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In Case You Missed it: Highlights from 2024
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Happy New Year, Writing center friends!
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Thanks for subscribing to the WLN Blog newsletter! Here are some highlights of 2024 from the WLN blog.
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We’ll be back in late February. Between now and then, if you’ve got a writing center issue you would like to write about on the blog or wish we could discuss, email wlnblog.editors@gmail.com.
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Also, we're looking for an assistant editor! Please check the full call for details and how to apply.
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Anna Habib, Esther Namubiru, & Weijia Li
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The day might have been filled with stressful exams, exciting updates from friends, or a generous meal that can make anyone sleepy. That’s why it’s critical for me to have a routine when entering the workplace. I use the first few minutes to soothe my nervous system and ground myself in the present moment. For I cannot be helpful to those I serve if my mind is somewhere else.
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As writing center people, our focus is on our students' diverse backgrounds and how they come to the center. But how do we the writing center directors, managers, and consultants find our way to the center? What motivates us to remain in the field and make a career out of it? Dr. Natashia Muna (University of Cape Town Writing Centre), scientist and Director of the UCT Faculty of Heatlh Sciences Writing Lab, shares how she found her way to the writing center. If you want to share your literacy story, email wlnblog.editors@gmail.com.
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I came into the writing centre quite by chance – an offer by my then Head of Department to ‘investigate’ the possibility of establishing a writing centre, saw me not just investigate, but rather immerse myself in the possibility – and our small faculty-specific writing centre opened just a few months later. Today, we are just a few months short of our eleventh birthday.
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In the funding proposal, I made it clear that it would be a learner-centred project to provide additional support to both undergraduate and postgraduate students in need of personalized assistance in their academic literacy, especially in speaking and writing domains. It would also be a platform for internationalization to happen at home due to the diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of our tutors.
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The leap of faith paid off beyond our imagination. We experienced showers of blessings on all fronts. The Peer Tutoring Scheme (PTS) was officially launched in 2016 with a handsome fund for three years.
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This is part two of the conversation with Elizabeth Kleinfeld and Julie Prebel. The co-editors explain 'activist editing', the method that they and co-editor Sohui Lee used to edit the collection Disruptive stories: Amplifying voices from the writing center margins.
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WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship has released the new Digital Edited Collection "The Post Pandemic Writing Center". John Katunich, Sarah Rice, and Noreen Lape edited this collection. John and Sarah joined the Slow Agency podcast to explain why this DEC matters and what writing center directors and tutors can take from it to apply in their center. To access the DEC, click https://ship.pressbooks.pub/thepostpandemicwritingcenter/ .
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One of them was precisely to start collaborating virtually, at the end of 2020, in Centro de Escritura y Argumentación (CEA) of UAM Cuajimalpa, the first writing center in a public university in Mexico. At CEA, founded in 2014 by Gilmar Ayala Meneses, I was able to reconnect with teaching and tutorial work, and I was able to reaffirm my interest in Writing Across the Curriculum. When, at the beginning of 2022, Gilmar invited me to take the administration, I did not hesitate to say yes!
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They say that you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but the folks who say that don’t have heroes like Beth Boquet. Dr. Boquet, Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut, USA, wrote “‘Our Little Secret’: A History of Writing Centers, Pre- to Post-Open Admissions” in 1999, and it quickly entered the canon of essential articles in writing center studies.
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On the occasion of the article’s twenty-fifth anniversary, our guest contributor, Dr. Graham Stowe, spoke to Dr. Boquet about the origins of the article, the shape of writing center studies in the subsequent twenty-five years, and what has become of the excessive writing center.
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The proliferation of writing centers in Mexico over the past twenty years has taught us that collaborative learning of writing, in a more welcoming, close, and human context, is much more accessible and comprehensible for students, in addition to becoming more relevant in the practice and use of writing in their daily lives.
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La proliferación de los centros de escritura en México, en estos veinte años, nos ha enseñado que el aprendizaje de la escritura mediante procesos colaborativos, de igual a igual, en un contexto más acogedor, cercano y humano, sea mucho más asequible y aprehensible para el estudiante, además de cobrar una mayor relevancia en la práctica y en el uso de la escritura en su día a día.
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