ENGL 810 – Paper # 3: OoS, or, how do writing centers improve outcomes?

Studies show that when it comes to ESL/developmental English students utilizing support services such as the writing center, a hands-on approach is more useful than it is for native English speaking students.

One research question that is important in the world of ESL/developmental English regards the support services offered to help improve outcomes for students. Questions that are important are: what support services do colleges offer to ESL/developmental students? Are these successful in helping improve outcomes? One such generally accepted OoS in the discipline are writing centers. According to Jones, many studies have shown significantly higher grades for students who utilize writing centers (9). NOVA’s own study of writing centers (as detailed in PAB #5), writing centers are shown to significantly increase student outcomes the more frequently students visit. In addition to being shown to help students improve grades, Gordon notes that 74 percent of students who visit writing centers find them to be helpful, and 84 percent recommend other peers to visit as well (157). While students may initially feel anxiety at the prospect of visiting a writing center, because they are often spaces of “non-judgemental, collaborative assistance, these apprehensions tend to evaporate” (Jones 11). Such visits frequently lead to students improving their attitudes and self-perceptions related to their writing. Jones also notes that writing centers go beyond improving student writing, but are also a key in faculty development. In a study at Bristol Community College in Massachusetts, a survey of most faculty before a writing center was installed found that the faculty wouldn’t allow students to revise their writing after grading, but when the college got a writing center, teachers began to insist that students revise assignments after feedback (16). Overall, the writing center is a strongly accepted Oos when it comes to the improvement of student outcomes.

In thinking about a writing center’s major questions, Cassie Book notes in her second paper on “major questions” that one thing writing centers are concerned with is writing center pedagogy. In the paper, Book notes that one major part of writing center pedagogy is that the tutor values “indirectness, avoidance of authority” in the writing center appointments. This is reiterated by Powers, who notes that one of the values of writing center tutoring is leading students to discover their own answers or solutions to their writing (40). Powers also notes that another common pedagogical technique is asking students to read their work out loud to hear error correction (42). However, while these techniques are found to be useful for native speakers, many new studies are finding that these techniques are not effective for ESL/developmental writers. “Unfortunately, many of the collaborative techniques that had been so successful with native-speaking writers appeared to fail (or work differently) when applied to ESL conferences” Powers notes (40). It is then important to shift the major question to “how do support services best help ESL/developmental students?” With this question in mind, three important questions emerge that are frequently analyzed:

Should we train tutors to work with ESL students?

Which techniques work for ESL students?

Should we require ESL students to visit the writing center?

In shifting from Book’s major question towards a pedagogy for ESL/developmental writers, many authors suggest that, yes, we should train tutors to work with ESL students. Kennedy notes that most instructors and writing centers teach both native and non-native English speakers, yet have no training in helping ESL students. However, these two groups tend to have different language problems that must be also approached differently (27). In addition, Williams notes that teachers send students to the writing center to “fix” and “improve ESL writing student outcomes” when they are unable to help students themselves. Without proper training, the writing center will rely on sending students to handbooks of grammatical forms that are “frustratingly ineffective.” Without proper training in ESL writing issues, writing centers will not be useful for most non-native students.

The second question, then, takes on importance: what techniques work for ESL students? Williams recommends that for teaching of grammar, tutors should take a “systems approach,” in which they direct students to grammatical or language patterns throughout writing. For example, when a student can recognize that the “regular past tense marking with ed” is a pattern, they can project that knowledge “onto new forms” (78-9). Applied linguists generally agree that such teaching is possible on the part of the tutor (78), as long as the the tutor knows the grammar rules himself (79).

Many of the authors also suggest a more hands-on approach. While traditional writing center pedagogy asks tutors to take a generally hands-off approach, when working with ESL students, these writers prefer a tutor with more dominant behavior. Negotiating more directly with a tutor about writing changes is particularly useful, according to Williams (81-2). Powers also notes a need for increased emphasis as an informant rather than a collaborator with ESL students. A direct approach in teaching writing as an academic subject is particularly helpful (45).

Finally, the authors stress teaching tutors to help students understand the cultural differences in writing in their native language and English. For example, Powers notes that cultural ideas about writing can cause problems; therefore, teaching a native speaker that a conclusion shouldn’t contain new ideas is necessary when in their own language, this may be an accepted practice (41). Kennedy notes the same thing: students need to be taught reciprocally that what is acceptable in English writing may not be in their native language and what is acceptable in their native language may not be in English (33); therefore, teaching students the background on American culture and expectations in the classroom is important for ESL writers to fully understand what their teacher is asking for (35).

The third question, whether or not we should force ESL students to visit the writing center, is still up for debate. Many of the authors cite North’s “The Idea of a Writing Center,” and his statement that forcing students to go to the writing center is not worthwhile. However, many authors challenge this assumption. Mohamad and Boyd found that requiring students to visit the writing center for fifteen hours a semester greatly increased student writing performance. There was, first and foremost a “dramatic jump in these students’ … test scores from the initial placement test to the post-test,” and while a majority of students felt indifferent or annoyed with the requirement to visit the Writing Studio for such a great number of hours, after the course “91% of the students indicated that they would ‘definitely or maybe’ return voluntarily” (87-8). According to Gordon, making writing center visits mandatory, can “ameliorate the implications” that the writing center is a remedial service (160). In fact, in a survey of students, Clark notes that most students noted that if they were not forced to go to the writing center, they were highly unlikely to ever go; once they do go, however, they see it’s value and will continue to go (33). Gordon notes that the greatest hindrance to requiring students to use the writing center is the burden on writing center staff, yet he believes that by working with faculty, the writing center can make sure it does not get overburdened (161). Such a method will be beneficial for students.

In Gordon’s “Requiring First Year Writing Classes to Visit the Writing Center: Bad Attitudes or Positive Results,” while a majority of students required to go to the writing center initially were “annoyed,” most of them found the experience “positive/beneficial” and were “definitely” or “maybe” likely to go back. This shows that requiring visits may have more potential than suggested in North’s “The Idea of a Writing Center.”

Based on the history of ESL/developmental English, as I noted in Paper 1, frequently developmental English is one of marginalization and containment for non-native speakers of English (Kei Matsuda 641-42). However, as Cassie Book notes, with the widespread development of the writing center by the 1960s and ‘70s, particularly in response to open-admissions policies at colleges, writing centers are one step in attempting to challenge the containment and prejudice faced by developmental writers. However, Book also notes that a major problem with the history of the writing center is that little has changed since the 1980s. Little new research has emerged since then, and writing center pedagogy is perhaps a bit stuck. My research on ESL writing somewhat reiterates these findings – while writing centers are discovering problems they face in helping ESL writers, they are still struggling to develop ways to effectively help this unique group. With more research and training, writing centers will be able to not only help native speakers with the pedagogical methods they have found work best, but they will be able to shift their methods to work with diverse audiences.

After doing this research, I realized that I needed to take greater advantage of the writing center on my own campus. Each semester, I bring my first semester English students into the writing center to meet the tutors, see the center, and get a chance to ask questions. Most students do not know this service is available at all, so just getting them in the door is my typical goal. After this visit, I know that a very small percentage of students actually utilize the writing center. These are typically the most motivated students – maybe the students who would do well anyways, which potentially complicates data that suggests that students who visit the writing center do better in classes. If my personal course outcome for my students is to get them to improve writing, and according to statistics (whether my hypothesis complicates these or not), students who utilize the writing center do better, how can I better help and encourage my students to utilize the writing center?

As I mentioned in PAB #6, the writing center at NOVA is quite understaffed for a school of our size. While the writing center claims that students need only make appointments two weeks in advance, my students tell me that they cannot book even four weeks out because the center is full. When the advice of many of the writers I surveyed mentioned that requiring students to use the writing center is actually quite useful, how, when my students can’t even book individual appointments, can I get them all to see a tutor? In search of an answer, I spoke with Emily Miller, the head of the NOVA writing center. She noted that tutors are willing to set up individual appointments to come to a class and give tutoring. Yet, Dinitz and Howe note major problems with this method. When a tutor attempts to help a whole class, there is frequently “panic at the end of the class when only half of the students received tutoring” (49). The tutors in this situation frequently also find themselves too physically drained at the end of such intensive sessions to even perform their own school work up to a high standard (49).

Dinitz and Howe do propose a plausible solution that would help students get tutoring without burdening the system, and this ends up being something I could bring into my own class. They recommend bringing a tutor into the classroom to teach students how to respond to each other’s drafts, critique, and work effectively in groups (49). This way, peer review allows students to hear from three or four writers; in particular, writers who know the assignment well and are writing on the same thing (50). Then, students can go to the writing center as needed with follow-up questions (50). While I have never had a writing center tutor in my classroom to help facilitate peer review (of which I am a big believer), this method might be an interesting way to see if students find it useful. Such a technique could be grounds for further study on my part to see if bringing a tutor into my classroom for peer review leads to greater gains than the peer review I am currently using with my classes.

Ultimately, writing centers have proven their worth in the university as a system for helping improve student outcomes. While we are still investigating how to utilize them to best help ESL and developmental writers, and how to bring their services to the most possible students, these are important and worthy goals because of the great benefits possible when such services are available to students.

Works Cited

Book, Cassie. “ENGL 810 Paper #1 The History of Writing Centers as a Subdiscipline.” Cassie’s ODU Blog. Old Dominion University. 17 Sept. 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.

Clark, Irene. “Leading the Horse: The Writing Center and Required Visits.” The Writing Center Journal 5.2 (1985): 31-35. Web.

Dinitz, Susan, and Diane Howe. “Writing Centers and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum: An Evolving Partnership.” The Writing Center Journal 10.1 (1989): 45-53. Web.

Gordon, Barbara Lynn. “Requiring First-Year Writing Classes to Visit the Writing Center: Bad Attitudes or Positive Results?” Teaching English at the Two Year College 36.2 (2008): 154-163. Web.

Jones, Casey. “The Relationship Between Writing Centers and Improvement in Writing Ability:An Assessment of the Literature.” Education 122.1 (2001): 3-20. Web.

Kei Matsuda, Paul. “The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition.” College English 68.6 (2006): 637-651. Print.

Kennedy, Barbara. “Non-Native Speakers as Students in First-Year Composition Classes With Native Speakers: How Can Writing Tutors Help?” The Writing Center Journal 13.2 (1993): 27-38. Print.

Mohamad, Mutiara and Janet Boyd. “Realizing Distributed Gains: How Collaboration with Support Services Transformed a Basic Writing Program for International Students.” Journal of Basic Writing 29.1 (2010): 78-98. Print.

Powers, Judith. “Rethinking Writing Center Conferencing Strategies for the ESL Writer.” The Writing Center Journal 13.2 (1993): 39-48. Web.

Williams, Jessica. “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center.” Journal of Basic Writing 21.2 (2002): 73-91. Print.

ENGL 810 PAB Entry 6

Oct7

In “Realizing Distributed Gains: How Collaboration with Support Services Transformed a Basic Writing Program for International Students,” Mutiara Mohamad and Janet Boyd outline a program for improving basic writing that they piloted at Fairleigh Dickenson University in 2003. Mohamad and Boyd note that there are significant problems with college completion for ESL and developmental writers. For example, most ESL students end up taking many noncredit courses, causing a “long delay as they worked to complete their degree programs, which frustrated students and resulted in high attrition rates” (80). To address this inequality, the authors created a new developmental English track in which students who tested as “basic writers” (based on an essay read by two graders) and all ESL writers had to take one semester of English for Specific Purposes, which was a course with “language instruction relevant to a specific discipline or occupation (81). These basic writers are able to take this course for college credit while also taking other college classes, which benefits them in their major classes and reduces the stigma of remedial or developmental coursework (84).

During the development of this program, Mohamad and Boyd recognized that there would be great differences in proficiencies between members of the class. To deal with this problem, they decided to team up with Farleigh Dickinson’s writing center (known as the Metro Writing Studio) to allow students more one-on-one time with educators who could ensure student success (84). The Metro Writing Studio, which already existed on the campus, was set up to help support these basic writing students in a variety of ways. During time at the studio, students could choose to work on “written and spoken English” through work with tutors who assess and give advice to their writing and also in workshops that offer a variety of topics, from report writing to conversation workshops (86-7).

In some of the English for Specific Purposes classes, teachers set up their classes so students had to attend a minimum of fifteen hours of tutoring in writing each semester (87). The result of the collaboration between English for Specific Purposes and the Metro Writing Studio was greatly increased student writing performance. There was, first and foremost a “dramatic jump in these students’ … test scores from the initial placement test to the post-test,” and while a majority of students felt indifferent or annoyed with the requirement to visit the Writing Studio for such a great number of hours, after the course “91% of the students indicated that they would ‘definitely or maybe’ return voluntarily” (87-8). While the decision to use this model grew “organically out of a shared commitment to sustainable student success” (92), students at the college continue to show that they will self-select to get extra help (91). Therefore, collaborations between teachers and support services greatly enhance student success and allow them to have the autonomy to accomplish the difficult work faced by most basic and ESL writers (93).

I recognize that the concept of the Writing Studio comes out of the “Social Turn” model that was described by Janice Lauer in English Studies. During the 1980s, new theories of helping students in collaborative ways emerged. This involved students collaborating in the classroom, reading groups, peer review, and in places such as writing centers (121-22). Lauer also noted that the 1980s brought the emergence of Writing Across the Curriculum (125-26), which is something that Mohamad and Boyd address. At their university, they do not have a Writing Across the Curriculum model, so they envisioned their English for Specific Purposes as a way to implement such a model without taking up the time and resources it would take to implement this across multiple disciplines (78). Essentially, this was Farleigh Dickinson’s way of implementing the research and ideas that came out of an explosion of theory-building within composition as a discipline.

While Lauer’s research might tell us something about why such a model was implemented, it does not (and neither do the authors of this paper) explain how they funded this initiative. The university was able to hire an ESL coordinator, to help “facilitate cooperation and prevent fragmentation among services” and also eleven tutors per semester (85). These tutors are all provided with “paid professional development workshops that offer practical strategies for working with non-native speakers of English” (86). After seeing such an extensive creation of services specifically to help ESL English speakers, I have to ask: where does the money come from? I got my answer when I looked up more information on Farleigh Dickinson. Below, you will see the tuition breakdown between NOVA and Farleigh Dickinson. Students there are paying approximately $53,000 per year to attend school there. At NOVA, they pay approximately $5000 per year. How, then, can NOVA or other public colleges and universities with tight budgets compete with or at least offer a minimum amount of similar services to these schools? While I acknowledged in my last post that the writing center at NOVA has studied their outcomes and found them to be generally successful in helping students improve, I had a student tell me today that he tried to make a writing center appointment and was told that the center was fully booked for nearly three-and-a-half weeks. Unfortunately, the idea of mandatory writing center appointments, particularly fifteen hours per student, is not feasible at the average public college or university. Even getting students into a writing center one or two hours per semester may not be realistic.

While this article addresses excellent ways that writing centers can help ESL and developmental students improve their writing, major problems remain with how to equally serve such students at a variety of learning institutions.

Document9

[Above, you can see a breakdown of the cost of NOVA versus an “average” private college. Farleigh Dickinson comes out way above even this large sum. When students pay an average of $5000 per year for tuition at a community college, benefits such as writing centers, shown to help improve student outcomes, become a luxury rather than a necessity. At what point does this become a discriminatory practice?]

Works Cited

Lauer, Janice. “Rhetoric and Composition.” English Studies: An Introduction to the Discipline. Ed. Bruce McComiskey. Urbana: NCTE, 2006. 106-152. Print.

ENGL 810 PAB Entry 5

Oct6

Williams, Jessica. “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center.” Journal of Basic Writing 21.2 (2002): 73-91. Print.

Do support services, such as the NOVA writing center, shown here, help produce greater outcomes inside the developmental/ESL English classroom? Williams would argue that, with the right tutor strategies, they do.

In considering issues related to developmental/ESL English at the community college, one important goal of teachers and the school alike is providing adequate support to make students successful in their courses. In looking at what support services are available to improve outcomes for developmental/ESL English students, writing centers are an important resource. Jessica Williams in “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center” examines the historical problems for both teachers and writing centers for addressing ESL students and what might be done to support greater outcomes for these students in need.

Williams notes that while teachers have been using writing centers as a place to help “fix” or “improve” ESL writing student outcomes, most writing center tutors succeed in helping writers with their writing issues, but fail to help them with language issues. “For the latter, some tutors may refer second language writers to handbooks, which generally contain explanations of troublesome grammatical forms and sentence-level exercises” which are often “frustratingly ineffective” (75). However, Williams believes that the research and particular methods can make the writing center effective for second-language writers and outlines methods for improving student outcomes.

First, tutors in the writing center can assist students by teaching students concepts systematically. This “system learning” is for when tutors and students are able to see grammatical or language patterns throughout writing. For example, when a student can recognize that the “regular past tense marking with ed” is a pattern, they can project that knowledge “onto new forms” (78-9). Applied linguists generally agree that such teaching is possible on the part of the tutor (78), as long as the the tutor knows the grammar rules himself (79).

Second, the tutors should act more as a peer and guide the second-language writer to negotiate the writing with them. ESL students prefer a more “directive” session with a tutor, in which the tutor behaves “as higher-standard interlocutors” with more dominant behavior. Research has shown that being more directive might be helpful for ESL writers (80), yet for the best results, negotiation, in which the learner participates actively with the tutor to facilitate comprehension and possible revisions will lead to the greatest outcomes (81-2). Texts that are negotiated with tutors tend to receive the most revision (83).

Finally, Williams addresses the sociocultural approach to helping ESL English students. The zone of proximal development is Vygotsky’s theory on learning, in which stretching current knowledge in interactions with novices or peers helps students internalize new knowledge (84). In the writing center, this can be achieved by asking the writing center tutor to act as an “interlocutor” in which they control the “flow of discourse, but there is a moderate mutuality” and active encouragement of the novice to contribute (85). These three methods together can result in strong outcomes and gains for the ESL writer in their writing classroom.

The methods that Williams brought up as the ways to support ESL writers reminded me of Richard Fulkerson’s “Four Philosophies of Composition.” Within this approach, I can see how at least three of his philosophies can be accounted for in these methods. The formalist approach, which judges “good writing as correct writing” and “readability” (344) can be seen in Williams’ notion of system learning – students can be taught particular forms to make their writing more readable. I can see the philosophy of expressionism, which focuses on students as self-directed and teachers as non-directive (345) in Williams’ suggesting that students have some directive aspects in their writing. Finally, I see the mimetic approach, which says there is a connection between good thinking and good writing (345) when Williams points out that one of the biggest challenges for ESL writers is in reading comprehension. A struggle with comprehension of required college texts “can pose a tremendous challenge for these second language writers” (77). What is interesting is that Fulkerson acknowledges how problematic it is to use multiple approaches at once, or to use one approach and grade based upon another (346). However, writing tutors might escape these issues because they work one-on-one with the writer and they have no stake in the grading of the work. Therefore, it seems possible that support services like writing centers can help students simply based on their ability to perform multiple philosophies or functions without having to assess the work. Such a theory could explain one reason why students who use the writing center have greater outcomes in their classes than students who do not.

My own experiences working with students in class and one-on-one might speak to the possibility of the successful multitasking writing tutor. For example, when I teach my developmental composition course I do not generally teach grammar usage. As is widely accepted, particularly after Patricia Hartwell’s definitive piece “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar,” explicit teaching of forms is not particularly productive. However, when students are one-on-one with me and I can see small patterns of errors in their writing, discussing these issues, as a writing tutor would do, becomes more practical and useful. I also generally find that ESL students struggle the most with reading comprehension of any deficiencies they may have, and this is a major inhibitor to clear and understandable writing. I encourage them to read frequently (both for and outside of class), ask questions, and talk with their peers. Helping with basic comprehension of a given task or writing instantly makes their job easier. Finally, I see the value both in letting students making directives for their writing while also letting me guide them a bit – a middle ground approach is always better than allowing only them to talk or only me to talk when we conference about their writing. In addition, so much more is accomplished when I am facing only one student rather than 25 or more.

At NOVA’s writing center, the results of such benefits are definitive. The writing center has done their own studies showing the benefits of their work. Below, you can see that students who visit the writing center do better in their courses than students who do not. These support services, therefore, are crucial to continued ESL in the English classroom success.

These statistics, from NOVA’s writing center program assessment in spring 2011, show that writing centers do make a difference based on the number of times the student goes. This supports the idea that with good tutoring techniques, students, ESL or not, can improve their writing.

Works Cited

Fulkerson, Richard. “Four Philosophies of Composition.” College Composition and Communication 30.4 (1979): 343-348. Print.

Hartwell, Patricia. “Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar.” College English 47.2 (1985): 105-127. Print.

Williams, Jessica. “Undergraduate Second Language Writers in the Writing Center.” Journal of Basic Writing 21.2 (2002): 73-91. Print.

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