composition

Today, as I attempted to prep students for one-on-one conferences, I had them answer a list of questions to bring to our meeting. My last questions was "Do you have any questions for me about writing?" I expected a bunch of requests for specific instruction, such as "how do I write the perfect conclusion?" or "what are some ways I can come up with topics?", but what I got instead were several questions about my own experiences with writing. They asked me about my feelings about writing, whether I deal with constraints, the kinds of vocabulary I use when I write, why I teach writing the way I do, who my favorite authors are, and what I consider "good" writing. I guess what this suggests to me is that I need to be more transparent about my own struggles and successes with writing. Students want to know who their teacher is as a writer. They don't seem to want to me to establish credibility and claim myself as a writer. Instead, it seems like th...

Two days a week, I work in a writing center. I have been working there since July of 2009, with one break in between to do a year of a Doctoral Fellowship. The whole experience has been wonderful. I learned a great deal of what I know about teaching writing and performing Writing Studies scholarship in this center. Because I have been there for a while, I also have the pleasure of helping to train new tutors (we call them "writing consultants"). In this particular center, we typically have a summer training session, where we role play and read articles related to writing centers and writing studies. Then, we move into a mentorship phase. For the first week, a new consultant will observe the sessions of an experienced consultant mentor. After a session or during downtime, the new and experienced consultants talk about those observations and any lingering questions. The following week are "training wheels" sessions. The new consultants hold their own sessions while th...