Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 22, No. 1 (2024)
A Writing Center of One’s Own: An Examination of Space in Online Writing Consultations
Hannah Sunshine Johnson
The University of Texas at Tyler
hjohnson32@patriots.uttyler.edu
Since the decline of the COVID-19 pandemic and the gradual return to normal operations across university campuses, a survey of writing center websites indicates that university writing centers continue to offer both in-person and virtual appointments. Wisniewski et al. cites that even before the pandemic, “Of the 132 institutions indicating they had online services in the 2016–17 WCRP (Purdue Online Writing Lab, 2020), 55% reported offering asynchronous online tutoring, 39% reported using text-based real-time tutoring, and 33% reported using voice-based synchronous tutoring” (262). While the continued online accessibility of writing center services is extremely valuable given that it increases accessibility for all student populations, there is a question of whether writing center directors and administrators should view the function of online appointments as the same as in-person appointments. When contemplating this question, I believe taking into consideration Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own may offer some illumination, namely due to her considerations of the role of physical space when it comes to writing. When thinking about the role of space in writing according to Woolf’s claims, it might suggest that virtual consulting cannot replace in-person consultations, nor can it be argued as existing in the same functional capacity as in-person consultations. In this case, studies that evaluate the quality of student work performed inside and outside of the writing center ought to be considered. Additionally, ways to adapt Woolf’s ideas about the function of space in writing might provide a way to continue to assuage concerns about the effectiveness of virtual versus face-to-face tutoring.
Since before the pandemic, concerns regarding the effectiveness of virtual tutoring versus in-person tutoring have been voiced. Wisniewski et al. summarizes some of these concerns in their literature review:
Early OWT [online writing tutorials] scholarship was guided by the expectation that online tutorials should follow face-to-face pedagogies but cautioned that the “inherent disadvantages” ( Jackson, 2000, p. 2) of online tutorials would result in a loss of the dynamic give-and-take of writing center dialogue and a lack of rapport (Harris, 1998; Jackson, 2000; Raign, 2013; Spooner, 1994), less ability to enact the Burkean-parlor model common to face-to-face sessions (Breuch, 2005), and a greater likelihood of focusing on grammar, spelling, and mechanics as the “product” takes center stage (Breuch, 2005; Buck, 2008; Raign, 2013; Spooner, 1994). Despite these concerns, proponents of OWTs have described technologies that allow writing centers to better reach and engage their constituencies (Coogan, 1998; English, 2000; Harris, 1998; Shewmake & Lambert, 2000; Thurber, 2000), and the growth of online postsecondary education has only increased the need to provide equitable writing support to all of our students (Prince, Willard, Zamarripa, & Sharkey-Smith, 2018). (264)
As this review suggests, questions about mode have existed within scholarship since the late 90s and early 2000s. In response to these questions and concerns, often dealing with how or whether pedagogy and technique transfer from in-person consultations to virtual ones, at least two studies have been conducted. These include Wisniewski et al.’s “comparative study of face-to-face and synchronous audio-video online tutorials that collected data from writing tutorials, writers’ postsession surveys, and interviews with writers” (261). Prior to this was Wolfe and Griffin’s “Comparing Technologies for Online Writing Conferences: Effects of Medium on Conversation," which compares face-to-face with audio- and desktop-sharing technologies. Both of these studies conclude that in terms of pedagogy and best practices, the mode of the consultant did not affect the session. Building off of Wolfe and Griffin’s study, Wisniewski et al. claims to have achieved their goal of adopting “effective services that maximize the same approach we use in our face-to-face sessions” (283). However, these studies merely compare the technique of consultants and the satisfaction of students, meaning that student writing itself was not evaluated, and that the role of physical space in writing when it comes to virtual sessions has yet to be considered.
By contrast, in her 1928 essay collection A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf demonstrates the vital role that physical space plays in writing, and may suggest that while online consultations are valuable as an alternative resort, they do not compare to the experience of an in-person consultation. Throughout A Room of One’s Own, Woolf offers examples of how the lack of space dedicated to writing interferes with the practice of writing. First, she describes a situation in which the ideas she had hoped to put to paper, symbolized in her speech by a little fish, escaped her entirely due to an interruption she suffered: “...he was a Beadle; I was a woman. This was the turf; there was the path…in protection of their turf, which has been rolled for 300 years in succession, they had sent my little fish into hiding” (6). In this situation, Woolf had been walking around on campus because she did not possess a space she could appropriate for her own literary uses. As a result, her thoughts about what she wants to write are not only interrupted, but eternally lost. Later, a similar situation takes place at a cafe: “But these contributions to the dangerous and fascinating subject of the psychology of the other sex…were interrupted by the necessity of paying the bill” (36). In both cases, Woolf demonstrates how attempting to be productive in a space not dedicated to productivity is fruitless. In a third scenario, she illustrates how this specifically affects writing when she reads a novel written by a woman: “So I tried a sentence or two on my tongue. Soon it was obvious that something was not quite in order. The smooth gliding of sentence after sentence was interrupted. Something tore, something scratched” (79). While it is an assumption, Woolf attributes the interruptions in the woman’s prose to the fact that the author would not have had a space dedicated to the pursuit of writing, meaning that the novel must have been written in a kitchen, or among children, lending the pursuit to interruption on account of the space she inhabited when she wrote. Through these three examples, Woolf clearly demonstrates not only the necessity of space for effective writing, but also how writing in an inferior space negatively affects the writing that one produces.
The idea for which Virginia Woolf argues, that the space one inhabits when she writes affects her writing, is a key reason why writing center design is a major topic and point of debate within writing center scholarship. This is exemplified in Hadfield et al.’s “An Ideal Writing Center: Re-Imagining Space and Design,” which seeks to physically create the ideal writing center, as well as in McKinney’s “Leaving Home Sweet Home: Towards Critical Readings of Writing Center Spaces,” which rebuts Hadfield et al.’s values, but nonetheless argues the influential role of space on writing. In his article “The Idea of a Writing Center,” Stephen North further explains exactly why the space of a writing center is so important through his definition of what a writing center is: “...in the ‘new’ center the teaching takes place as much as possible during writing, during the activity being learned, and tends to focus on the activity itself” (North 439). North emphasizes space in terms of what the space invites to take place, demonstrating how space is a crucial element to writing. If this is the case, then what we are encouraged to understand is that the writing center is not strictly a service to be utilized by students. Rather, the services of the tutors are just one aspect of the writing center. In addition to this aspect, the writing center is also a physical place one visits, because if the ultimate goal of the writing center is to encourage the physical act of writing, either through its design or its pedagogical practices, then the writing center must be a physical entity on a campus. By tracing Virginia Woolf’s argument that space is vital for effective writing, as well as how writing in an inferior space negatively affects the writing that one produces, we can see how this thread is present in conversations surrounding the physical aspects of the writing center. In this case, there is a question of how online writing consultations, which do not take place within the specific space of the writing center, fit into these ideas.
Works Cited
Hadfield, Leslie, et al. “An Ideal Writing Center: Re-Imagining Space and Design.” The Center Will Hold, edited by Michael A. Pemberton and Joyce Kinkead, University Press of Colorado, 2003, pp. 166-76.
McKinney, Jackie Grutsch. “Leaving Home Sweet Home: Towards Critical Readings of Writing Center Spaces.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 25, no. 2, 2005, pp. 6-20.
North, Stephen M. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, vol. 46, no. 5, 1984, pp. 433-46.
Wisniewski, Carolyn, et al. “Questioning Assumptions About Online Tutoring: A Mixed-Method Study of Face-to-Face and Synchronous Online Writing Center Tutorials.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 38, no. 1/2, 2020, pp. 261-96.
Wolfe, Joanna, and Jo Ann Griffin. “Comparing Technologies for Online Writing Conferences: Effects of Medium on Conversation.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 32, no. 2, 2012, pp. 60-92.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own: With an Introductory Essay "Professions for Women." United States, Read Books Limited, 2017.