The Excessive Writing Center, 25 Years On
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. 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.
Rewind & Reset: Laura Greenfield on Writing Center as a Space of Resistance
For this month's Rewind & Reset, we're bringing back our interview with Dr. Laura Greenfield back in Spring 2021. In this conversation, we asked Dr. Laura Greenfield to help us understand radicalism in the writing center space and how the writing center can be a space for resisting power, privilege, and standard language ideology.
The First Writing Centers in Mexico / Los Primeros Centros de Escritura en México
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. 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.
Report from the Field: Tracking the Movements at the 2024 Southeastern (USA) Writing Center Association Conference
This year’s Southeastern Writing Center Association (SWCA), a US-based affiliate of the International Writing Center Association, was hosted by Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. The SWCA and other regional affiliates offer opportunities for US writing center professionals to share their work and learn from others in their region, though attendees and presenters are not required to work in the region. The conference focused on centered on movement and movements. Drawing on Atlanta’s long history of participation in the civil rights movement, much of the conference focused social justice and its relationship to writing center work. Panel topics varied widely, covering topics such as generative AI, student connections to campus, linguistic justice, and the emotional labor of writing center work.
Rewind & Reset: Where Are We Now with AI and Writing Centers?
For this month's Rewind & Reset, we're returning to a feature piece from last year written by Dr. Graham Stowe from Canisius College. In this piece, Dr. Stowe shares his continuing reflection on AI and its effect on "the excessive writing centers". While we're aware that generative AI-related technology continues to evolve, we hope this piece helps you keep pondering over relevant topics.
From WLN: Tutor’s Column: GenAI in the Writing Center by Dani Lester
"Writers may feel reluctant to disagree with GenAI because advertising often personifies GenAI as intelligent and objective. However, it is simply amalgamations riddled with biases: GenAI creators and owners restrict topics deemed offensive or dangerous, decided not democratically or publicly but by individuals and business owners who may be incentivized primarily to monetize rather than inform AI users. Understanding this about GenAI is crucial to understanding its limitations and the danger it poses to writing. GenAI, by nature of its creation and monetization, obfuscates authentic positional perspective and limits diversity in authorial voices." Go to https://wac.colostate.edu/wln/ for the full text. Did you know that that WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship has become a member of the WAC Clearinghouse family of open-access publications? That means you can access past and current issues of WLN at no cost. Copyright © for WLN is held by its editorial staff.
Announcements & Upcoming Events
Tutor’s Perspectives
Our own personal experiences working in writing centers tell us this, as does research on the benefits of serving as a tutor/consultant (e.g., Hughes, Gillespie, & Kail, 2010; Driscoll, 2015; Jeter, 2016). I saw this firsthand with my former high school writing center tutors, and now years later I am experiencing it personally as I work as a consultant in the George Mason University writing center.
Locate our international colleagues from all over the world!
