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There are writing centers at almost every college and university in the United States, and there is an emerging body of professional discourse, research, and writing about them. The goal of this book is to open, formalize, and further the dialogue about research in and about writing centers. The original essays in this volume, all written by writing center researchers, directly address current concerns in several ways: they encourage studies, data collection, and publication by offering detailed, reflective accounts of research; they encourage a diversity of approaches by demonstrating a range of methodologies (e.g., ethnography, longitudinal case study; rhetorical analysis, teacher research) available to both veteran and novice writing center professionals; they advance an ongoing conversation about writing center research by explicitly addressing epistemological and ethical issues. The book aims to encourage and guide other researchers, while at the same time offering new knowledge that has resulted from the studies it analyzes.
List of contents
Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: Writing Centers as Sites of Self-Reflective Inquiry.A. Gillam, The Call to Research: Early Representations of Writing Center Research. E. Boquet, Disciplinary Action: Writing Center Work and the Making of a Researcher. P. Gillespie, Beyond the House of Lore: WCenter as Research Site. N. Lerner, Insider as Outsider: Participant Observation as Writing Center Research. Part II: Writing Centers as Sites of Institutional Critique and Contextual Inquiry.M. Harris, Writing Center Administration: Making Local, Institutional Knowledge in Our Writing Centers. P. Carino, Reading Our Own Words: Rhetorical Analysis and the Institutional Discourse of Writing Centers. J. Olson, D.J. Moyer, A. Falda, Student-Centered Assessment Research in the Writing Center. J.M. Neff, Capturing Complexity: Using Grounded Theory to Study Writing Centers. S. Thomas, J. Bevins, M.A. Crawford, The Portfolio Project: Sharing Our Stories. D. DeVoss, Computer Literacies and the Roles of the Writing Center. Part III: Writing Centers as Sites of Inquiry Into Practice.K.B. Yancey, Seeing Practice Through Their Eyes: Reflection as Teacher. N. Welch, The Return of the Suppressed: Tutoring Stories in a Transitional Space. J. Rodby, The Subject Is Literacy: General Education and the Dialectics of Power and Resistance in the Writing Center. J.M. Lutes, Why Feminists Make Better Tutors: Gender and Disciplinary Expertise in a Curriculum-Based Tutoring Program.
About the author
Paula Gillespie, Alice Gillam, Lady Falls Brown, Byron Stay
Summary
Original essays by writing center researchers directly address current concerns about writing ctr. research through detailed accounts of research and use of diversity of research methodologies available to both veteran & novice writing ctr. professionals
