1. Price/IWCA 2015 Notes/ 1
International Writing Center Association Conference
Oct. 8 – 10, 2015
Pittsburgh, Pa
Submitted by: Ann Graham Price
General observations
Organizational models. Writing centers at four-years institutions – and at quite a few
two-year colleges -- are highly evolved hierarchical structures fully staffed with
directors, coordinators, consultants and a range of professional, student and peer
tutors. Most positions are paid.
It’s a young profession. At this conference, participants included directors,
coordinators and student tutors. This was a very young conference, with fashionably
dressed, hip-looking 20somethings far outnumbering the wizened graybeards
among us. This is a good sign: It indicates that the industry is a powerful magnet for
young, energetic professionals looking for careers in a field that promises plenty of
opportunity for growth and upward mobility.
Grammar. You’re not going to like this, but overwhelmingly, writing centers report
that the most common reason students seek assistance in a writing center is
grammar. This is true across all disciplines, class distinctions and degree level (both
undergraduate and graduate), and regardless of whether the student is domestic or
international. While it is certainly often the case that there are other problems with
their work, the students themselves identify grammar help as their greatest need.
A recurring theme. Connect. Listen to personal stories. Work with the whole person,
not just the writing issues. Over and over again, the discussion returns to the
importance of connecting with students and hearing their personal stories.
www.FindUs.edu Many writing centers offer an online link for public access to
public writing center information (location, hours, services, etc.). This is very
different from our .org, which can only be accessed by writing center staff. One goal
for the Ivy Tech South Bend writing center might be the creation of such an online
presence that can be accessed through the Ivy Tech campus web site.
A personal gripe, if you’ll permit me. As someone who has spent most of my career
writing for publication (for example, in The Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune,
and a variety of international publications and translated into a variety of
languages), I have grown rather weary of hearing people refer to themselves as
“published authors.” I’ve been hearing this phrase bandied about at every
conference I have attended in the past several years. Often what it means is a single

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piece being published in some obscure pamphlet that no one will ever read. More
importantly, it is the unmistakable sign of a rank amateur. Does Anne Lamott refer
to herself as a published author? I doubt it.
Key terms
Better writers, not better writing.
Client = a student seeking assistance in a writing center. This appears to be the
commonly accepted industry term
ELL = English language learners. More and more frequently, these are becoming a
major demographic in the student population at most institutions, including Ivy
Tech South Bend. Numerous workshops at this conference focused on how writing
centers can meet their needs.
LD = learning disabled
Transfer = a term that is widely used in academic contexts to describe the process by
which a student learns to:
a. Recognize the similarity between an original context to a new context
b. Acknowledge the potential of learned knowledge to be used in a new context
c. Attempt to transfer the learned knowledge to the new context
SessionHighlights
Navigating Emotional/TherapeuticRoles, Responsibilitiesand Limitsin
Writing Centers
Alison Perry, Tom Phillipose, Ella Leviyeva, Miguel Vasquez, Lynnae Freeman,
Aseefa Rasol, Yugi Paul, Dan Heffernan, St. John’s University
Catalog description: Writing consultants are not therapists. Or so we hear.
Consultants are often cast into the role of unofficial counselors, and consultants
themselves can just as often be triggered and/or re-traumatized by sessions. We
plan to explore several of these types of occurrences from our staff’s perspective
and then engage the audience in discussing the boundaries and possibilities of how
writing consultants can and should straddle the line of
tutor/mentor/guide/emotional resource.
Notes: Writing centers at four-year colleges are encountering many of the same
issues we confront in ours: students in crisis, dealing with overwhelming issues,
needing someone to talk to. “We are a captive audience,” one participant observed.
“It’s our job to listen.”

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Where do we draw the line between offering reasonable help and becoming their
personal confidante? Reasonable help might mean personally walking a student to
the appropriate campus office that can provide assistance.
However, another pointed out, writing center staff are not legally held to the same
standard of confidentiality as a physician or mental health professional.
This conversation led to a discussion of inappropriate student behaviors, and the
rights of writing center personnel. “Students threatening violence should be
reported. Period.”
Writing CentersasNew Sitesof Learning
Christopher Giroux, Helen Raica-Klotz, Saginaw Valley State University
Catalog description: This presentation will share Saginaw Valley State University’s
Writing Center’s seven-week “grammar seminar” provided for our tutoring staff, a
seminar created based on the results of Ellen Schendel’s 2007 international survey
on tutors’ perceptions of the role of grammar in writing center tutorial sessions and
our own work tutoring multilingual writers. We will discuss the efficacy of this
grammar seminar based on pre- and post-seminar tutor surveys, tutor observations
and coded sessions records. We will explore our attempts to ensure this
supplemental instruction does not privilege lower-order concerns over higher-
order concerns in tutorial sessions.
Notes: Excellent, well-organized presentation. Key finding: a seven-week grammar
class produced significant difference in student tutors in two key areas: perception
of grammar as an important issue, and increased learning-oriented behaviors in
identifying grammatical errors (rather than merely correcting them).
hklotz@svsu.edu
cgiroux@svsu.edu
David Medina, Lizbett Tinoco, University of Texas El Paso
Catalog description: This presentation will discuss findings from a case study at
University of Texas at El Paso that is currently investigating how transfer or
knowledge from its writing center to other contexts occurs. The presentation will
share preliminary results from semi-structured interviews, student writing samples
and tutor/tutee consultation data. We will also discuss the evolution of our own
writing center’s consultation methodology to include meta-consultations. We also
explore ways in which writing centers can promote tutor awareness of transfer and
consultation practices that actively encourage transfer of knowledge.

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Notes:
Transfer is a term that describes the process whereby a student learns to:
d. Recognize the similarity between an original context to a new context
e. Acknowledge the potential of learned knowledge to be used in a new context
f. Attempt to transfer the learned knowledge to the new context
While the UT study is looking specifically at a student population that is 68 percent
Hispanic, the term itself is used more widely in academic contexts to describe the
desired outcome of instruction.
Dmedina7@miners.utep.edu
Ltinoco2@miners.utep.edu
The SevenPanicPointsof Struggling Writers, and How We Help Them
Robert Holderer, Tanya Teglo, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania
Catalog description: Every writer, no matter how proficient, usually goes through
what we term as seven panic points. These points can form insurmountable
roadblocks for three of our most at-risk populations: students with physical
disabilities, students with learning disabilities, and faculty members. This
presentation will show how we provide supportive and concrete help to make them
better writers and to build a strong culture for writing on campus.
Notes: After a promising and humorous catalog description, the session itself took a
nosedive. While Dr. Holderer presented us with a nicely organized handout listing
the agenda, his speech quickly descended into a meandering, opinionated rant that
did not address a single issue that was listed on the agenda. (See below for the list
of seven panic points pulled and edited slightly from his handout.)
Tanya, who earned a master’s degree while overcoming profound physical
disabilities related to cerebral palsy, was the best part of the presentation. Her
personal story was riveting and inspiring. However, it was clear that she was
unusually blessed with a number of character traits that even the most gifted
student would envy: extraordinary intelligence, confidence, ambition … and
sufficient boldness to bulldoze her way through countless obstacles, mountains of
bureaucracy, and miles of red tape in order to reach her goals. Unfortunately, she
was little help in discussing the needs of the more typical student with disabilities,
who may be reluctant to identify him- or herself as requiring special help, who may
be embarrassed about needing help, and who may have little idea of what kind of
help is needed, much less how and whom to ask for it.
“I need somebody to be my hands for me. My hands can’t keep up with my brain,”
she said, adding that dictation software was problematic for her because its
frequent spelling errors and/or incorrect word usages were distracting. Teachers

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should be aware that there can be both physical and verbal barriers to LD students
being able to express what is going on in their heads. “It’s too easy to conclude that
they’re stupid,” she said. “They’re not.”
The seven panic points of student writers:
1. Help. I have a paper to write.
2. I don’t know what the professor wants.
3. I don’t have anything to say.
4. I don’t know how to start.
5. It’s too short! How do I make it longer?
6. I don’t know anything about grammar, MLA, APA, etc.
7. Help! I’ve got to hand it in in 10 minutes, and it’s no good. Fix it!
Learning-disabled students often have difficulty in:
 Sequencing events and ideas
 Understanding abstract concepts
 Spontaneously employing cognitive strategies
 Switching strategies when appropriate to do so
 Distinguishing important from unimportant information
 Reasoning in a deductive manner
 Perceving cause/effect relationships
 Sustaining attention to tasks
 Organizing ideas and information
Within their writing, LD students have problems in:
 Expressing themselves precisely and clearly
 Using a variety of sentence structures
 Using mature syntactical patterns
 Using an appropriate range of words
 Using long and/or difficult words
 Organizing thoughts
 Using punctuation correctly
 Using a sufficient number of verbs, adjectives and adverbs
 Writing discourse of sufficient length for the purpose of the assignment
Two-Year College Meetup
Convened by Megan Ward, Northwestern Michigan College
This was an informal gathering of writing center directors at two-year colleges.
While there was some discussion about hammering out a mission statement for our
group, the bulk of the conversation involved sharing our experiences, which are
strikingly different in many aspects – everything from organizational structure to
number of employees. It was interesting to discover that many writing centers
started out with our present model: staffed by English professors who volunteered

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their time. Eventually they became overwhelmed by their teaching duties, and a
writing center director was hired to take over the daily oversight. Some WC
directors, however, are expected to teach a part-time course load.
Emotional Labor inthe Writing Center
Yoonha Shin, Rhonda Red, University at Buffalo
Catalog description: The writing center has an increasingly complex and layered
relationship to the university’s distribution of intellectual and emotional labor. The
consultants of the writing center reflect wider university trends in racial/ethnic
representation, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and more. As a result of these
changing demographics, there is a widening gap between student need and
professorial attention. The writing center has become the front line of emotional
and intellectual support for students. Our panel will examine the way the emotional
labor of the writing center supplements and mitigates uneven relationships
between students and faculty.
Notes: With one panel member missing, the discussion focused on the needs of ELL.
First, a brief history of the UB writing center. It was just started two years ago,
which is surprising for such a large campus. The reason is that UB English faculty
are largely literature-based, rather than rhetorical and composition teachers.
The writing center is a place for students’ voices to emerge; therefore, it is deeply
grounded in the emotional wellbeing of the students. ELL students are frequently
more familiar with written than with spoken English; therefore, it is useful to spend
time reading aloud together, to help them associate the familiar look of English on
the page with the very unfamiliar American accent. There are a number of issues
international students are often dealing with at once:
1. They pay full tuition, which means that they occupy a precarious position vis-à-
vis the college. On the one hand, they are seen as an asset, both because they
enhance the university’s reputation, and because they generate significant revenue
(to put it in very crass terms). On the other hand, they are easily exploited.
2. Many in the college environment tend to assume that because international
students do pay full tuition, they must come from wealthy families. That is not
always (or even usually) the case. Frequently they are attempting to complete their
studies as quickly as possible so that they can get a job begin earning much-needed
money. That means that they are often taking unusually heavy course loads.
3. Lack of confidence is a common complaint. Both the need to converse in a second
language, and the need to listen and hear it correctly, can be extremely anxiety-
producing.
4. Many international students experience significant loneliness and isolation. Any
attempt to connect with them is usually met with deep gratitude.

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5. As with any other student, it’s important for writing center staff to connect with
the whole person, rather than merely attempting to address language or writing
issues.
This session allowed for plenty of discussion. My role here seemed to be more one of
informant than participant. Many of the techniques that were suggested are things I
have already successfully used with Ivy Tech’s international students. Sometimes
the simple act of spending time with a student will reveal what specific actions
should be taken.
The Next Frontier: Writing Centersinthe Workplace
Jessica Weber, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Catalog description: The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s writing center
opened two years ago as the first of its kind. Data now show that writing center
visitors have markedly improved writing and increased rhetorical awareness. As
our writing is high-stakes and central to our work, the Reserve Bank has been
tremendously supportive of the center’s growth. This presentation explores
corporate and professional agencies as a viable next step of expansion for the
writing center world; this may help to further legitimize our field, to show
universities the value in what we do, and to provide potential job opportunities for
writing center professionals.
Notes: In many ways, Jessica’s discussion sounded like a new wineskin for old wine.
To wit, her position sounded much like staff editing positions I have held at various
corporations over the course of my career, with the addition of a strong teaching
component. While the corporate editor merely fixes what is amiss in a piece of
writing, the writing center professional works with the client/writer to help him or
her improve. Either way, it’s good to see the corporate world embracing the
importance of good writing skills. One possible use for this growing field: a shared
writing center at an industrial park.
Who Do We Think We Are? Institutional, Student, and Disciplinary
Perceptionsof the Writing Center
Jennifer Lawrence (not the actress), Matthew Johnson, Prabin Lama, Becky
Morrison, Diana George, Virginia Tech
Catalog description: In a 1990 Writing Center Journal piece, Muriel Harris paused
over the term “writing center,” wondering if we even know what a writing center
actually is given that centers have evolved in very different institutions to serve
different time periods in our history. Twenty-five years later, this panel asks much
the same question: Who do we think we are> That is, what is a writing center to
those students and faculty who use it, to administrations that hire personnel and
create job descriptions, and even to writing studies as that discipline has changed

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over time. Currently, for example, writing studies encompasses fields as varied as
Writing in the Disciplines and translingual or global language theories. In addition,
though many writing centers continue to be housed in English departments, the
field is witnessing a growing trend to place one-on-one writing instruction in
academic support centers, discipline-specific centers, and learning commons. The
question, then, of who we think we are is wrapped up in its corollary question: Who
do others think we are? Or, to recall what is a perennial writing center question:
What do they (our students, our faculty, our institutions) think we do? In an effort
to address those questions, this paenl reports on four different but related studies.
Speaker 1 reports on a case study of first-year international clients and their writing
coaches in an effort to gauge this population’s response. Speaker 2 reports on a
similar study examining graduate student writing center use. Speaker 3 reports on
her examination of the role of writing centers in the disciplines. Finally, in an
attempt to provide a portrait of the writing center market today, Speaker 4 offers an
overview of current job ads for writing center positions.
Notes: Becky Morrison addressed the issue of writing in specific disciplines, which
often have highly specific goals that are unfamiliar to the average writing center
staff. She recently led an eight-week writing workshop aimed at engineering
students, whose goal is often what she refers to as “knowledge creation.” The
process of writing as a series of identifiable tasks was foreign and perhaps even
incomprehensible to them. The result of her workshop was a heightened awareness
among engineering students of the importance of good writing technique. She
suggests that writing center personnel approach deans and professors in other
disciplines at their respective campuses with two questions:
1. What kind of writing do your students do?
2. How can the writing center help them?
She also recommended the use of motivational apps like writtenkitten.net, which
posts cute pictures of kittens when writers have written a certain number of words.
Despair not, dog lovers. A participant volunteered that there’s an app with puppies,
too.
Diana George tackled the widespread if unflattering stereotype of writing centers as,
to quote an author whose name I didn’t catch, “remedial fix-it shops run by the
underpaid who can’t find jobs elsewhere.” She offers a look at some of the current
job openings for writing center directors which seem to suggest that the field is
growing, if not exactly booming.

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