1st Edition
Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words Global Voices on Writing Centers and Beyond
Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words collects personal narratives from writing tutors around the world, providing tutors, faculty, and writing center professionals with a diverse and experience-based understanding of the writing support process.
Filling a major gap in the research on writing center theory, first-year writing pedagogy, and higher education academic support resources, this book provides narrative evidence of students' own experiences with learning assistance discourse communities. It features a variety of voices that address how academic support resources such as writing centers have served as the nucleus for students' (i.e., both tutors and their clients) sense of community and self, ultimately providing a space for freedom of discourse and expression. It includes narratives from writing tutors supporting students in unconventional spaces such as prisons, tutors offering support in war-torn countries, and students in international centers facing challenges of distance learning, access, and language barriers. The essays in this collection reveal pedagogical takeaways and insights about both student and tutor collaborative experiences in writing center spaces.
These essays are a valuable resource for student writing tutors and anyone involved with them, including composition instructors and scholars, writing center professionals, and any faculty or administrators involved with academic support programs.
Editors’ Introduction
Part I: How We Help
Part II: A Voice of One’s Own
Part III: How Writing Communities are Made
A Holistic Approach: Broader Questions for Discussion
Biography
Max Orsini is an academic advisor, program manager and professor of ESL, literature and writing studies at Drew University, USA.
Loren Kleinman is the former Director of the University Writing Center at Drew University, USA.
"We’ve heard writing tutors speak at conferences. We’ve read their articles and reflections in journals and on blogs. Now, however, in Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words, the editors have gathered into a book 23 essays by tutors as they write about how tutoring has shaped their personal lives, expanded their insights about writers, and deepened their connection to their writing centers."
- Muriel Harris, Professor of English (Emerita) and Director of the Purdue University Writing Lab (retired)
"Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words offers a poly-vocal account of the crucial personal, cultural, and educational work Writing Centers and tutors engage in across the globe. The collection offers a window into a global ethos of Writing Center work, even while it makes visible the diverse experiences and daily practices of tutoring on the ground. Giving voice to both new and experienced writing tutors’ accounts of their growth and empowerment as educators, the essays also illuminate the challenges of negotiating power structures, student anxiety, and the expanded complexities of the virtual world in the era of COVID-19, among many other tutoring dynamics. With humor and insight, these reflections offer tutors, students, faculty and administrators a kaleidoscopic view of the impact Writing Centers have around the world."
- Gen Creedon, Associate Director for the Writing Center, Princeton University
"This anthology connects theory to practice, by taking a closer look at writing center tutors’ lived experience. Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words is a useful collection for a wide range of consulting practitioners, including novice and experienced tutors as well as administrators. For all readers, this anthology offers a needed and realistic look into the perspectives, experiences and needs of the most integral members of the writing center community."
- Praxis: A Writing Center Journal
"Student Writing Tutors in Their Own Words provides a glimpse into the daily lives and habits of writing center tutors. This is a go-to book for academic support professionals, tutors, and writing students to learn more about how the process of writing affects the trajectory of one's life both inside and outside the classroom."
- Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Founder, The Poetry Center, Passaic County Community College
