From Consultant to Classroom Teacher: A Perspective on the Benefits of Writing Center Work

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

I remember the look on more than a few people’s faces as I gave my answer to the question that seemed to be haunting my interviews for months: “You’ve been out of the classroom for a while. How will you adjust back to a teaching role?” Then, confused skeptical nods as I explained how, yes, I had been “out of the classroom,” but writing center work, in my mind, is still teaching. In fact, I’m a better teacher for having worked in writing centers for the last few years. While it became clear some viewed my time in writing centers as directly contributing to my ability to teach in the classroom, I came to learn that my prior work was all too often viewed as a weakness in my CV—a gap in the kind of teaching that was preferred. Each time I received this question during an interview (along with the subsequent stares after providing my answer), I was frustratingly reminded of one of Stephen North’s oft-quoted lines: “Misunderstanding is something one expects—and almost gets used to—in the writing center business” (433). Now that I’ve been in my classroom teaching role for nearly two years, I regret not being more emphatic about just how much writing center work has positively influenced my classroom teaching. It has enhanced my teaching toolbox in innumerable ways, a few of which I’ll highlight here.

To be sure, classroom teaching always involves the careful balance of teaching to the individual and facilitating learning amongst the collective. It is frequently an exercise in engaging a crowd. But it is all too easy to forget that each class is made up of individuals, all with their own unique educational and cultural backgrounds. It’s much more difficult to forget this fact when you are intimately familiar with your students—when they are “Rosalie” and “Chris” and not just “my 10:30 am English 106 class.” Indeed, working in a writing center has forced me to rethink how I might better individualize my classroom teaching and to do so at every given opportunity. One of the more important reasons to individualize teaching—and it’s something writing consultants know all about—is to gain buy-in. The writing consultant is thrust into the same scenario every day, multiple times a day. Upon meeting her client for the first time, she takes in the person sitting before her. Whether it’s through questioning or casual conversation, the consultant works to glean what that individual student wants out of that particular session, and the two move forward in the learning process together. It’s easy to overlook this as if nothing extraordinary is happening in this moment. The reality is that this initial meeting helps to even out ever-present power differentials, helps to disarm the student, and readies him or her to take an equal part in the learning process. Recognizing the importance of this initial meeting, I’ve adapted my classroom teaching to follow suit. Rather than starting out saying “here’s what you will learn in this class.” Instead, I have found it more helpful to ask students “what do you want to learn in this class?” A surefire way to open up this dialogue is to simply hold individual or small group conferences in the first few weeks of the semester where this question is candidly discussed. I’ve also found success with projects where students research what and how they will have to write in their future careers. They are subsequently asked to reflect on their findings and set goals for themselves for the semester, which allows students to find a personal connection to my class that is uniquely their own. Asking students to check their progress on their goals and to recommit to or change said goals throughout the semester is similar to negotiating what can reasonably be accomplished or what takes precedence in a given session—conversations writing consultants are all too familiar with.

Teaching to the individual, whether in the classroom or the writing center, begins with open and honest dialogue. In the writing center, the conversation starts with the initial greeting and continues throughout the session, oftentimes veering into territory not directly related to their written work. Students confide which assignments stress them out and why. They reveal how particular feedback broke their confidence. They discuss the real reason they procrastinated on an assignment. In the classroom, students often don’t get the opportunity to engage in troubles-telling talk which is so familiar to writing center conversations (Godbee; Haen). More often getting talked at rather than with in the classroom, troubles-telling talk is important to a student’s understanding of themselves as learners and their growth as individuals. Engaging in such conversations in the writing center hasn’t just given me ideas for what to do (and not do) in the classroom, it’s given me practice in really listening to students and to asking the well-timed questions that allow them to share their troubles and also the stories behind those troubles. Whether it’s through asking students to write down the most confusing moment of a class session, or if it’s through giving occasional polls that ask what assignments or readings are most and least helpful, seeking student feedback is critical. More importantly, acting on that feedback and telling students that X and Y changes have been made to the class because of their feedback permits students to feel comfortable with troubles-telling in the classroom. It allows students to have a say in the direction of the class and, again, gives them a sense of ownership over their learning.

Providing a forum for students to share their honest thoughts on the class and gaining buy-in through individualizing teaching are only two of the many techniques I’ve honed through my work in writing centers and have subsequently brought with me to the classroom. I could enumerate many more, but perhaps there is none greater than this: writing center work humanizes students. The more that teachers adopt practices or techniques that allow them to see the whole person sitting before them the better—regardless of where that technique was learned.

Works Cited

Godbee, Beth. “Toward Explaining the Transformative Power of Talk About, Around, and For Writing.” Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 47, no. 2, 2012, pp. 171-197.

Haen, Mike. “The Affective Dimension of Writing Center Talk: Insights from Conversation Analysis.” WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, vol. 42, no. 9-10, 2018, pp. 2-9.

North, Stephen. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, vol. 46, no. 5, 1984, pp. 433–46.

Author Bio

Celeste Delbar is a lecturer in the first-year writing program at Elmhurst College. She directed the writing center at Concordia University Wisconsin from 2013-2017 and at Saint Xavier University from 2017-2018. She holds an M.A. in English with a concentration in rhetoric and composition from California State University, Northridge.