Writing Consulting...

So this weekend I attended the NCPTW - the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing, at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

I was fairly wary, as a whole weekend of talking about editing and peer tutoring isn't normally my idea of a "fantastic time." And to be sure, there were certainly a fair sure of dull moments.

But it was also interesting for two reasons: first, because I saw how quickly fundamental differences in attitudes/beliefs come up even in the setting of writing consulting and secondly, how even writing centers can be scenes for cultural exchange, growth, and important learning.

To the first point, it was interesting to find that many of the writing centers represented (and this was a national conference with writing center directors and peer tutors from California, Florida, Maine and everywhere in between, plus random people from Canada, Ireland, and Puerto Rico) were huge proponents of a style of editing where you never write on the person's paper.

Now, I should preface this by saying that the theme of the conference was AUTHORITY in the Writing Center. Thus, the idea is that to keep the authority with the writer and help them grow in their writing, that you help them think about the problems and let the writer (and the writer only) mark errors and make changes.

Now, to me and my fellow writing consultants representing VU this was ludicrous. I mark up papers like nobody's business. I have enough trouble with minimalist editing much less no editing. Or a style of editing where you take 2 hours to go through 4 pages with a person talking about each and every semi-colon, paragraph structure, and content...

But it was interesting because at the keynote luncheon (where the keynote speaker actually talked about the role of writing centers amidst globalization and changing workplaces...I know. crazy) students stood up on both sides attempting to defend one way of editing or the other. Trying to convince the other side. I swear we could have been debating the War on Iraq, poeple were so convinced of one side or the other, unwilling to budge, or see that it was mostly a matter of the way we've been trained, the way our individual writing centers work, and just a fundamental difference in philosophy.

It was just very intersesting, becuase that was certainly the last thing I thought would come up.

Second to last on my mind going into this was the importance of writing centers, editing, and learning language/academic writing in terms of cultural exchange...but again, I was confonted with it numerous times during the day.

We get many international students at the writing center. Which is great. I actually helped one Saudi Arabian student a few weeks ago and actually got to make a sweet comparison about English and Arabic grammar to help him understand. I certainly didn't go into this job for that aspect, but it has turned out to be a perk of getting to learn about other people's cultures and seeing up close the differences in languages and writing.

So, in one of the sessions yesterday, one peer tutor presented the problems she ran into in terms of helping international students understand prompts, write essays/speechs, help wtih grammar and yet not hinder or silence their natural cultural voices within the paper. In the course of the session, the question was raised about whether learning/teaching the "academic writing" dialect [the idea that the form and rules of academic/professional writing are a specific dialect that as students/future professionals we have to learn to be successful] is actually culturally inhospitable because we don't encourage other ways of thinking about issues, presenting ideas, or the use of words that we consider colloquial, pedestrian, slang, foreign, etc.

Now, I disagree that teaching students how to use "academic writing" is culturally inhospitable. I think we as students learn the form of academic writing as a tool to be able to convey our ideas in a professional manner. This way our ideas are supported and can be communicated to many more people. The process is useful, and I think every language has a dialect, so to speak, or professional or formal language that you use in this way.

But we as peer tutors do have to be careful that when teaching this form we don't silence cultural voices or ignore different ways of thinking about ideas than what might seem "correct" in western culture.

It was just really interesting to think about the best ways to help students for whom English is a second language. And how sometimes it is at this point when cultural exchange gets really tricky. How do we decide what formal language is...why is it that ebonics is considered incorrect? why do we assume so much when we hear broken English spoken? are our ideas of language at fault...should we reevaluate what our ideas about what "true English" or "academic/professional" English is? do we need to learn to listen better to understand people who speak English as a second language? or shoud those people be forced to learn English better or not live here?

Not questions that I thought that would be raised at a conference on peer tutoring...


Another thought that occured to me this weekend, which is somewhat unrelated, and probably more of a continual wondering, is yet again the idea of vocation. I went to that conference and I thought... "wow, these are people who really care about what they do. they work hard to help students learn, they get together each year to get ideas on how to be better, they adapt, and they celebrate and encourage learning day in and day out."

Our Writing Center director does some really great work. And it is important. It's important to have teachers and peer tutors and friends who will encourage us to critically think, learn to argue, write and convey our thoughts in a thoughtful, understandable way...and I am all for making those resources as strong and as available as possible on campus. It's work i'm capable of. Spending my days teaching, learning, working with students, seeking to make resources available to as many as need it. A job that is continually challenged to be better, to be more connected and accessible...

Similiarly, working with international students through an international studies office or leading trips overseas to let people grow in their ideas of the world...work that is challenging, complicated, and sometimes the most personal, nittygritty ways of cultural exchange ever. Work that truly changes the world...in a small way to be sure, but also in really big lifechanging ways for the all the peopel who pass through your hands.

And yet my mind looks elsewhere. Like for some reason those jobs aren't quite enough...not even that, that that's not exactly what I'm supposed to do...that thought I struggle with because I feel like that's arrogant because there are so many people out there doing such good work. doing work that i feel truly matters. work that I would love to support if i had more energy, more time, more...

Yet, i'm pulled to something else. And i'm okay with not knowing what this is. I'm okay with not even pursuing it. And yet still I struggle, and I don't quite know why. I guess partly because I feel like it's arrogant to feel like I'm called to something more. Partly because I could very well fail or never find it...and there are a lot of days when I simply would rather turn around and pursue something else. Something just a little easier. Something I know I'm capable of.

Spend the rest of my days going to an annual writing center conference. Working to find new ways to help people learn. That's not a sad existence.

And yet somewhere inside me, a little voices says...nope. try again. The Catch-22 of Vocation.