Re: WC in Comm. Coll -Reply

[Latisha LaRue <kfischer@keller.clarke.edu>]

Todd, I really like how you question that assumption/myth whether about 
community college w.c., college and university w.c., or h.s. w.c.  I was 
at a conference recently for writing teachers.  It was most interesting 
for me to hear the descriptions from these folks about what they believed 
went on in their w.c.  Some suggested that their centers were merely 
proofreading shops.  But later during break time when I talked to a few 
of these particpants, I discovered most of them had never even been in 
their writing centers nor talked with w.c. staff.  As far as I could 
tell, their descriptions were based on unfounded assumptions or the few 
remarks passed onto them by students.
	We are far from being a proofreading center at our place like all 
or most of you.  But I can well imagine a student receiving a returned 
essay marked "D" approaching the teacher and saying, "But I *went* to the 
writing center and all they would do was mark the spelling!"  I wonder, 
too, if community college writing centers suffer the proofreading or 
remediation tags because they are often combined with reading centers or 
full language arts needs.  It seems to me that some of this incorrect 
tagging has more to do with the failure to see writing (and reading) as
the developmental processes that they are.  In considering student needs 
beyond the secondary level, I'm afraid, many people still think that if 
one "belongs" in college, s/he should be able to write and read without 
ineracting with anyone else during the process -- a remarkably inept 
perception.
				Katie
> Denise,
> 
> You mention "quite a few people...who are hung up on grammar errors..." 
> in writing centers, especially those in community colleges.  I simply 
> don't see this.  I have the feeling that most cc wc's are much more 
> "with it" than you might think.
> 
> A while ago on WCenter, there was some discussion about the myth of 
> early writing centers as proofreading shops.  Many of us just assumed 
> that they had existed, and that we had evolved from them--until someone 
> questioned the assumption.  Sure, some proofreading shops did exist, 
> some probably still do, but not all early wc's were such beasts.  The 
> same goes for the community-college-writing-center-as-remedial-writing- 
> center myth.  In many (most, I hope) cases, it's simply not true.  Any 
> writing center--community college or private university--is only as 
> good as those who work there.  Where it's located has nothing to do with 
> anything.  (Next to a body of water is nice, though.)  :-)
> 
> Todd McCann
> mccannt@baydenoc.cc.mi.us
> 
> On 7/13/95, Denise wrote:
> 
> > Hi Bill,
> > 
> > I'm kinda interested in this, too.  I wonder if there really *are*
> > many non-remedial writing centers in the area--university *or*
> > community college.  I mean, there are still quite a few people out
> > there who claim to be non-remedial, but who are really hung-up on
> > grammar errors and things like the 5-paragraph theme.  In fact, that
> > was true enough that I ended up writing a paper on "freeing the WC." 
> > After having read many of the postings here, I'm confused:  People on
> > the list seem to have some very interesting stances on things like
> > error correction.  But the colleges in this area--and even many of
> > the universities, it seems--still seem to focus on grammar. 
> > Community colleg2es and open-enrollment schools seem to be the ones
> > who most stubbornly adhere to that approach.
> > 
> > Anyway, here I am, about to take this stupid paper to conference, and
> > I'm wondering if I'm not just being redundant as blazes!  So what
> > really *is* going on out there?
> > 
> > By the way, our WC (small, private university) is *very* different,
> > it seems.  We have 25 Macintosh computers, and everything is done
> > on-line.  What I mean is that the center functions as anything from a
> > typing lab to a full-fledged WC, complete with informed readers and a
> > staff of people trained in using the gobs and gobs of software we
> > have.  We even have whole classes that come in and use the center. 
> > Mostly what we do is teach students to use the electronic and paper
> > tools we make available to them.  We are changing a little to include
> > a sort of limited-access OWL.  We'll see how it goes.  But
> > remediation?  Most students aren't interested.  Neither, it seems,
> > are most instructors. (That's supposed to be the job of fyc classes.)
> > 
> > Anyway, I'm glad you asked.  I hope you gets lotsa response.
> > 
> > Denise Dilworth
> > Madonna U.
> > Livonia, MI
> > dilworth@smtp.munet.edu 
>