Presentation Abstracts
Session 1
10:45-11:45 a.m.
(1A) Redwood Room, 1st
Floor
Reaching across
Disciplines for Collaborative Tutoring Strategies
Paula Barrington-Schmidt, Lindsay Bakus, Amy
Hansen, and Matthew Moberly, California State University, Stanislaus
The presenters have had to adapt group strategies
from disciplines other than English in order to provide tutors with
effective tutoring strategies. These group strategies—Strategic Content
Learning Theory, group therapy techniques, and business working groups
techniques—have given tutors the tools they need to lead and manage
successful collaborative tutoring sessions.
(1B) Lobby Suite, 1st
Floor
Creating a Global
Model for Peer Tutoring
Sheryl Fontaine and Debi Lyn Esquivel, California
State University, Fullerton
The presenters will describe their plans to establish
a collaborative model of tutoring in the village of San Martin Sacpetequez,
Guatemala, where concerns with improved learning, program sustainability,
and minimal costs are especially great. The presenters’ research will
provide models for improving Writing Center tutor training courses and
strategies for tutoring students whose first language is Spanish.
(1C) Orchard I, 2nd
Floor
Word Games,
Metaphors, and Tutoring Outside the Box
“Forming Claims through Metaphors,” Jeff Tannen,
Reedley College Clovis Center
Metaphorical association is a way of requiring
students to think outside the box without intimidating them with the
dreaded words “critical thinking.” By utilizing freewriting exercises and
engaging in discussions that require students to create metaphorical
associations during group tutoring sessions, they are forced to make and
support claims about a text.
“Creating Play from Work: Word Games for Student
Writers,” Thomas Lind and Clarissa Ryan, California State University, East
Bay
This session will give participants the chance to
learn about and play several word games which are adaptable to various
levels and can be used in classrooms, group tutoring sessions, and
one-on-one tutoring sessions. With these games, the “work” of writing can
become “play,” helping students view writing as a creative process and
lessening their anxiety about interacting with texts.
(1D) Orchard II, 2nd
Floor
Sounding Correct
or Saying Something: Working with Beginning and Advanced Academic Writers
“Subverting Established Cultures of Correctness,”
Brooke Anderson, Pima Community College
Writing Centers should be places where access to
higher education is increased, not because we erase the person sitting
before us, but because we complicate that person’s understanding of
language and academia. This presentation will discuss the challenges the
presenter confronted while implementing creative ways to transform our
culture of correctness into a culture of inquiry.
“Thesaurus-izing and the Razzle-Dazzle
Effect—Upholding Creativity in Spite of Itself,” Angela Carothers,
University of Notre Dame
As writing center tutors, we come across many papers
which, once one gets down underneath all the “smart” language, turn out to
say nothing much at all. This phenomenon of “thesaurusizing” is often a
defensive mechanism that arises from insecurity about a paper’s content.
The speaker will look at some of the ways in which this “thesaurusizing”
manifests itself in the Notre Dame writing center, and ways to help
writers overcome it.
(1E) Orchard III, 2nd
Floor
Between Two
Worlds: Cultural Differences in Writing
Sohee Jung, Mona Abdoun, and James Cosner,
California State University, East Bay
We need effective and innovative tools to help our
ESL students understand and internalize the conventions of American
academic writing and to secure a successful outcome while respecting not
only their intellects but also their cultural and linguistic differences.
To this end, this panel will explore ways in which we as tutors help such
students realize the cultural differences in academic writing and become
more confident and competent writers.
Session 2
1:15-2:15 a.m.
(2A) Redwood Room, 1st
Floor
WAC/Writing Center
Outreach through Creative Promotion
Jason Schilling, Andrew Williamson, and Jim
Huntington, American River College
ARC has created a three-pronged effort to promote WAC/Writing
Center programs. It is a promotional campaign that incorporates a new
website, posters, and an outreach plan that is directed towards students
and instructors. The presenters will discuss the positive outcomes of
their efforts and the road bumps along the way.
(2B) Lobby Suite, 1st
Floor
Struggling Toward
Eloquence: What Does “Good Writing” Mean in the Writing Center?
Scott Miller, Jason Barlow, Erin Calvert, Koreen
Culbert, Molly Isbell, Jennifer Quinlan, and Sophia Rodriguez, Sonoma
State University
Writing centers engage in the liberal arts work of
helping students struggle toward eloquence—and yet practitioners have very
little language for talking about what eloquence means or what it consists
of. In this panel, the chair will discuss these concerns in a theoretical
way with reference to published commentary, and then six tutors will offer
brief positive or cautionary case studies of how they have conducted or
negotiated the dialogue about “good writing” within tutorials.
(2C) Orchard I, 2nd
Floor
Using Creative
Nonfiction in Secondary School Writing Centers
Jennifer Wells, Victoria Ramirez, and Fae Stone,
Mercy High School
The director of the Mercy High School Reading and
Writing Center and two high school seniors will share how they used
creative nonfiction exercises in the writing center to help students
create strong college admission essays. These techniques can be easily
adapted for college writing centers.
(2D) Orchard II, 2nd
Floor
Business Models
and Personal Discovery Models for Writing Center Work
“Encouraging the Encouragers: Application of
Leadership Principles for Greater Creativity Performance among Writing
Center Employees,” Jason Harris-Boundy, San Francisco State University
Treating the writing center as an organization in and
of itself, this presentation reviews the primary principles (theory and
practice) from the management and leadership literature as it relates to
increasing workplace creativity and innovation.
“Developing a Personal Method in the Writing Center,”
Bob Stanley, Sacramento City College and Solano College,
Fairfield, CA
The presenter will explore how self-awareness of personal style can help
tutors in their approach to working with students at times when those
students may be experiencing anger, apathy, or anxiety in response to
their writing challenges.
(2E) Orchard III, 3rd
Floor
Tutorial
Discourse: Analysis of Transcripts in Tutor Training and Self-Study
Magda Gilewicz, Karla Hess,
Andrea Osteen, Josh Geist, and Megan Baptista, and
Brenda Rankin, California State University, Fresno
The Writing Center at California State University,
Fresno routinely requires tutors to record and transcribe their tutorials.
The purpose of this session is to demonstrate how analysis of transcripts
can be utilized to examine tutorial discourse.
Session 3
2:30-3:30 a.m.
(3A) Redwood Room, 1st
Floor
Aliens Invade
Writing Centers: News at 10
Kristin Burke, Liz Geisser, Jeremy Trimble,
Anthony Herda, Elizabeth Young, Alex Geiger, and Audrey Nicoll-Johnson,
California State University, Sacramento
This panel will be a discussion of what it is like to
be a non-English major in a predominately English major Writing Center.
All seven participants are (or have been) non-English majors working in
the California State University, Sacramento Writing Center.
(3B) Lobby Suite, 1st
Floor
Creativity and
Genre: Implications for the Writing Center
Irene Clark, California State University,
Northridge
Julie Neff Lippman and Cathy Hale, University of
Puget Sound
In the context of student writing, what constitutes
creativity within the parameters of a particular text genre and the extent
to which creativity should be addressed in the writing center have not yet
been determined. This panel will discuss creativity in the context of
particular disciplinary text genres.
(3C) Orchard I, 2nd
Floor
Collaborativity: A
Creative Approach to Developing Self-Reliant Writers through Collaboration
Valine Moreno, Jennifer St. Clair, Sarah Thrasher,
and Beth Williams, University of California, Berkeley
UC Berkeley’s Student Learning Center uses a
question-based model of tutoring. One approach in particular—the
Collaborative Model—uses cooperation on three levels: among tutors, with
College Writing R1A instructors, and with tutees. The presenters will
discuss how this approach informs individual tutoring, tutor training
seminars, and tutor-facilitated workshops.
(3D) Orchard II, 2nd
Floor
Shaking Up the
Newbies!
Brandi Blahnik, Sarah Pultz, and Denise
Stephenson, Mira Costa College
Attendees will participate in activities from
creative training experiences designed to open up writing consultants to
new perspectives and prepare them for a variety of real-life experiences
they will face in the writing center.
(3E) Orchard III, 2nd
Floor
(Re) Creating
Authority in Face-to-Face and Online Tutoring
Alex Tolj, Jennifer Simonson, Eric Tyson, and Amy
Dickinson, California State University, Fullerton
This panel will discuss various ways in which peer
tutors create authority in the Writing Center. Panelists will explore how
culture, writing center pedagogy, and technology in the writing center
push tutors to find their peer level identity, while creating an
opportunity for students to locate their authorial identities as writers.
Session 4
3:45-4:45 a.m.
(4A) Redwood Room, 1st
Floor
Keep the Train (ing)
Rolling: Experienced Tutors Contributing to Continuous and Collaborative
Training Practices
Andy Bourelle, Nick Plunkey, Tiffany Threatt,
University of Nevada, Reno
The presenters will discuss creative, economical, and
effective ways for experienced tutors to assist in administrators’
training of tutors. Participation in tutor observations and dialogues, a
semester-long tutor training course, and topical workshops will be
discussed as possible ways for new and veteran tutors to develop as
professionals.
(4B) Lobby Suite, 1st
Floor
No Vaccines Here:
Avoiding Inoculation through Self-Assessment
Aurora Matzke, Genesea Carter, Brian Fotinakes,
and Kyle Loughman, California Polytechnic State University
Writing Centers are oftentimes perceived as sterile
laboratory environments where students go to get their grammatical and
structural errors fixed using quick composition surgery. To place more
creative, technologically-driven tools in the hands of students who may
feel marginalized because of their “illnesses,” the presenters are
implementing an online university Writing Center hub.
(4C) Orchard I, 1st
Floor
Dialogue and
Collaboration in Tutoring and Training
“Tutor Talk and
the ‘Telling Tutorial’: Creative Dialogical Approaches to Tutor Training”
Emily Nye and Cynthia Andrzejczyk, California
State University, East Bay
The CSU East Bay ensemble cast of writing center
staff, students, and tutors have all participated in the creative process
to produce a text: Tutor Talk and the ‘Telling Tutorial’: Dialogical
Approaches to Tutor Training. Writing center tutors and administrators
will leave this session with ideas about how to create their own tutoring
texts as part of a creative and interactive approach to tutor training.
"Flexible
Collaboration: What Three Writers have Taught Me"
Melissa Gunby, California State University,
Sacramento
The presenter is a first-semester tutor learning
collaborative techniques for the first time. The presenter discusses her
encounter with and appreciation for the power of collaboration.
(4D) Orchard II, 2nd
Floor
Grammar in
Context: Creative Tutoring Approaches
“Examining the Process: Creating a Model for
Addressing Grammar in Tutoring Sessions,” Carolyn Swalina, University of
California, Berkeley
The presenter will discuss a process model for an
approach to grammar in which tutees make informed decisions about grammar
in their own paper and tutors provide non-directive advice about audience
concerns.
“Creatively Teaching Grammar-for-Writing to
Generation 1.5 Learners,” Jennifer Peters and Alexa Poeter, San Francisco
State University
The presenters will discuss the value of using
interactive games as a creative method for working with generation 1.5
students in the writing center. In addition they will offer ideas on how
to teach grammar in the context of students’ own writing and how to
integrate games into grammar-for-writing lessons.
“Opening the Bottleneck: Making Intuitive Grammar
Teachable,” Maitreya Salvado DaRocha, Sonoma State University
Tutors often lack the language to be able to
communicate their instinctive knowledge of standard grammar. The purpose
of this presentation is to offer hands-on, practical advice for tutors to
make that instinctive grammar teachable.
(4E) Orchard III, 2nd
Floor
Training and
Tutoring Online: Understanding and Managing Technology in the Writing
Center
“Making Meaning: A Study of the Writing Center at
California State University, Fullerton,” Crisina Lang and Bridget Kominek,
California State University, Fullerton
The presenters conducted a qualitative study using
transcripts of six face-to-face tutorials and fifteen printouts of online
tutorials conducted in March 2006. Using principles of Conversation
Analysis developed by Harvey Sacks and Lev Vygotsky’s definition of
language, the presenters found patterns, noting both similarities and
differences in how tutors engage with students in face-to-face
conversations and in tutorials carried out via email.
“Creatively Managing the Writing Center:
Implementing the On-line Tutorial Hub,” Josh Fleming, Western Nevada
Community College
This presentation centers on how to use existing
platforms (Blackboard, WebCT, Etudes, etc.) to manage, train, and assess
writing center tutors.
“Creative Technology Solutions for the 21st-Century
Writing Center,” Julianne Chisolm, California Maritime Academy
A high-quality, computer-assisted writing center can
be built and maintained efficiently and inexpensively (if not painlessly)
by humanities-based administrators. Believe it or not, we don’t have to go
back to school in order to make effective technology decisions for our
labs.
