Re: Short conferences (fwd)

["B. Silk" <bsilk@titan.iwu.edu>]

On Wed, 17 Jan 1996, Wendy Wagner wrote:

[snip]
> Let me go back to the issue of dependence vs. independence that so
> provoked Cliff. By insisting on having context, could the global tutors be
> taking on more responsibility for the tutorial than they should have? 
> Isn't it the students' responsibility to direct the tutorial, ask the 
> questions? By insisting on a context that is processed, understood, and 
> analyzed by the tutor for the student, is the tutor doing the work the 
> student should be doing?
[snip]
> I think that there are two models of the writing center that are floating 
> around here. One is of the writing center as resource. Work goes on 
> fairly independently, but the tutors are there to get the students 
> started, or to help out when they encounter a problem--they're consulted, 
> like a handbook--or for the students to get some encouragement/reassurance.
> (This sounds like Kevin's center.)
> 
> The other is kind of a medical/therapeutic model: the student comes to the
> lab because there is a problem that must be diagnosed, so context must be
> known. The tutor takes a more active role in diagnosing and showing the 
> student how to resolve the problems. (This sounds like Cliff's center.) 

I agree that the writers should ask the questions--if they know what
questions to ask.  If they don't know, I believe the tutor must prompt
them.  As I may have mentioned before, to me it's somewhat like the two
ways to train a dog to sit in response to the word "sit":  we can keep
saying "sit" over and over, hoping that the dog gets weary enough to lower
his haunches--at which point we'll praise him;  or we can gently press
down on his rear end while saying, "sit."   Both methods work--or the dog 
may figure it out by watching other dogs (and then have to wait for us to 
say "sit" so he can show off).  

If the writer doesn't have enough discourse knowledge or procedural
knowledge to know what questions to ask, where else is she going to find
out than in the writing center? 

So, at least on the surface, I disagree with the distinction between
resource/handbook and medical/therapeutic models of writing centers.  But
I may be prejudiced against the word "handbook."  When I was a kid, the
Harbrace Handbook was used to "civilize"  us into "good" writers.  But it
did less to make us good writers than it did to make us poor-to-middlin'
grammarians.  It was a one-size-fits-all iron shoe.  (To this day I cannot
look at a Harbrace without having a gag reflex.) And it told me nothing
about how to get from A to B---only what B should look like when I get
there. 

I like the notion of a writing center as resource---but what kind of
resource, offering what information, what knowledge? 

I don't think that an effort to understand the context of a writing
situation and a particular writer justifies identification of a writing
center as medical/therapuetic.  This implies disease.  As Paula Gillespie
said recently, diagnosing error is a fraction of the work that writing
centers can do.  A medical model assumes not only disease but some sort of
ideal of perfect health.  But a writer's act of making meaning is not so
much a production of a perfect, identically reproducible product (or ideal
of perfect health) as it is a one-time artistic response to certain
conditions and variables.  I doubt that any of us would write the exact,
same paper twice.  Context is always important. 

When I think about what we can do, I think more in terms of helping the
writer remove obstacles in the way of his own clear thinking and effective
communication (within the constraints of the particular discourse). 
Considering the season, I'd rather think of the writing center as a
snowplow. 

I wish I had a real one right now.

  --Bobbie
    bsilk@titan.iwu.edu