WID resources and tutor research

[Karin Gosselink <U15593@UICVM.UIC.EDU>]

Dean, Jim, Neal, Tere, Joan and others,

Thanks for the references, especially Dean Ward's extensive bibliography.
This is the first time that our Writing Center has had the resources
to signficantly reach out to writers in the social sciences.  I've
already talked by phone to faculty in several departments, and will soon
get together with them to talk about their perceptions of what makes a good
paper for their individual disciplines.  I'll be using most of the books and
articles I gather for background information and as general resources for
our tutors.

And Neal, your idea of having our tutors research writing in the disciplines
is feasible for us in the spring.  Last year, we had the students
in one of our tutoring classes develop their own syllabi to center on one
topic they wanted to explore through their tutoring.  Our tutors' projects
included an exploration of writer's block, writing in the legal profession,
working with creative writers, and journalism.  One tutor continued the
work she had done in another class on African-American women's voices.
As a part of her project, she created a performance piece which included
poetry, dialogue, and dance to convey her understanding of African-American
women's creative processes and the community of creation.  (She's expanding
her original piece into a work which will be performed by the children
at the local YMCA activity center).  We've had great results with our
trial run last semester, and will run a similar course this spring.

I'd be interested in finding out others' experiences with a tutoring class
like this.  Has anyone else tried it?  What were your experiences like?

Karin Gosselink
u15593@uicvm.uic.edu