it over and over down time and make numerous big and small revisions. So, what is the final ‘product’ or ‘play’ that the students produce for their audience? And how do we, in this more hesitant and developmentally-focused rehearsal space, help students to appreciate the process that goes into becoming a more capable and proficient writer (and through that knower) in their fields of study when so much of the focus is not on the rehearsal (and the value of those conversations and false-starts and duffed lines and missteps in developing the ‘play’ that the audience gets to see), but is rather on the polished and finished ‘product’? There is altogether too much focus on product in academic writing, and not enough on process and on mistakes and not-knowing and trying things on and out to get to knowing. This is why this metaphor of writing centres as rehearsal spaces is valuable and why the metaphor of rehearsing for students writing in academia can be a productive and liberating one for both students and lecturers in other contexts as well.

The forms rehearsals could take are many and varied, and in our writing centre we ask students to workshop their assignments using free-writing, conversation, debate and even visual representations of their writing. We draw them into conversations about their writing in a range of ways that we try to vary and play with as we get to know the students a little, and we try to find ourselves in their anxieties, struggles and also triumphs, because we are all writers too, and remembering that is important.

Finally, on this point, the peer writing tutors are also rehearsing. In every tutorial we are rehearsing for future tutorials with students, trying things out and evaluating what works and what doesn’t so that we can keep growing as tutors, and as actors in this space we occupy. For many peer tutors, the rehearsals are also developing their capacity as future academic lecturers. The rehearsal process tutors experience in working with student writing shapes and changes their thinking about the process of learning, and requires them to be reflexive about the role of writing in learning – their own and other students’. As we teach, we also learn, and this constant reflexivity and evaluation creates a process of ongoing development and growth, and insight into writing as a learning and thinking process.

3.

This is not a perfect metaphor for the way writing centres work and what we do every day, or for thinking about a more process-oriented approach to student writing in higher education. Most metaphors tend to fall apart somewhere along the line. However, in spite of the limitations of this metaphor which I don’t have space to delve into here, such as who the audience really is in academia, and thinking of writing as a ‘play’ or ‘act’ (which becomes quite complex), I think that this is a productive, creative and provocative way in which to think about what writing centres, as well as academics, can do in teaching students how to think differently and through writing become different and more proficient kinds of knowers in their chosen fields. If all the world is a stage, and if we are all players on or in it, and if students need to be proficient in certain ways to win accolades, recognition and jobs, then what are the kinds of things we could be doing to create more spaces to make the thinking and writing practices, rules and expectations of the disciplines clearer to novice student actor-writers? What are the ways in which we could turn other spaces in the academy into rehearsal spaces for student writing?

Writing centres as rehearsal spaces: part one - developing the metaphor of writing as rehearsing

This post, divided into two because it is long, and detailed, comes out of a discussion with the peer writing tutors I work with. As we all work as peer tutors, I will refer to us as a team in these posts, because this is how we work, even though I also play the role of coordinator of the team. These two posts reflect their ideas and inputs on this notion of writing as rehearsing.

I got the idea for the discussion from Lucia Thesen at the University of Cape Town, who is working with the notion of writing as rehearsal in her own work with postgraduate writers. I really liked the idea of a writing centre as a rehearsal space, and wanted us to explore it in relation to our work at UWC, so I set us as a team of peer writing tutors the task of  coming up with this blog post, unpacking and fleshing out this idea. The questions on which the discussion was based are as follows:

1. Think of the metaphor of the writing centre as a theatre - the stage, the actors, the director, the script and the scriptwriters - who else is involved in the production? If we extend this metaphor to writing and a writing centre in a university, who plays these various roles? Who is involved in the writing process?

2. If we think about the writing centre as a rehearsal space, who is rehearsing and what for? What role are we playing in helping students rehearse, and what constitutes the 'play' or the polished 'product' that will be viewed or read? What forms could these rehearsals take? Are you, as writing tutors, in rehearsal? What for?

3. Is this metaphor useful in thinking through the different roles we take on in a writing centre? Where are the limitations or constraints?

In this first post we will unpack and expand on the question in part 1, and in the second post we will comment on parts 2 and 3.

1. In thinking about the Writing Centre in which we work as a ‘theatre’ or as a ‘stage’, we think that often we are in the cast with the students. We have multiple roles here: we are in the cast ‘directed’ by the coordinator and ‘produced’ by the higher levels of administration that set our budget and define our role – write a part of our script so to speak. But within that space, we are also rewriting and revising our roles and our script, so we are also scriptwriters, and directors to a certain extent.  In addition to these two roles, we are also members of a different kind of cast, where the directors and producers are outside of the Writing Centre in the disciplines and departments from which the students come to us for help. Here the scriptwriters, directors and producers are the lecturers who set the assignments and the departments and wider university who set the standards and requirements that the assignments must meet. So we, along with the students, must work with the script they are given to produce, in collaboration, a performance worthy of the praise from the audience.

This also raises the question of audience, and the multiple roles that peer writing tutors can play in this rehearsal space, and also who the rehearsing is for. When we are reading and commenting on the students’ work, before they come and see us if we have a draft, and when we are in the tutorial session with them, we are the audience. We construct ourselves as readers, and as critical friends, and that is, by necessity, the role of an audience. But there are layers of audience here, and these all influence the writing tutorial, and the rehearsal space created there.  There is the person or people the assignment is being written for, usually a lecturer or tutor; this is a largely visible audience, because these are real, tangible people. However, there is also an invisible audience invoked by this visible one; that of the wider academic community into which students are wanting to gain admission. When we write, we write to the person assessing our work, but they represent a discipline, and a community of knowers or ‘insiders’ whose voices and ideas we may be drawing into our work, and whose recognition we want, so that we too can be seen as ‘insiders’, as belonging. This brings to mind Lillis’ point about students inventing themselves through their texts, playing with voices and identities, trying them on to find one that ‘fits’ or feels like them. Linked to this is a point she makes about students also inventing their audience – their tutors and lecturers – and trying to work out how to find the right voice or stance in their writing to gain the approval of the tutor or lecturer in their heads (2001). This highlights just how complex the task of working out who we are writing to (rehearsing for) can be in academic and disciplinary writing. As writers of journal articles, and PhD and MA dissertations, we are all experiencing this process of ‘becoming’ and taking on new identities and a new voice as we write, while also trying to work out who we are writing to and what that audience will want from us so that we will earn standing ovations and calls of ‘Bravo!’ rather than boos and, even worse, silence.

Finally, we thought about the notion of the script – what defines or influences of shapes the interactions we have with students? Again, the notion of multiple layers is at play because there is more than one script involved. Firstly, there is the assignment, and the expectations attached to that assignment; this is the lecturer’s script. Then, there is the conversation the student wants to have about that assignment and their difficulties, questions etc; this is their script for this part of the rehearsal. Then there are our scripts; our plans for the writing tutorial and the advice we think the student will benefit from in (re)writing their assignment. We could probably add to this the wider scripts of the departments and disciplines that impact on the assignments the lecturers design and the criteria they write for students, and these also shape and influence this rehearsal space.

These are complex issues, and the discussion out of which this post and the one to follow have come has highlighted this. In any dialogic space there are a multitude of voices speaking, and silenced, and there are several roles which the participants can play. In the next post we turn to consider what we are rehearsing for and why, and some of the limitations of this metaphor.

Reference:

Lillis, Theresa M. 2001. Student Writing. Access, Regulation, Desire. London and New York: Routledge.

To post a comment, just add your name and the comment below - we'd love to hear from you.