2004 IWCA Conference

Time

Topic

Leaders

Abstract

Room

7:30-8:15

Breakfast

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

8:15-8:45

Orientation Announcements

Jonas Clark 001

8:45-10:00

Plenary: Pedagogical models for Writing Centers

Michele

Neal

This plenary will invite an exploration of theories that inform our daily writing center practices.  We will attempt to identify some prevailing and foundational ideas that have historically influenced the collective goals of writing center work and discuss these in relation to our own individual beliefs and practices.

Jonas Clark 001

10:00-10:30

Break                           

10:30-12:00

Plenary: Trading Spaces

Paula

Anne

This one and only poster session will feature exhibitionism at its best: we will show our spaces—grand, modest, shabby, or chic, architecturally designed or patched together—and we will discuss our spaces, we'll get ideas from others' images, we'll commiserate, and we'll praise. We intend this to be fun!

Jonas Clark 001

12:00-1:15

Lunch

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

1:15-2:15

Plenary: Tutor Training

Harvey

Paula

This session will look at the history and theory of tutor training by examining training manuals over time and by looking at the way history and theory inform the writing of a contemporary manual. Other participants bring worlds of experience to tutor training, so we will draw in leaders and participants alike as we troubleshoot training challenges and look at training opportunities.

Jonas Clark 001

2:15-2:30

Break

2:30-3:30

 Plenary: Developing staff education curricula

Anne

Carol

How do we decide what staff education should (or shouldn't) be?  How do we design curricula to address the complexities, uncertainties and joys of writing center work?  What roles do directors and tutors play in choosing the staff education curricula?  In this plenary, we will think and talk about the staff education decisions we make, and consider how staff education shapes, and is shaped by, our writing centers, our staffs, our own professional lives and the writing center field.

Jonas Clark 001

3:30-4:30

Jonas Clark 001

4:30-4:35

Jonas Clark 001

4:35-

8:00-

Special Interest/Response Groups (SIRGs)

Time

Topic

Leaders

Abstract

Room

7:30-8:15

Breakfast

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

8:15-8:30

Announcements, Debriefing

Jonas Clark 001

8:30-9:30

Plenary: Intersections between high school and university writing centers

Dawn

Anne

This session will look at the variety of ways high school and university writing centers can work together. We’ll examine the many benefits that come with these partnerships and look at existing models of collaboration. Participants will have the opportunity to devise a plan for working with a school in their area.

Jonas Clark 001

9:30-10:00

10:00-11:15

Plenary: Community College models for WC staffing, training, and budget

Jill

Howard

Leaders will discuss community college writing centers in the context of the writing center community, focusing specifically on staffing, training, and budget. They will present their own writing centers as cases in point and discuss strategies they have used to create and maintain institutional support in a community college environment.

Jonas Clark 001

11:30-1:00

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

1:00-2:00

Plenary: Tutoring ESL writers

Michele

Anne

In small groups, we will first review a brief excerpt from current research on language learning and literacy and then develop both an individual and group response. After some small group discussion, groups will be given an ESL learner scenario to respond to.  Activities are designed to raise questions about our typical writing center approaches to ESL learners and facilitators will provide online resources and suggested readings.

Jonas Clark 001

2:00-2:15

2:15-3:30

Breakout B1: Online tutoring: considerations and requirements

Michele

Howard

As more and more writing centers get “wired” for virtual tutoring or online consultations, new questions are raised about the “best” ways to deliver writing consulting services to students.  In addition, attempts to replicate what is valued in f2f sessions leave many writing center directors disappointed and skeptical of the effectiveness of online consultations.  We will look at sample papers and responses as well as an assessment of online consultation services in order to identify the pedagogical and technological challenges to developing this service.

Jonas Clark 104

Breakout B2: Supervising non-tutoring staff

Dawn

Paula

Congratulations!  You have a qualified, competent staff member to help manage the tutoring staff.  You’ve convinced Dr. Faculty, Mr. Community, and Ms. Administrator to volunteer, and they’ve attended the training and shown up every day they said they would.  But you’ve heard complaints that your tutors are out of control!  Someone is accessing questionable websites on one of the center’s computers!  And it appears that the volunteers have their own approaches to tutoring that do not reflect a strong grasp of the fundamentals they learned in the training.  Gasp!  What do you do?   Dear hearts, fear not!  This session will address special concerns that arise with supervising non-tutoring staff, as well as faculty and community volunteers who serve as tutors. 

Jonas Clark 106

Breakout B3: Forming local and statewide networks

Jill

Carol

Leaders will describe the benefits and challenges of forming local and statewide writing center networks in California and Michigan, asking participants to reflect on the connections they already have, the additional connections they feel would be beneficial, and the context-specific challenges they may need to consider in forming writing center networks.

Jonas Clark 118

3:30-4:30

Jonas Clark 001

4:30-4:40

Jonas Clark 001

4:40-

8:00-

SIRGs

Time

Topic

Leaders

Abstract

Room

7:30-8:15

Breakfast

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

8:15-8:30

Announcements, Debriefing

Jonas Clark 001

8:30-9:45

Plenary: Educating faculty in best WC practices

Carol

Dawn

Howard

What images do we want "Writing Center" to summon? "In 'n Out Editing," "Turnitin.IWCA," or something else? How can we present ourselves in ways that help us invite collaboration, interrogate norms, understand differences, and gain support? This plenary will explore ways of constructing productive relationships between writing centers and faculty members that will help writers and writing instruction improve on our campuses.

Jonas Clark 001

9:45-10:15

10:15-11:30

Plenary: Budgeting, Funding, and Planning Process

Harvey

Jill

Michele

This session will focus on both the practicalities and the philosophies of developing and managing a writing center budget.  We will look at how different writing center directors conceive of and manage their budgets.  Participants will then have the opportunity to build sample budgets that reflect the needs and aspirations their own writing centers.

Jonas Clark 001

11:30-1:00

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

1:00-2:15

Plenary: Writing Center assessment

Neal

Harvey

Writing Center assessment is often seen as a process that's driven by someone else's agenda or dictated by someone else's terms (read: numbers) or, simply, part of an alien world.  In this session, we'll take back assessment and look toward the ideas/values/practices of the teacher-research movement to think of assessment as a form of research that's tightly woven into our everyday work. Participants will generate assessment questions/needs, share strategies to address those needs, and be grouped with others who have similar needs to form relationships that are intended to sustain post SI.

Jonas Clark 001

2:15-3:15

Breakout C1: Creating annual reports and docs

Michele

Harvey

Jill

Creating effective reports is (at least) a two-part process. First, we will take a rhetorical approach to determine the audience, purpose, and content of a report and second, we will discuss the importance of document design, presentation tools, and methods for dissemination.  We’ll break into three groups and try a 360-degree evaluation activity to generate ideas for the report.  This exercise demonstrates how writing center reports can be multi-dimensional and serve several purposes at once. 

Jonas Clark 104

Breakout C2: Establishing a peer-tutoring course

Howard

Carol

Dawn

This session offers a rationale for establishing a credit-bearing peer-tutoring course in a two-year and four-year college; a process for proposing, promoting, and achieving acceptance of such a course; models or examples of course syllabi; a case for creating collaborative ties with extra-disciplinary programs such as Honors and Service-Learning; and a glimpse at the challenges confronting the course once it is established.

Jonas Clark 106

Breakout C3: Exploring your WC’s history

Neal

Anne

Understanding more of your writing center's and institution's history is key to understanding some of the larger systems your writing center takes part in. In this breakout, leaders will share strategies for and experiences with discovering the history of their writing centers. Come join the search!

Jonas Clark 118

3:15-3:30

3:30-4:30

Jonas Clark 001

4:30-4:40

Jonas Clark 001

4:40-

8:00-

SIRGs

Time

Topic

Leaders

Abstract

Room

7:30-8:15

Breakfast

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

8:15-8:30

Announcements, Debriefing

Jonas Clark 001

8:30-9:45

Plenary: WC Research

Harvey

Paula

Structured with the help of Muriel Harris' "Writing Center Administration: Making Local, Institutional Knowledge in Our Writing Centers," this plenary session will focus on initiating and developing situated research projects that participants can take back with them and  transplant into their own home ground or develop into articles they can develop further to send off for publication.

Jonas Clark 001

9:45-10:15

10:15-11:30

Plenary: Effective leadership approaches

Jill

Dawn

Carol

This session will focus on what leadership means in the context of writing center theory, both administrative leadership within writing centers and writing centers as campus leaders. Models for effective leadership approaches will be presented as well as leadership mistakes. Participants will assess their own leadership within their various institutional contexts.

Jonas Clark 001

11:30-1:00

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

1:00-2:00

Breakout D1: Designing WC websites

Neal

Michele

An increasingly prevalent face of our writing centers are the images we project on-line. Nevertheless, because of the constraints of institutional templates, of poor design choices or inexperience, or of limited resources, our digital faces can contrast quite strongly with the physical sites that we work so hard to make inviting, friendly, and productive. In this session, participants will 1) establish a foundation of sound practices in Web and information design; 2) critique several existing writing centers’ websites; and 3) storyboard new or redesigned websites, offering the ethos and content and applying the rhetorical principles that characterize our physical spaces to our Internet faces.

Jonas Clark 104

Breakout D2: Working with LD writers

Dawn

How does your center work with writers who learn differently, including those for whom reading is a challenge?  This session will afford participants the opportunity to gauge their center’s effectiveness in helping these LD writers.   We’ll look at the frustrating, often overwhelming tasks of writing and reading from their perspective.  We'll also share tutoring strategies that work and identify opportunities to strengthen the support we give them.

Jonas Clark 106

Breakout D3: Successful designs for WC space

Jill

Paula

Leaders and participants will discuss how "form follows function" (or how space supports pedagogy) in a writing center context. The Marquette University and Lansing Community College writing centers will be examined as cases in point, and participants will be given the opportunity to sketch plans for their own ideal writing centers.

Jonas Clark 118

Breakout D4: Working with consultants who are grad students, faculty or professional staff

Carol

Howard

Undergraduate or graduate students, TAs, faculty members, and/or professional staff? Who are we as tutors, and what kinds of expertise or authority do we claim? This breakout session will consider the ways tutors' non-tutoring roles may shape their work, both as they define themselves and as they respond to writers' expectations for them. Participants will work together to design tutor education programs that recognize the diverse and multiple experiences that tutors bring to writing centers

Jonas Clark 120

2:00-2:30

2:30-3:30

Plenary: Writing Centers and WAC

Howard

Harvey

This session considers the relationship between writing centers and writing across the curriculum initiatives as in part a problem of expertise (Who owns disciplinary knowledge? Is it purely the domain of departments and individualized fields of study?) but also a problem of articulation (Should writing centers become involved with WAC or writing in the discipline programs?  If so, what strategies need to be employed by writing centers in order to promote those programs?  If they do become involved, should writing centers play a mediating role, translating disciplinary expectations for students and faculty (beyond individual departments) alike?  More ambitiously, should writing centers  promote multidisciplinary approaches to matters of intellectual inquiry--what James Slevin has called opportunities for “critical inquiry and critical exchange”?).

Jonas Clark 001

3:30-4:30

Jonas Clark 001

4:30-4:40

Jonas Clark 001

4:40-

8:00-

SIRGS

Time

Topic

Leaders

Abstract

Room

7:30-8:15

Breakfast

Higgins Univ. Ctr. Bistro

8:15-8:30

Announcements, Debriefing

Jonas Clark 001

8:30-9:45

Plenary: Spoken-Word Event

Jonas Clark 001

9:45-10:00

Break

10:00-10:45

Plenary: Future Technologies

Michele

What will your writing center look like in ten years?  Is the drive to extend the technologies of reading and writing to bigger and better networks and machines going to help or hinder our goals for student literacy?  We will look at the potential of the Tablet PC and at other models of interaction that combine technology and the tutoring of writing.

Jonas Clark 001

10:45-11:30

Plenary: Publishing/WC scholarship

Paula

Neal

When it comes to publishing our work, the questions and the anxiety seem to gather in equal measure. In this session, we'll try to answer your questions and quell your anxiety by addressing issues such as:

·    How can you tell if an idea is publishable?

·    Are there certain things publishers or editors are "looking for"?

·    How do you find time to write?

·    What is the process from idea to final published article/chapter?

·    Who are blind reviewers, anyway?

·    Is writing a textbook a good idea?

·    Will I become fabulously wealthy as a published author?

·    Is the writing center publishing controlled by a capricious elite?

·    Is it better to write alone or with another author?

·    How do I handle those rejection letters?

Please bring any other questions that you have as we draw on leader and participant experience to provide clear strategies for you to get your words and ideas published.

Jonas Clark 001

11:30-1:00

Closing Luncheon

Higgins University Ctr.
Tilton Hall

1:00-1:15

Evaluations

Tilton Hall