Observations on the Reading.

So far this year, I've had several students walk into the writing center and say, "I just need this paper proofread," or "My professor told me to let you take a look at this before I turn it in." For these students (and maybe for their professors), the paper in hand is the beginning and end of their problems. Once the paper is gone, the problem is gone – until next time.

In his essay, "The Idea of a Writing Center," Stephen North writes that we should not be some sort of "fix-it shop" for student papers. Rather, we should use a student's visit as a way in – the beginning of a dialogue that can help them become better writers. This idea puts more pressure on students as well as tutors, and I think it's well-deserved. We should be creating relationships with students at the Writing Center and, instead of fixing papers, making better writers.

Marilyn Cooper, though, brings up a good point in her article, "A Cultural Studies Agenda for Writing Centers." Students are, without a doubt, concerned with grades. So then, how do we turn the focus on long-term writing goals – especially when we're dealing with, say, engineering students who don't think they'll be writing professionally? Her answer seems to be to bridge the gap between students and teachers while we strive to become what she calls "organic intellectuals." Cooper's ideas seem to work at cross purposes of what we've been told are the rules of the Clemson Writing Center. I wonder if we would be considered subversive (or unemployed) if we took matters into our own hands in order to create better students. Maybe this isn't something a first-semester tutor should be considering.

Today, as I worked with a tutor, I found myself making suggestions to improve an essay. I’d say something like, “Suppose you did this….” I learned pretty quickly that I better have two or three “Supposes” or the student would think that she needed to scribble down whatever I said, as if the exact words were the secret password into the world of A+ papers. It’s hard to get students to bring up their own suggestions. They are, for the most part, freshman in ENGL 103, just wanting to do a good job on the paper. Reading “Postcolonialism and the Idea of a Writing Center” by Anis Bawarshi and Stephanie Pelkowski made me realize that it’s going to be hard for this notion to change. It’s going to require a university change, not just a change in the way we do things in the writing center.

And should it even change? I want to hold onto that belief that academic papers have an order, a universal structure, that, while it can definitely be tinkered with, can’t be tossed out completely. If, however, you decide you can toss out that universal structure, fine, but you better know the structure you’re tossing, and why you’re tossing it. I think maybe that’s at the heart of postcolonialism – knowing why the rules are in place. Once you know that, you can begin to question those rules.