No less than other divisions of the college or university, contemporary writing centers find themselves within a galaxy of competing questions and demands that relate to assessment—questions and demands that usually embed priorities from outside the purview of the writing center itself. Writing centers are used to certain kinds of assessment, both quantitative and qualitative, but are often unprepared to address larger institutional or societal issues. In Building Writing Center Assessments that Matter, Schendel and Macauley start from the kinds of assessment strengths already in place in writing centers, and they build a framework that can help writing centers satisfy local needs and put them in useful dialogue with the larger needs of their institutions, while staying rooted in writing assessment theory. The authors begin from the position that tutoring writers is already an assessment activity, and that good assessment practice (rooted in the work of Adler-Kassner, O'Neill, Moore, and Huot) already reflects the values of writing center theory and practice. They offer examples of assessments developed in local contexts, and of how assessment data built within those contexts can powerfully inform decisions and shape the futures of local writing centers. With additional contributions by Neal Lerner, Brian Huot and Nicole Caswell, and with a strong commitment to honoring on-site local needs, the volume does not advocate a one-size-fits-all answer. But, like the modeling often used in a writing consultation, examples here illustrate how important assessment principles have been applied in a range of local contexts. Ultimately, Building Writing Assessments that Matter describes a theory stance toward assessment for writing centers that honors the uniqueness of the writing center context, and examples of assessment in action that are concrete, manageable, portable, and adaptable.

This book profiles 12 writing centers that function effectively on their college and university campuses. Following an introduction that provides an overview and suggests ways the book can be used, the centers are examined in detail in the following chapters: (1) "A Multiservice Writing Lab in a Multiversity: The Purdue University Writing Lab" (Muriel Harris); (2) "The Writing Center at Medgar Evers College: Responding to the Winds of Change" (Brenda M. Greene); (3) "The Writing Centers at the University of Toledo: An Experiment in Collaboration" (Joan A Mullin and Luanne Momenee); (4) "The Lehigh University Writing Center: Creating a Community of Writers" (Edward Lotto); (5) "The Writing Center at the University of Southern California: Couches, Carrels, Computers, and Conversation" (Irene L. Clark); (6) "The Writing Center at Harvard University: A Student Centered Resource" (Linda Simon); (7) "The Writing Center at the University of Puget Sound: The Center of Academic Life" (Julie Neff); (8) "Establishing a Writing Center for the Community: Johnson County Community College" (Ellen Mohr); (9) "Redefining Authority: Multicultural Students and Tutors at the Educational Opportunity Program Writing Center at the University of Washington" (Gail Y. Okawa); (10) "The Land-Grant Context: Utah State University's Writing Center" (Joyce A. Kinkead); (11) "Taking Tutoring on the Road: Utah State University's Rhetoric Associates Program" (Joyce A. Kinkead); and (12) "Moving toward an Electronic Writing Center at Colorado State University" (Dawn Rodrigues and Kathleen Kiefer). The book concludes with two items by Joyce A. Kinkead, an epilogue and an additional article, "The Scholarly Context: A Look at Themes," which offers information on some of the uses of writing labs. (NKA)

The first book-length empirical investigation of writing center directors’ labor, The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors presents a longitudinal qualitative study of the individual professional lives of nine new directors. Inspired by Kinkead and Harris’s Writing Centers in Context (1993), the authors adopt a case study approach to examine the labor these directors performed and the varied motivations for their labor, as well as the labor they ignored, deferred, or sidelined temporarily, whether or not they wanted to. The study shows directors engaged in various types of labor—everyday, disciplinary, and emotional—and reveals that labor is never restricted to a list of job responsibilities, although those play a role. Instead, labor is motivated and shaped by complex and unique combinations of requirements, expectations, values, perceived strengths, interests and desires, identities, and knowledge. The cases collectively distill how different institutions define writing and appropriate resources to writing instruction and support, informing the ongoing wider cultural debates about skills (writing and otherwise), the preparation of educators, the renewal/tenuring of educators, and administrative “bloat” in academe. The nine new directors discuss more than just their labor; they address their motivations, their sense of self, and their own thoughts about the work they do, facets of writing center director labor that other types of research or scholarship have up to now left invisible. The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors strikes a new path in scholarship on writing center administration and is essential reading for present and future writing center administrators and those who mentor them.

Re/Writing the Center illuminates how core writing center pedagogies and institutional arrangements are complicated by the need to create intentional, targeted support for advanced graduate writers. Most writing center tutors are undergraduates, whose lack of familiarity with the genres, preparatory knowledge, and research processes integral to graduate-level writing can leave them underprepared to assist graduate students. Complicating the issue is that many of the graduate students who take advantage of writing center support are international students. The essays in this volume show how to navigate the divide between traditional writing center theory and practices, developed to support undergraduate writers, and the growing demand for writing centers to meet the needs of advanced graduate writers. Contributors address core assumptions of writing center pedagogy, such as the concept of peers and peer tutoring, the emphasis on one-to-one tutorials, the positioning of tutors as generalists rather than specialists, and even the notion of the writing center as the primary location or center of the tutoring process. Re/Writing the Center offers an imaginative perspective on the benefits writing centers can offer to graduate students and on the new possibilities for inquiry and practice graduate students can inspire in the writing center. Contributors: Laura Brady, Michelle Cox, Thomas Deans, Paula Gillespie​, Mary Glavan, Marilyn Gray​, James Holsinger​, Elena Kallestinova, Tika Lamsal​, Patrick S. Lawrence, Elizabeth Lenaghan, Michael A. Pemberton​, Sherry Wynn Perdue​, Doug Phillips, Juliann Reineke​, Adam Robinson​, Steve Simpson, Nathalie Singh-Corcoran​, Ashly Bender Smith, Sarah Summers​, Molly Tetreault​, Joan Turner, Bronwyn T. Williams, Joanna Wolfe

Revised edition of: Researching the writing center, 2012.

Multilingual writers—often graduate students with more content knowledge and broader cultural experience than a monolingual tuto—unbalance the typical tutor/client relationship and pose a unique challenge for the writing center. Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers explores how directors and tutors can better prepare for the growing number of one-to-one conferences with these multilingual writers they will increasingly encounter in the future. This much-needed addition of second language acquisition (SLA) research and teaching to the literature of writing center pedagogy draws from SLA literature; a body of interviews Rafoth conducted with writing center directors, students, and tutors, and his own decades of experience. Well-grounded in daily writing center practice, the author addresses which concepts and practices directors can borrow from the field of SLA to help tutors respond to the needs of multilingual writers, what directors need to know about these concepts and practices, and how tutoring might change in response to changes in student populations. Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers is a call to invigorate the preparation of tutors and directors for the negotiation of the complexities of multilingual and multicultural communication.

The value of small-group instruction cannot be emphasized enough, but many teachers have found it difficult to manage, especially when class sizes remain large. Here is practical, theoretically-sound guidance for language arts teachers from pre-K through grade 5 who want help setting up literacy-rich classrooms that support guided reading or other small-group teaching. This new edition of The Literacy Center provides meaningful activities that extend small-group instruction in both comprehension and word study. Like the popular first edition, this updated handbook is teacher friendly. Clear suggestions for each center, together with charts, diagrams, black-line masters and photographs, help implement a "real" work place for young learners. Supported by Dr. Morrow's extensive research in motivation theory and exemplary instruction, here are sound ideas that engage students collaboratively and independently. You can spend time teaching small groups of students, attending to their individual needs, all the while knowing the rest of your class will be independently engaged in real learning. The book is divided into two distinct parts. The first section gives the research background and rationale for using literacy centers. It provides the tools for thoughtful design and use of centers along with helpful hints on how best to motivate students. The second section provides activities for modeling literature to interest children in reading in social collaborative settings. These activities are designed to foster the development of comprehension skills and strategies through the use of children's literature. The book gives equal time to the development of word study skills, such as phonemic awareness and phonics, with manipulative materials to ensure fluent reading. Included are:smart suggestions for introducing centers;management ideas;black-line masters;ways to foster student collaboration and cooperation;ways to assess students' center work and suggestions for promoting student accountability;a completely new section on word study, phonics and phonemic awareness;practical and effective suggestions for family involvement. The Literacy Center can help you develop your students' enthusiasm for reading and writing. It is perfect for introducing pre-service teachers to classrooms that are literacy-rich and purposeful, as well as for continuing staff development for classroom teachers who are seeking better ways to engage students in reading and writing.