Re: WID resources and tutor research

[Sara Kimball <skimball@uts.cc.utexas.edu>]

Karin, Hi.  You asked about having tutors in a tutoring class research 
writing in fields other than English and other issues of interest to 
writing centers. I heartily endorse this approach.  Our writing center 
has been in existence for two years now, and we had to start more or less 
from scratch.  Last year (our second year) was the first year we were 
open for students outside of writing and English lit. classes, and next 
year, when we will be supported by a fee paid by undergraduates from all 
university departments, we will be expected to do extensive work 
supporting our university's WAC program.  We've needed all the knowledge 
we could assemble, and everyone in the writing center's contribution has 
been potentially valuable. For the past two years I've asked students in the 
class I 
give to train undergraduate consultants to do a research project.  The 
ground rules are that the project interest the student intellectually 
and contribute to our material and intellectual resources as a writing 
center.  I've suggested that the default value is a typical research 
paper, but have urged my consultants to do handouts, hypercard stacks, 
and presentations, since these are more efficient ways of spreading 
knowledge.  People have done useful projects, but almost more 
importantly, these projects, I think, can give the undergrads a sense of 
belonging to  the writing center. I've tried to present these projects as 
ways of helping to build an institution, and i think that's what happens 
for many of them. Sometimes I have to guide their enthusiasm a bit. 
	Two of the students in the class this spring did a project 
surveying instructors in courses outside the Eng. dept. on writing in 
their fields.  I initially had to convince them that is was going to be 
impossible to survey *every* teacher of undergraduates on our campus and 
that they should concentrate on some of the classes that our records 
indicated bought us a lot of business, and I  had to console them at various 
points when some faculty members were less than enthusiastic about 
responding to a lengthy survey at the end of the semester. I also 
discovered after the survey went out that it was headed "Writing Center 
Discipline Survey," which evokes kind of interesting images ;-).  But 
they did make several valuable contacts, and the information they have 
collected will prove useful next year.
	I'd really like to keep this research project, which started out of 
sheer necessity, an important part of my course.
Sara Kimball
UT Austin