Conceptual Shift: Becoming a part of the THINK TANK
Work within writing centers that have transitioned to student learning centers involves a recognition of what Herndl and Licona (2007) called "constrained agency," which "emerges at the intersection of agentive opportunities and the regulatory power of authority" (1). Herndl and Licona considered agency as not something to be possessed by one entity but as a kairotic moment in which contextual factors come together to create agency. Writing centers are in a position to recognize moments of constrained agency, as most are part of larger entities and are not necessarily seen as stable components of the university. Rather, writing centers are often seen as a service branch that, like most service areas, can be cut or done away with in moments of budgetary or philosophical crisis or, in the narrative here, moved from one entity or another. We can accept the narrative in which our services become part of an enumerated system of measurable student achievement, an acceptance that we consider to be damaging to activism, or we can learn to perceive such shifts in a more generative way, understanding the subversive power of constrained agency and kairos.
Using activist mapping, we identified our merger with the THINK TANK as a kairotic moment in which we could recognize constrained agency, specifically in terms of how we might integrate writing center philosophies and practices with student learning center practices. We had to ask ourselves how best practices of writing contribute to tutor training and writing center philosophies while respecting the goals of the student learning center.
Generating these spaces for dialogue and action was significant not only for our agency as a writing center but also for the development of student learning center philosophies. Our example of tutor training below came from our postmodern mapping exercise, which helped visualize conceptual space. "Seeing" our location aided us in determining what kairotic moments we were able to recognize within contexts of constrained agency. We would argue that such an exercise is significant for all writing centers in terms of (1) changing narratives about writing center work and (2) imagining our own potential for writing center work within academic organizational structures.
Recreating Training and Tutoring
To be in line with the rest of the tutor training for the TANK, the WC was asked to revamp its three-credit internship course (English 393) into a series of workshops (called Tutor Enrichment sessions). These workshops needed to be classified by training level, because the College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA; our certifying body) has distinct levels of training for tutors: Level 1 is basic competence, Level 2 is more advanced, and Level 3 is for those who wish to be mentors and trainers of their fellow tutors. We thus had to move from an academic course model to a series of one-hour sessions, and tutors earned money for attending rather than course credit. It became more difficult to include readings (as they would have to be paid for their time reading to prepare for a session, and our budget did not allow for that), and the self-reflective work that had been integral to the course (the writing of a tutoring philosophy, for example) became much more complicated to continue to require.
The work involved in doing this put Chris, the writing specialist, on the defensive, understanding the desire to have a standardized training regime for all TANK tutors, but also knowing the value of the academic internship model that had been developed over many years in the WC. In the course, tutors were introduced to voices in writing center theory and practice and were asked to develop their own tutoring philosophies as a means of entering into this conversation and community. So, we had our concerns about the new CRLA model. Tutors who had completed the course were not only well versed in the scholarship surrounding writing center theory and practice, but they also shared a sense of community, a solidarity and sense of pride in their work as writing tutors that came out of the course. The new model would not be specific to writing center purposes, goals, identities, or literature. Rather, our tutors would be folded into sessions with science and math tutors. We found value in our tutors working with other tutors from across the disciplines, but were concerned that our tutors would no longer feel connected to a writing center community outside of their immediate context. We wanted our history and philosophies to be counted and sustained in the new training model, but Chris had to figure out how to make this happen.
This situation was an institutional imposition that turned out to be a positive kairotic moment. Chris was able to find ways to identify the critical elements of the old course model and incorporate them into this new structure. The original internship course was structured such that curriculum built on itself, moving tutors to ever-deeper considerations of WC theory and praxis, and guiding them to develop not only a strategy skill set to use in sessions, but also the ability to reflect critically on their practice so that they could each articulate their own philosophy of tutoring writing. This progression and the metacognitive elements of the curriculum were what the writing specialist focused on in the transition to the CRLA model. Instead of simply allowing tutors to take whatever sessions they felt like going to in any given semester (as the CRLA model allowed), the WC created a set series of sessions for each level of certification. Because we could not require tutors to train beyond Level 1 (although we strongly encourage all our tutors to reach Level 2), the Level 1 series had the responsibility of providing all tutors with what we considered essential knowledge and metacognitive skills. Hence, we mined our old weekly lesson plans for five one-hour sessions (how to effectively construct a session; how to tutor non-native speakers of English and students from other cultural/academic traditions; how to tutor students who may have learning and attention differences; how to work with our largest population of visitors, our first-year composition students; and approaches to and strategies for effective fifteen-minute drop-in sessions) that would give beginning tutors what we felt they most needed. In addition, new tutors were asked to read and analyze three articles on writing center philosophy and praxis, to observe a tutoring session and to be tutored and then reflect on those experiences, and to critically analyze and evaluate what they learned in each of their tutor enhancement sessions; this series of reflections allowed tutors to develop the type of metacognition about tutoring practices we desired, and guided them to apply what they were being taught to their actual tutoring work.
We were then able to create a series of tutor enhancement sessions for Level 2 that built on that existing knowledge, pushing tutors to deeper critical awareness of their praxis (our tutoring philosophy statement from the old course became part of this stage) and introducing them to more advanced topics (tutoring writing in unfamiliar subjects and the ethical dimensions of tutoring writing). Level 3 became most like our semester-long internship model, which required training for our writing tutors prior to our merger with the TANK. Tutors at this level took on the facilitating of the "Tutor Enrichment" sessions, enacting their knowledge and bringing new perspectives to the set topics, much as they did when they were responsible for framing and leading weekly discussions in the writing center training course. Further, the development of tutors beyond just their ability to provide a service for other students was a priority for our writing center, and the tutor training across these three levels emphasized this. For example, tutors learned to assess how the training and their tutoring experiences could enhance their personal learning and growth beyond their roles in the writing center, thus having an impact on their own self-efficacy, metacognition, and knowledge of transferable problem-solving skills.
Making Use of a Kairotic Moment
By seizing the opportunity to infuse the standard CRLA model with our own values, rather than simply accepting it as is, the WC made positive use of a kairotic moment. Instead of simply requiring tutors to fulfill a certain number of training hours per semester, giving tutors exposure to information (and their colleagues) in a random order, the creation of a standard offering of topics for each level ensured all tutors would have the same exposure to critical ideas and tutoring strategies, and provided a sense of community and common purpose. We could count on tutors having a sense of the wider WC field, both theoretically and pedagogically, that informed our own local practices, thus ensuring that the spirit of our original course was maintained.
Surprisingly and happily, the TANK eventually followed suit, adapting more and more of its CRLA training for other tutors to match Chris's model and accepting the need for reflection and reading as well as the face-to-face session time. This constituted a rethinking of how tutors are trained across the THINK TANK space, making it about tutors taking the initiative and agency to train themselves and their peers. That was a kairotic moment of constrained agency where resources were limited, tensions were high, and the writing specialist wanted to maintain a particular awareness of writing center pedagogies. Revamping our tutor training to accommodate CRLA standards and requirements while also contributing to the TANK's model of training for science and math tutors represents a conceptual shift in how we viewed our writing center; it also represents a shift in how we were defined by others within the TANK.
Another way we began to reconsider our position in a student learning center is to consider how we can work within the dominant paradigm of service language, perhaps even slightly altering the meaning of such language. In other words, rather than viewing the ways in which service is discussed as limited to what is measurable, we focused on continuing to bring our writing center philosophy and practice into the TANK's conceptualization of service.
In beginning to address this goal, we turned to the THINK TANK's mission: "Our mission is to empower UA students by providing a positive environment where they can master the skills needed to become successful lifelong learners."
We embraced the idea of empowerment here, in that one of our own goals in working with students was to provide them with a sense of control and understanding of their own writing and learning processes. This goal could only be met by creating a positive learning environment in which students and tutors could work. Still, there are certain terms related to service that we tend to balk at in writing studies, such as "skills" and "mastery." Writing centers are not about mastering skills, and this is part of what was problematic (at least initially) for us in fully embracing the THINK TANK's mission. As we began to deconstruct the mission statement from the frame of writing center theory and writing best practices, we discovered that this skills-based language is part of the practical side of writing centers, which is something we cannot deny. And then we gravitated toward student learning language such as the concept of lifelong learning. However, the idea that we were teaching skills led us to a damaging narrative of writing centers as remedial, fix-it centers, and that became problematic, especially in terms of how we were being framed within the TANK and for students who visited our space. It became a priority to demystify the work we actually do in the WC to others within our student learning center. At the same time, we questioned our limitations regarding the language of service.
Adopting Self-Efficacy
One way we were able to enter into this conversation with our tutors as well as other members of the TANK was to locate a workable term we used to change our relationships and positioning within the TANK; our term was "self-efficacy." This is one of the TANK's student learning outcomes: "As a result of using one or more services at the THINK TANK, students will self-report an increase in their academic self-efficacy" (THINK TANK Manual 2013, 3). We asked ourselves and our tutors: What does self-efficacy mean in terms of how it works in a writing center?
Under the TANK's mission, self-efficacy is something that can be measured—a packaged skill set students take away with them. This caused some conversation about how our own WC might view self-efficacy in different terms. It felt as if the WC was being made to focus on the kinds of numbers that relate to efficiency and profit rather than on educational and learning outcomes. In writing studies, self-efficacy often relates to collaboration, where writing and learning is an elongated process (Bruffee 2011; Emig 2011; Murray 2011). Getting students to realize writing and learning as an often messy process is significant in contributing to the goal of lifelong learning. When we asked our tutors to reflect upon the meaning of self-efficacy in terms of how they perceive their tutoring strategies, they said they wanted to create a space where the positive learning environment of our writing center ensures that students feel comfortable enough to take risks in their writing and work collaboratively with tutors, who also consider themselves students and learners in the process (Puntambaker and Hubscher 2005; Singh-Corcoran and Emika 2012; Wood and Wood 1996). In writing studies, we tend to view student "error" as evidence that students are taking these risks toward growth in their writing (Bartholomae 2011; Ede and Lunsford 2011; Ferris 2002; Perl 2011). Tutors expressed the conundrum that writing centers ask us to help "improve" papers while remaining true to the view that what we perceive as "errors" can be crucial risks that aid in a writer's development
In the TANK setting, where improvement is often measured as student success when grades become higher, it can be difficult to forward a self-efficacy perspective that rewards risks; indeed, this is a problem for all writing centers, whether they are part of a student learning center or not. However, the TANK's self-efficacy outcome enabled us to better assert ourselves among the other types of tutoring and services and continue to wrestle with whether or not we "belonged" there. We saw ways in which some of our philosophies of writing could positively influence the philosophies and mission of our student learning center by defining a more collaborative approach to the idea of self-efficacy among our tutors, who, we hoped, would be able to bring together the material from writing center specific tutor training with the messages of the student learning center. And, because many of the tutors under the old model have graduated, we can see how folding together the CRLA and writing center models may seem more natural to our current tutors than we anticipated. In this way, we worked to seize a kairotic moment to integrate our philosophies with, and radically change, a service term—in this case, self-efficacy.
As more writing centers become absorbed into student learning centers, it is important to be aware of and discuss the language used in mission statements, goals for "services," and outcomes for students visiting these centers. We found this to be true in our own analysis of the THINK TANK mission statement, especially in terms of how we opened up space for conversations with other members of the TANK, including our science and math specialist, and with our own writing center tutors. We view our experiences and interventions in the above examples (tutor-training models and the service paradigm) as being made possible by our position as a nonplace, as defined by Singh-Corcoran and Emika (2012). Students tend to view writing centers as a "nonplace"; by accessing this student lens, the writing center "adds new layers of dimension to our conceptions of what is real and what is possible within the center." An understanding of our main audience, students, is crucial, of course. But we want to consider this notion of non-place in another way, articulated when Singh-Corcoran and Emika wrote that "if both online and physical writing centers can be read as nonplaces, then centers can see themselves as simultaneously apart from and a part of the larger circulation, consumption, and communication of the university." It is from this positioning of "nonplace" that we found our agency in influencing tutor-training models and ideas around the concept of self-efficacy.
Introduction - Top | Kairos Part 1 | Kairos Part 2 | Conclusion | Activist Mapping | References