2009 Writing Center Summer Institute
SCHEDULE
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Registration
1:00-3:00 pm
Writing Centers 101: An Introduction
to Writing Centers' Key Terms, Issues,
and Questions
Opening Reception, National
Constitution Center
9:10 pm
Bus returns to Temple
12th
Street
and
Berks
5th Street
and Arch,
Center
City
Friday
5:00-9:00 pm
Thursday
Bus leaves Temple for Opening
Reception
Tuttleman
201D
Wednesday
4:30 pm
Harry Denny,
Michele Eodice,
Brad Hughes,
Lori Salem
Tuesday
Every writing center has to fit its local institutional
context and culture, yet across our units, we
represent a community of shared practices and
core beliefs. In this optional opening session,
participants will reflect upon and pose key
questions about the field and share these with
small groups. These collectives will distill them
down in order to prepare for “flash” interviews with
institute leaders. With preliminary data from these
discussions, the groups will analyze what they’ve
learned and return to the leaders in search of key
resources (like key articles, central concepts,
guiding principles, etc). Equipped with this
knowledge, they will make connections between
leader insights and work toward informal “articles”
of theory and practice that they can then share
with the plenary group. The goal for this session is
for participants and leaders alike to experience
and learn from foundational values of writing
center praxis: collaboration, problem-posing,
dialog and active learning.
Tuttleman
201(The
Writing
Center)
Monday
12:00-4:30 pm
Sunday
Tuttleman Learning Center
Temple University
1
2009 Writing Center Summer Institute
SCHEDULE
Monday, July 13, 2009
Sunday
Student Center
Temple University
Breakfast
8:30-8:45 am
Announcements
8:45-10:00 am
Plenary
What We Share – And Don’t
10:30-11:45 am
Plenary
Training for the
YouTube/Hulu/iTune generation:
Digital Session Excerpts and
Transcripts as Fodder for Staff
Reflection and Development
Harry Denny
SC
200A
Thursday
Break
SC
200A
Wednesday
10:00-10:30 am
Michele Eodice,
Karen Keaton
Jackson, Catherine
Oriani
Tuesday
This introductory session has two goals: to
uncover your beliefs and knowledge about
writing center work and to work with others to
understand the contexts, conditions, and
concerns that we share and don’t share.
Perhaps we do have so much in common, but
does that common ground mean we all share
the same practices? One way to get to the
issues is to share with each other some of the
things we do and don’t do and discuss why
based on theories and experiences we know
and trust.
SC
200A
Monday
8:00 am
Friday
Helping new coaches join writing center
communities of practice or fostering on-going
staff self-reflection and assessment can be
daunting. Novice tutors can fear jumping into
the fray, or more seasoned consultants can
drift toward resting on their laurels, atrophy
from pat strategies and techniques, or resist
moving toward change. Just as sharing
writing in a supportive and collaborative
environment often leads to more effective
product, process, and writers, we can
transform our practices as teachers and
2
mentors by getting exterior to our experiences
and reflecting on them by ourselves or
through collaboration and workshops. Such
observations can provide transformative
occasions to apply composition and writing
centers concepts, theories, and practices of
mentoring, or generative opportunities from
which to theorize. This plenary session offers
digital recordings produced by inexpensive
technology as means to breathe life into
conventional classroom tutor/staff education
or on-going development in writing centers.
Participants will also reflect on their own
critical tipping points with
learning/teaching/mentoring and consider the
instructional value of those moments,
particularly if they could be recorded and
studied.
11:45 am-1:15
pm
Lunch with SIGs
1:15-2:30 pm
Plenary
What Tutors Need to Know about
Tutoring Multilingual Writers:
Attitudes, Principles, and
Strategies
SC
The
Underground
Dawn Mendoza,
Carol Severino
SC
200A
This session will model in brief an educational
path offered to writing center tutors. It will
begin with an emphasis on how to
individualize, empathize, and express interest
in people, language, and culture. It will cover
both general principles of Second Language
Acquisition (SLA), as well as some of the nuts
and bolts of how English works and where
writers tend to struggle. Strategies for
tutoring multilingual writers will be followed by
a discussion of student writing samples. The
session will close with an open dialog on a
few of the thorny questions we all face in this
work.
3
Monday, July 13, 2009
Break with Snacks
SC
200A
3:00-4:00 pm
Plenary
Writing as Hard Labor
SC
200A
Brad Hughes
Sunday
2:30-3:00 pm
Monday
Here's our chance to get some writing done
and to share in the joys and the challenges
that are central to our work--writing and
talking about writing. Throughout the week, in
small writing groups, each of us will write,
share, listen, respond, and revise as we work
on our own writing projects and help
colleagues with theirs.
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
4
2009 Writing Center Summer Institute
SCHEDULE
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Sunday
Student Center
Temple University
Breakfast
8:30-8:45 am
Announcements
8:45-10:00 am
Plenary
Difference Does Not Equal
“Deficience”: Writing Centers and
the Tutoring of Diverse Learners
SC
200C
Michele Eodice and
Karen Keaton
Jackson
SC
200C
Katrin Girgensohn,
Brad Hughes,
Catherine Oriani
SC
200C
Monday
8:00 am
Tuesday
Addressing issues of racial and cultural
diversity is difficult no matter the context. Yet
in writing centers, these are issues we must
address as race and identity can be
inextricably linked, particularly for students of
color who may speak non-standard dialects.
In addition, we are concerned with reflecting
the diversity of our schools in our writing
centers but are challenged by barriers to
inclusion.
Wednesday
In this session participants will explore
definitions of diversity, discuss the current
issues surrounding diversity in writing centers
and address literacy, the value we place on
various dialects, and the connection between
literacy practices and identity to consider new
approaches to tutoring diverse learners.
Break
10:30-11:45 am
Plenary
Tutor Education Makes the
Headlines!
Friday
As gratifying as tutor education can be, it can
also be challenging. In this session we will
share strengths that could hit the headlines
and face weaknesses that could serve for
scandalous reports. In a collaborative
approach we will find ways to improve our
tutor education models and take pride in the
headlines they inspire.
Thursday
10:00-10:30 am
5
Tuesday, July 14, 2008
Plenary
Writer’s Circus
1:15-1:30 pm
Break
1:30-2:30 pm
Writing as Hard labor
2:30-3:00 pm
Break with Snacks
3:00-4:00 pm
Breakout Groups 1
Katrin Girgensohn
During this workshop, the participants create
a fantastic circus show. The Writer’s Circus
provides an opportunity to get together in a
rather unusual way. With the support of
writing games and prompts, the circus fosters
communication among the participants, fun
and awareness of our writing processes.
A) So… What is SWOT?: Strategic
B) CW in the WC: How Writing Centers
Tuttleman
201
Michele Eodice,
Catherine Oriani
Tuttleman
306
Dan Gallagher
Tuttleman
305
Thursday
Friday
Can Support, and Benefit From, Creative
Writers
Writing centers often work under the
assumption that every student, with the right
instruction and support, can produce a quality
academic paper. This attitude rarely applies
to fiction writers and poets, though, who
complicate the identity of student writer with
the identity of artist. This session will discuss
how creative writing can be used by your
writing center as an instructional and
developmental tool. Beyond discussion, this
will be an interactive session, so please be
prepared to write and share.
SC
200C
Wednesday
Planning for Writing Centers
Identifying and envisioning an objective is the
first step toward reaching a goal, but what are
some effective strategies for going from here
to there? Writing center directors may opt to
utilize any of a number of strategic planning
models. This session will offer you experience
in a strategy known as SWOT: strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
SC
200C
Tuesday
12:15-1:15 pm
(Lunch
continues)
SC
200C
Monday
Lunch
Sunday
11:45 am-12:15
pm
6
C) Podcasting, Guided Video, and
Brad Hughes
Tuttleman
201D
Harry Denny, Karen
Keaton Jackson,
Carol Severino
Tuttleman
307B
Computer Simulations for Tutors:
Exploring Three New Uses of Technology
in the Writing Center
During this breakout, we’ll sample some
writing center podcasts and discuss the
design and the rhetorical challenges involved
in developing podcasts. We’ll also explore
two exciting new tools for tutor education,
both easy to use and both available for free.
The first is a tool for integrating written cues
and questions into video of writing center
consultations; these cues help tutors learn to
look and listen more closely and critically to
the interactions within conferences. The
second is a brand-new tool for developing
computer simulations to use in tutor
education. Whether you’re a technology
skeptic, a fanatic, or somewhere in between,
join us for this fun discussion of brave new
worlds.
D) It’s a Long and Winding Road, So Why
Go it Alone? Networking, Sharing and
Problem-Solving Tenure & Promotion for
Writing Center Faculty Directors
On many campuses, a tenure-stream faculty
writing center director is a rarity. Often, a
director is the sole compositionist or writing
faculty in broader English Studies,
Communication Arts, Rhetoric, or other
humanities departments/programs.
Sometimes departments, divisions, colleges,
or universities don’t have long histories of
mentoring faculty who have a hybrid position
like a writing center directorship toward tenure
and promotion. During this session, the
leaders will facilitate critical reflection,
strategic planning, and network building as
participants work to map their understanding
of the tenure and promotion process in
relation to their own institutional contexts. We
hope to walk away with individual plans as
well as the foundations for a community of
peers that can offer mutual support in the
form of wikis or listservs.
4:00-5:00 pm
SIGs
Tuttleman
201
7
2009 Writing Center Summer Institute
SCHEDULE
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Sunday
Student Center
Temple University
Breakfast
SC
200A
8:30-8:45 am
Announcements
SC
200A
8:45-10:00 am
Plenary
Writing Center Assessment
10:00-10:30 am
Harry Denny, Lori
Salem
SC
200A
Tuesday
How do we know that what we do works?
(And what does “works” mean, anyway?) In
this session, we will explore the goals, issues,
values, and practices involved in assessing
writing center work, and leaders will offer
examples of the wide range of assessment
activities they have conducted. We will offer
advice for balancing our own assessment
agendas with the agendas of those outside
the Center.
Monday
8:00 am
Break
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
8
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
10:30-11:30 am
Breakout groups 2
Tuesday
Michele Eodice
C) It Takes Funding to Do (Almost)
Brad Hughes, Lori
Salem
Tuttleman
406
Friday
Anything: Principles for Earning and
Developing Sustained Funding for Our
Writing Centers
Let's face it: to build strong writing center
programs, sustained and substantial funding
is crucial, and funding for centers is often
hard to come by and fragile. In this session,
Tuttleman
201D
Thursday
Center
Working in a writing center is a “job,” but to
make certain students do not begin to view
their time there as punching the clock, we
need to help them engage both intellectually
and socially. We have the resources, space,
and time to create the conditions for
community to develop. We can build on our
student consultants’ creativity and enthusiasm
when we provide opportunities for community
to develop organically.
Wednesday
B) Creating Community with Your Writing
Rebekah Buchanan, Tuttleman
Katrin Girgensohn
404
Monday
Working with Graduate Students
In this session we will introduce our writing
center work with advanced writers. We will
share our experiences with fostering writing
groups though a kick-off-event and the use of
modular trainings that focus on soft skills like
intercultural communication, time
management or relaxation techniques.
Furthermore, we report on writing retreats and
writing weekends geared for assisting
doctoral students in dissertation completion
by providing structured writing time as well as
writing feedback. Tutoring programs geared
at working with advanced students who are
writing longer papers and need more time and
assistance than our typical sessions provide
will be discussed. We will address starting
graduate student programs, funding, faculty
participation, and working with departments
and graduate schools. Participants will
discuss struggles and concerns they have in
regard to working with graduate students in
their own centers. Finally, we will dedicate
time to collaboratively exploring ideas and
solutions for working with graduate students
at your own center.
Sunday
A) Advanced Writers in the Center:
9
we'll talk as a group about ways to create,
solidify or grow a permanent budget line for a
writing center, and we'll discuss creative ways
to grow our budgets beyond the basics. The
leaders will close by sharing some principles
that guide their approaches to funding.
D) Should You Start a Writing Fellows
Program?
What is a Writing Fellows (Curriculum-Based
Peer Tutoring) Program? Should you start
one out of your writing center? How would
such a program benefit your students, your
faculty, and your writing center? Which
program models might suit your site? What
are the challenges of starting and maintaining
these programs? Dawn and Carol will
discuss program benefits and challenges,
models and examples, and print and
electronic resources. This session should
help you clarify whether you should start a
fellows program at your site, and if so, how
you might go about it
11:30-1:00 pm
Lunch (on your own)
1:00-2:00 pm
Trading Spaces
2:00-2:30 pm
Break
2:30-3:45 pm
Plenary
Composition Theories/Writing
Center Theories: Working Together
Dawn Mendoza,
Carol Severino
Tuttleman
407B
Rebekah Buchanan, Tuttleman
Dan Gallagher, Lori 201
Salem
Michele Eodice,
Dawn Mendoza
SC
200A
This plenary will put relevant composition
theories next to the practice-based events
that occur in writing centers. Through this
pairing, we’ll ask participants to reveal the
intersections and differences. What does a
familiar theory from composition studies tell
the writing center? How does that theory look
in action? The presenters have picked ten
representative examples for participants to
work within groups.
10
Wednesday, July 15, 2008
4:15-5:15 pm
Writing as Hard Labor
SC
200A
5:30 & 5:45 pm
Buses leave Temple for Eastern
State Penitentiary
6:00-7:00 pm
Twilight Tour of Eastern State
Penitentiary
21st Street
and
Fairmount
7:00-10:00 pm
Dinner at Jack’s Firehouse
21st Street
and
Fairmount
10:00 & 10:15
pm
Buses return to Temple and
Doubletree
12th
Street
and
Berks
Tuesday
SC
200A
Monday
Break with Snacks
Sunday
3:45-4:15 pm
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
11
2009 Writing Center Summer Institute
SCHEDULE
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Student Center
Temple University
8:00 am
Breakfast
8:30-8:45 am
Announcements
8:45-10:00 am
Plenary
Developing a Writing Center
Research Agenda: Brainstorming
Research Questions, Study
Designs, and Methods
SC
200A
Katrin Girgensohn,
Carol Severino
SC
200A
Lori Salem, John
Nordlof
SC
200A
Why and how should we do writing center
research? We will first brainstorm the various
purposes for doing writing center research as
well as possible formats,
audiences, publication venues, and hot
researchable topics: e.g. the long-term
effectiveness of a writing center, what
happens in a tutorial, and second language
writers’ language learning. The process of
generating and choosing research topics,
questions, study designs, and methods will be
modeled, and guidelines will be given to help
insure a research project’s significance.
Then, participants individually and in groups
will go through such a brainstorming process
themselves, creating research clusters and
pentagons. Participants and leaders should
leave this session with possible research
questions, study designs, and methods, if not
some ideas for a future research agenda to
last the rest of your professional career.
10:00-10:30 am
Break
10:30-11:45 am
Tutors and Tutor Alumni Speak
In this panel, a Summer Institute tradition,
graduate and undergraduate tutors and tutor
alumni from Temple and Eastern University
talk about their experiences as tutors.
11:45 am-1:15
pm
Lunch
SC The
Underground
12
1:15-2:15 pm
Breakout Groups 3
A) Developing and Operating an Online
Writing Center
We will begin by looking at the "what" and
"why" of an online writing center, then move
to the "how" of developing and operating one.
Using the University of Maryland University
College's Effective Writing Center as a model,
we'll briefly discuss clients, services, staff,
training, technology, budget, and institutional
location, and offer some thoughts about other
possibilities in these areas.
B) Community Writing Centers
As writing centers become more established,
secure, and flourish in many institutional
contexts, the very values and pedagogy that
make this learning, mentoring, and teaching
possible (and so successful) are also at the
heart of a wider movement among schools,
colleges and universities for community
engagement. In this session, participants will
reflect on their own communities and imagine
possibilities for outreach, service learning, or
other social justice work. The goal is to push
participants toward sustainable, organic, and
ethical practice, regardless of the potential
scale any such outreach might take.
Leigh Ryan, Lisa
Zimmerelli
Tuttleman
306
Harry Denny, Katrin
Girgensohn
Tuttleman
305B
13
Thursday, July 16, 2009
C) Taking the Long View: Sustaining
Tuttleman
201D
Friday
Break with Snacks
Karen Keaton
Jackson, Dawn
Mendoza, Catherine
Oriani
Thursday
2:15-2:45 pm
Tuesday
Negotiating Identities and Alliances as
WAC/WID and WC Directors
As many of us have numerous roles we play
in our writing programs (WAC/WID
coordinator, writing center director, teacher,
consultant, etc.), we find ourselves struggling
to create our own identities while respecting
the many alliances (English Department vs.
larger institution, teacher vs. administrator,
etc.) we try to maintain as a part of our multifaceted duties. Participants in this breakout
session will explore the many alliances they
feel they must honor in each role, particularly
as WAC/WID coordinators as well as writing
center directors, and how those alliances
influence (for good or for bad) our
responsibilities and duties related to each
role. We hope participants will leave with
some practical strategies for coping with
these seemingly opposing duties to better
streamline efforts and tasks.
Wedne
Wednesday
sday
D) Which Me Shall I Be Today?
Michele Eodice, Brad Tuttleman
Hughes
307B
Monday
Relationships and Conducting Research
with Our Tutor Alumni
Some of the most important education that
goes on in writing centers occurs within and
among our student-tutors themselves.
Watching tutors develop, getting to know
tutors well, and talking and learning with
tutors in real depth, over many semesters and
years--these are some of the great joys of
directing a writing center. Join us for a wideranging discussion of tutor development and
our roles in that development: mentoring
tutors as active learners, collaborators,
researchers, leaders, change-agents,
citizens, activists, future graduate and
professional-school students, and future
professionals; helping tutors reflect on their
learning; connecting current tutors with tutor
alumni; sustaining relationships with tutor
alumni; and conducting research with tutor
alumni to develop richer understandings of
tutor learning and development.
Sunday
1:15-2:15 pm
SC
200A
14
Thursday, July 16, 2009
2:45-4:00 pm
Featured Speaker: Marc Lamont
Hill: Hip-hop Pedagogy and Writing
Centers
SC
200A
(Webcast)
4:15-5:15 pm
Writing as Hard Labor
Tuesday
Break
Monday
4:00-4:15 pm
Sunday
Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading hiphop generation intellectuals in the country. His
work, which covers topics such as hip-hop
culture, politics, sexuality, education and
religion, has appeared in numerous journals,
magazines, books, and anthologies. Dr. Hill is
the author of Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom
Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy, and the Politics of
Identity and the co-editor of Media, Learning,
and Sites of Possibility. His research focuses
on the intersections between youth culture,
identity, and educational processes. He is
particularly interested in locating various sites
of possibility for identity work, resistance, and
knowledge production outside of formal
schooling contexts. Particular sites of inquiry
include hip-hop culture, urban fiction, and
African American bookstores.
SC
200A
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
15
2009 Writing Center Summer Institute
SCHEDULE
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sunday
Student Center
Temple University
Breakfast
8:30-8:45 am
Announcements
8:45-10:00 am
Plenary
"Who, Me?" Becoming a Leader on
Our Campus or in Our School
SC
200C
Brad Hughes, Karen
Keaton Jackson
Monday
8:00 am
SC
200C
Break
10:30-11:45 am
Plenary
Looking for Closure
Participant Evaluations
12:00-1:20 pm
Closing Lunch
All
Thursday
11:45 am-12:00
pm
Wednesday
10:00-10:30 am
Tuesday
Writing center directors and staff--just like
writing centers themselves--can influence and
lead their campuses and schools in powerful
ways. We have a lot to offer beyond our
centers, and, in fact, we even have the
potential to shape conceptions and practices
of leadership within an academic culture.
Working collaboratively in this session, we will
all explore what it means to be a leader within
our schools and colleges, broaden common
understandings of leadership, identify barriers
to our becoming leaders, share stories, and
chart our own individual leadership courses.
SC
200C
Friday
16