Re: Political turf problems

[Wendy Wagner <wendy@panix.com>]

On Fri, 2 Feb 1996, Neal Lerner wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Feb 1996, Wendy Wagner wrote:
> > Hm, I think I was unclear. We believe that, as you said, the student
> > should go to the prof and clarify expectations and philosophy. But
> > _knowing_ what expectations and philosophy are is not the same thing as
> > knowing how to do what needs to be done. A student might come to us and
> > say that her prof says she has serious sentence structure problems
> > that need to be addressed. Well, then, we work on sentence structure with
> > the student.
> 
> I agree that in this example it's pretty cut and dried as to how the WC
> is helping the student work on priorities *as determined by* her
> classroom prof.  However, we all have experienced those sessions where
> this wasn't as cut and dried.  In the last week, I've listened to
> students *struggle* with figuring out their instructor's expectations,
> and they seem to seek out a WC tutor instead of (and in addition to)
> their instructors primarily because WC tutors are more "peer-like," more
> approachable, more available, and more sensitive to students' needs (from
> the students' perspectives).  Nevertheless, these sessions are still a
> *struggle," still inexact representations at best.

Neal,
First let me apologize for the delay in replying. I got sick and thus got 
behind and am finally catching up.

I think that the way I conceive what we do (we meaning we here at Pace; I 
don't mean to speak for WCs in general) is to help the student 
communicate to her audience. That means supporting the student in 
determining what the most effective ways of reaching the audience are. 
And this also means ranking the professor as a more important audience 
than the tutor. 

I also think that part of what a tutor can do for a student is to help 
her figure out ways of determining what the audience (the prof) will find 
most effective--ways of formulating questions in order to get the most 
useful answers. In other words, you have to know what kinds of questions 
to ask in order to get the answers you need. This doesn't fall under 
conventional ways of tutoring writing, I suppose, but it does fit in with 
my growing philosophy that students need to be challenged and empowered 
not only academically but interpersonally. They must learn how to be 
assertive, to get an education (active), not to be educated (passive).

> > We always ask the student what _she_ wants to work on. We
> > push the student to make these choices, to take responsibility for her
> > own learning.
> 
> I agree with the philosophy.  But, in practice, how about those students
> who don't represent their needs well or accurately?  It's like those FAQs
> that Mickey is collecting; when students ask, "Is my thesis clear?" or
> "Can you tell me if this flows?" these questions can embody lots of
> intertwined needs.

Sure, but can't it all be turned back to the question of audience? If a
student asks whether a thesis is clear, can't a tutor say, "Well, here are
some ways of looking at a thesis; have you received some feedback from
your professors about why they have thought your thesises were unclear?
Has the professor shown a preference for one of these ways of looking at
thesis statements?" Students who ask whether their thesis is clear almost
always have received some feedback from some professor telling them their
thesis was not clear. 

> > When I give presentations to classes, I always stress that
> > the students should come to the lab prepared with an awareness of the
> > specific things they want to work on. And the tutors are trained to wait
> > until the student expresses an interest one way or another. If the
> > student doesn't express an interest, we strongly suggest that the student
> > go to the professor and figure out what she needs to do. We will still
> > give feedback, but we do so with the understanding that the student will
> > go to the professor for guidance.
> 
> How do you know that the professor will accurately represent what the
> students' needs are?  Can this method create "independent" students with
> a mighty strong "dependence" on their classroom instructors?

Who sez what's accurate or not? These instructors have been hired by the 
university to which students have paid an awful lot of money (at least 
here at Pace). There's no guarantee that _any_ prof in _any_ university 
is giving students the feedback they really need. This is an imperfect 
system. What I think is right for a student is not necessarily what my 
colleague is going to think is right. But who is to say who is doing a 
better job for the student?

This is why I am saying that the philosophy I am using in running my 
writing center is one that minimizes turf problems. Our philosophy is to 
support the student in meeting the standards of her professors. The 
student must understand what those standards are before we can 
effectively help her. 

Other WCs discussed here seem to adopt their own philosophies of teaching 
writing, and this causes the turf problems that have been discussed. 
Perhaps Michael is right, and it's the lack of respect for writing 
centers that is at the root of this. I know some of my colleagues have 
different views of teaching writing, but I don't interpret them as 
undermining me if they teach writing differently to my former or current 
students, probably because I have some collegial respect for them.

I honestly don't know what's best. I do know that adopting this 
philosophy is what is enabling my writing center to keep running, because 
if I tried to adopt a particular philosophy of teaching writing, the 
English dept, which we are separate from (though I'm an adjunct there), 
would fight our existence. (As it is, the dept chair likes to pretend 
I--personally, not just the WC--don't exist, but that's another fun story.)

Wendy