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Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Back matter for WCJ 41.1.

Queer Contingency In Writing Center Administrative Work, Patrick Greene, Travis Webster

The Writing Center Journal

Using a sprinkle of Queer Theory, their on-the-job experiences, and writing center scholarship that challenges disciplinary orthodoxies, two intersectionally queer and contingent writing center researcher-administrators examine the constraints of contingency; discuss the underlife of queer labor; and point to queer labor nuances and possibilities alongside contingent writing center work.

Comfort, Contingency, And Writing Center Work: An Essay In Three Illusions, Loren Maria Guay

The Writing Center Journal

In this hybrid essay, I engage creatively with the illusory nature of contingent work, presenting three episodes from my personal experiences as a contingent writing program administrator (WPA) during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, I interrogate these experiences by building on past critiques of “comfortable” writing centers, applying Sara Ahmed’s work on the affectiveness of (dis)comfort in order to examine comfort and its uneasy relationship with labor. For whom is the writing center expected to labor to provide comfort? Whose comfort, and moreover whose safety, is jeopardized or made invisible in the process? In answering these questions, this …

Front Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Front matter for Writing Center Journal 41.1.

Contingency And Its Intersections In Writing Centers: An Introduction, Maggie M. Herb, Liliana M. Naydan, Clint Gardner

The Writing Center Journal

Introduction to WCJ 41.1, which is a special issue on contingency in writing centers.

Trading Spaces: Space As Metaphor For Contingency In Writing Centers, Genie N. Giaimo

The Writing Center Journal

This article offers a critical reading of writing center workplace space. Weaving together counterstorying with semiotic, geographic, and rhetorical analysis of space, the author provides an alternative way of understanding the connections between our physical and metaphorical workspaces. Precarity and contingency, the article posits, are made more palpable through connection to physical space because writing center labor (and workers) are often identified mostly through their space and availability. Ultimately, this article argues for a new way forward that decouples writing center workers and labor from inhabited workplace space. Arguing that these spaces are gendered, classed, and raced (among other things), …

Contingency As A Barrier To Decolonial Engagement: Listening To Multilingual Writers, Grace Lee-Amuzie

The Writing Center Journal

Based on the concept of transformative listening by García (2017) that views listening as a form of decolonial work that must take place in writing centers, the article examines colonial thinking and contingency as toxic preexisting conditions of writing center ecology that hinder our ability to listen to marginalized multilingual voices. Recognizing the commonality between multilingualism and contingency, both as ignored marginalized intersecting identities in the hierarchy of the racialized and corporatized university system, the article describes the complexity of engaging contingent workers in decolonial work and listening. Further, it argues that contingency creates significant barriers to the type of …

The Paradoxes Of Contingency: Stories Of Contingent Professional Tutors’ Lived Experiences, Beth Sabo, Kaia-Marie A. Bishop, Kristine M. Gatchel, Rachel Dick

The Writing Center Journal

Despite comprising the majority of labor in higher education in general and writing centers more specifically, contingent workers’ voices and experiences have often been overlooked. The contingent voices that have been represented have predominantly been those in director or administrative positions, not the professional tutors who engage in centers’ day-to-day consulting. This lack of representation in the literature perpetuates institutional inequities and belies a larger paradox: that contingent workers attempting to ameliorate the precarity of their situation may jeopardize their livelihood. Because contingent workers’ identities and roles have historically been ignored and marginalized, few research and publication options are available …

Writing Tutor Alumni Takeaways: Pros And Cons Of Contingency, Glenn Hutchinson, Xuan Jiang, Mario Avalos

The Writing Center Journal

This essay aims to build upon the Peer Writing Tutor Alumni Research Project (PWTARP), designed by Bradley Hughes, Paula Gillespie, and Harvey Kail (2010), which focuses on what tutors learn about themselves as writers and students. However, the PWTARP survey, like much of writing center scholarship, focuses on student workers attending PWIs (Predominately White Institutions). To help fill the diversity gap in the existing literature, the current study uses the PWTARP survey as a frame of reference to investigate what tutors learned about themselves as writers and students at a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). Based on feedback from a team of …

Veteran–Novice Pairing For Tutors’ Professional Development, Xuan Jiang, Jennifer Peña, Feng Li

The Writing Center Journal

This mixed methods study examines whether veteran–novice mentorship between tutors, as part of continuous in-service professional development, would have a positive effect on either party’s transferable skills (e.g., communication, collaboration, and professionalism). Quantitative findings from pre- and postsurveys about the veteran–novice mentorship suggest that tutors have significant gains in some transferable skills, such as oral/written communication skills, teamwork/collaboration skills, digital technology skills, and career management skills, after attending the continuous in-service professional development. Quantitative findings from the pre- and postsurveys further indicate that novice tutors improve more, compared to veteran tutors, in their self-perceived oral/written communication skill levels. Qualitative findings …

On Networking The Writing Center: Social Media Usage And Non-Usage, Amanda M. May

The Writing Center Journal

This article presents findings from an IRB-approved study about writing center social media use and nonuse using survey data keyed to five factors: reasons for nonuse; purposes for use; platforms used; approaches to use that consider platforms and target audiences; and recommendations to other writing centers to use or not use social media. While the 91 writing centers not using social media commonly cited a lack of time, lack of staff, and lack of experience as reasons, the majority of writing centers in this study maintained a social media presence. These 153 writing centers tended to use multiple platforms, commonly …

Graduate Writing Groups: Evidence-Based Practices For Advanced Graduate Writing Support, Wenqi Cui, Jing Zhang, Dana Lynn Driscoll

The Writing Center Journal

Writing centers seek to expand their services beyond tutoring and develop evidence-based practices. Continuing and expanding the existing practices, the authors have adopted graduate writing groups (GWGs) to support graduate writers, especially those working on independent writing projects like a dissertation or article for publication. This article provides an effective model on how to develop and assess virtual graduate writing groups (VGWGs). This replicable, aggregable, and data-supported (RAD) research applied a mixed-methods design with pre- and postsurveys over the three semesters of running the VGWG. It found that the VGWG offered a full range of writing support that met graduate …

Writing Centers And Neocolonialism: How Writing Centers Are Being Commodified And Exported As U.S. Neocolonial Tools, Brian Hotson, Stevie Bell

The Writing Center Journal

The editors of the Writing Center Journal and Purdue University Press, publisher of WCJ, are retracting the following article:

Hotson, Brian, and Bell, Stevie. (2022). "Writing Centers and Neocolonialism: How Writing Centers Are Being Commodified and Exported as U.S. Neocolonial Tools." Writing Center Journal, vol. 40, no. 2, article 4. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1020.

This article contains two significant factual errors that the authors have agreed to correct. The Writing Center Journal is committed to the highest standards of publication ethics and has accepted the request of Dr. Ron Martinez and colleagues from the Universidade Federal do Paraná and the article’s …

Listening To The Outliers: Refining The Curriculum For Dissertation Camps, Bradley Hughes, Elisabeth L. Miller, Nancy Linh Karls

The Writing Center Journal

Seeking to support graduate student writers, writing centers at research universities have developed highly successful dissertation camps over the past 15 years. Previous research from North American dissertation camps has demonstrated significant benefits from these camps, as dissertation writers developed new writing habits and increased their productivity. In this study, however, a closer look at initial and follow-up survey responses provided by participants from dissertation camps at two institutions—an Upper Midwestern university in the United States that has held camps for 11 years and an Eastern European university that held an online camp during the 2020 pandemic—suggests that focusing on …

Front Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Front matter and editors' introduction to The Writing Center Journal 40:2 (2022).

Pax Populi: Empowering Afghans Through Virtual Tutoring, Lara Chuppe

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

I began tutoring two Afghan high school students through Pax Populi as a service-learning component of HONR 39900: Virtual Abroad Central Asia. This semester, I will be assisting Purdue students with developing successful tutoring partnerships with Afghan refugees through Pax Populi. The non-profit Pax Populi seeks to empower Afghans through virtual, one-on-one English tutoring. Originally, the program matched young people living in cities across Afghanistan with volunteer tutors, but in light of the Taliban’s rise to power, the organization is now working to provide virtual English lessons to newly arriving Afghan refugees. Many of the refugees speak little English. They …

Review: Counterstories From The Writing Center By Wonderful Faison And Frankie Condon, Alexandria Hanson

The Writing Center Journal

Counterstories from the Writing Center is a book that centers the perspectives and experiences of peoples of color in writing centers as tutors, administrators, and students. The book aims to educate all readers, but specifically “white, straight, cisgendered women (WSCGW)” (p. 5), whose presence has permeated writing center scholarship and work, about how writing centers often engage in representational change or practice, applying Band-Aid solutions that fail to enact social justice and antiracist practices. The goal of the book is to get readers to exercise a certain level of humility, to reflect on and accept responsibility, in order to enact …

The So What Of So In Writing Center Talk, Jo Mackiewicz, Colin Payton

The Writing Center Journal

Even small, taken-for- granted words can have a strong influence on the pedagogical effect of a writing conference. In this study, we examined how experienced and trained writing center tutors’ use of the discourse marker so helped them to connect ideas and to manage their conferences with students. We examined the extent to which tutors’ use of six types of so varied according to the English L1 (EL1)/ English L2 (EL2) status of their interlocutor. We studied 26 conferences: 13 involved eight tutors working with 13 EL1 students, and 13 conferences involved eight tutors working with 13 EL2 students. We …

Decisions Squared: A Deeper Look At Student Characteristics, Performance, And Writing Center Usage In A Multilingual Liberal Arts Program In Russia, L. Ashley Squires

The Writing Center Journal

This article contributes to the ongoing discussion of student characteristics and usage/nonusage patterns in the writing center. Using a sample of 107 economics students from a selective, bilingual liberal arts program in Russia, the author finds statistically significant relationships among GPA, gender, English-language proficiency, and writing center usage. Namely, writing center usage predicts higher GPA and closes two achievement gaps related to gender and English proficiency. These findings complicate the picture presented by Lori Salem (2016), whose research showed gender, low SAT score, and being an English language learner to be strong predictors of writing center usage and produced a …

Disciplinary Faculty Needs And Qualified Tutors In An Efl University Writing Center, Graciela Arizmendi González, María Del Carmen González Videgaray

The Writing Center Journal

This study investigates postgraduate (PGs) and faculty needs concerning academic writing (AW) tutors’ qualifications in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Tutors are the core element of a writing center (WC) (Hays, 2010). These professionals listen to (Burns, 2014), advise, and exchange information (Reid, 1993, in Hays, 2010) collaboratively so students can resolve their writing issues (Hays, 2010). However, in EFL contexts, scant research exists about WCs, writing programs (Molina & López, 2019), and qualifications to recruit tutors (Özer, 2020). Thus, to plan a WC, 24 participants in chemistry were interviewed and surveyed. Findings reveal that EFL PGs …

“Starting From Square One”: Results From The Racial Climate Survey Of Writing Center Professional Gatherings, Rachel Azima, Kelsey Hixson-Bowles, Neil Simpkins

The Writing Center Journal

Though the conversation about race and racism in individual writing centers has developed in the last 30 years (Coenen et al., 2019; Condon, 2007; Dees et al., 2007; Denny, 2010; Faison, 2018; García, 2017; Greenfield, 2019; Greenfield & Rowan, 2011; Grimm, 1999; Kern, 2019; Lockett, 2019), scholars rarely discuss the racial climate of writing center professional spaces. This article reports on the findings from the Racial Climate Survey of Writing Center Professional Gatherings. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in spring 2019, when participants were asked about their experiences and perceptions of the racial climate of international, national, regional, and …

Review: Self+Culture+Writing, Samira Grayson

The Writing Center Journal

Review of Self+Culture+Writing: Autoethnography for/as Writing Studies, edited by Rebecca L. Jackson and Jackie Grutsch McKinney.

Front Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Front matter and editors' introduction to The Writing Center Journal 40:1 (2022).

Tutors For Transfer? Reconsidering The Role Of Transfer In Writing Tutor Education, David Stock, Shannon Tuttle Liechty

The Writing Center Journal

Writing center professionals’ (WCPs) efforts to integrate transfer of learning theory into writing tutor education have exceeded empirical research on the effects of such curricula. Building on research in this area (Cardinal, 2018; Hill, 2016), we designed and implemented a semester-long, transfer-focused training curriculum for experienced undergraduate writing tutors that sought to build on tutors’ prior knowledge of writing center pedagogy. We tracked these tutors’ understanding of, attitudes toward, and uses of transfer and transfer talk in writing center sessions over the course of a semester. Through analysis of training meeting transcripts and a post-training survey, we found that tutors …

Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

#34 Luk Lao, Victoria Gill

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This bilingual poem, using Lao (Isaan dialect) and English, narrates how her genocide survivor, Lao refugee mother uses language as a form of resistance and as a cultural legacy to pass on to her first-generation American born children.

Beyond Transactional Narratives Of Agency: Peer Consultants’ Antiracist Professionalization, Amy T. Cicchino, Katharine H. Brown, Christopher Basgier, Megan Haskins

The Writing Center Journal

Social justice movements, especially Black Lives Matter, inspired many writing center administrators to reflect on their commitments to antiracism and engage with antiracist professional development with their staff. However, there is continued need to study the impact antiracist professional development has on writing center consultants’ ability to practice antiracism in sessions. This article presents a predominantly white institution (PWI) writing center’s attempt to do this work, with a particular emphasis on how antiracist professional development complicates portrayals of consultant agency within the writing center. The study analyzes qualitative data collected from consultants’ reflective writing, survey, and interview responses. Results illustrate …

Writing Centers, Enclaves, And Creating Spaces Of Change Within Universities, Bronwyn T. Williams

The Writing Center Journal

Writing center scholarship often highlights the ways in which their distinctive, less directive, nongraded, and individualized instruction can make them distinctive social and pedagogical spaces. There is a simultaneous argument, however, that writing centers are often institutionally vulnerable and may be unable to engage in or promote such differences within the larger college or university. Yet, despite their size and possible vulnerability, the daily practices and institutional positioning of writing centers can help change conversations and work toward a different vision, political approach, and institutional presence. Drawing on Victor Friedman’s concept of “enclaves of different practice” and Brian Massumi’s theories …

Back Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Back Matter for Writing Center Journal 40.3.

Does Peer-To-Peer Writing Tutoring Cause Stress? A Multi-Institutional Rad Study, Matthew Nelson, Kathleen Weaver, Sam Deges, Pornchanok Ruengvirayudh, Savannah Garcia, Sarah Dunn

The Writing Center Journal

Writing center literature often notes the stress and anxiety of students as a special concern for peer writing tutors, and tutor training manuals offer advice for tutors on how to manage student writers’ anxiety and stress in sessions. Few writing center sources, however, examine the stress/anxiety tutors may experience as a result of their work in the writing center, despite increasing interest in emotions and emotional labor in writing centers. This multi-institutional study examines whether peer writing tutors experience increased stress/anxiety while tutoring. Using a mixed-methods approach combining both surveys and physiological data (salivary cortisol levels controlled against days when …