From the recognized beginning of the “laboratory” movement in composition instruction, teachers have sought to employ new and more practical methods useful in developing student writing. Such trends continue today as new generations of students enter the academy and new challenges emerge. From such conditions, we might see how components within a system of activity work together to meet objectives and develop outcomes within the shared dialectic of an activity system. With this idea in mind, this article reviews writing center-related scholarship from the late 1880s through the early 1940s to trace emerging contradictions in laboratory teaching’s praxis. Through the evaluation of laboratory teaching’s textual artifacts using Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), I present a narrative about the development of the earliest writing center praxes: The Formative Period. With this article, I look to narrate an epochal beginning for writing center activity and present the development of guiding principles we find in our writing center work today. Through the process of revealing historical impulses, this article offers a view of writing center praxes in their elemental stage: The Formative Period, early 1890s-early 1940s. Ultimately, this article will show how the writing center is an activity that, over time, has mediated old system contradictions and developed new methods born of self-reflection, debate, evaluation, and progressive mediation, which continues to evolve. As communities like writing centers re-create themselves—through pushing and pulling, conflict and resolution, tension and release—they birth new realities, which all begins with the Formative Period.

Motivation interconnects with many aspects of a student’s higher education journey; a student’s goals, self-efficacy, interests, and prior experiences affect their level of motivation and engagement in a writing center session. This primer discusses the multidimensional nature of motivation and its relation to identity. Through an exploration of the literature, the author designed a heuristic called the Writing Motivational Assessment Pathway (MAP). This tool focuses on understanding students’ motivations, engaging students more in their writing process, and encouraging their development as writers. The five components of the Writing MAP—identity, beliefs, perceptions, context, and interactions—work toward understanding a student’s motivational profile and pairing strategies that connect with each student. This article discusses how to identify students’ motivational habits through the Writing MAP to help students establish effective writing habits and foster self-regulation. This heuristic continues to be refined at the community college level.

We write about a cultural rhetorics approach to writing center assessment at two different institutions where we think about assessment as everyday practice that enables us to tell multiple stories about our centers. We share how we create assessment committees within the center and collaboratively develop and revise assessment approaches and instruments, particularly with consultant input. Then, we discuss the various communities that inform and benefit from our assessments, including consultants, a broad range of writing center stakeholders, and writing center administrators. Assessment as everyday practice means that we are better informed and prepared when these constituents ask questions, make requests, or operate from (false) assumptions. We hope this view of assessment leads readers to build relationships with the individuals in their centers and universities in order to create assessments that matter in particular times and spaces as well as assessments that morph and change as the readers’ cultural communities change.

Abstract This longitudinal mixed-methods study assesses students’ perceptions of the writing center at a large (approximately 11,325 students) multi‑campus two‑year college. The survey was collaboratively designed, with faculty and student participation; it presents findings from 865 student respondents, collected by peer tutors‑in‑training. The study offers a baseline assessment (Fall 2014) of the writing center, prior to wide-sweeping changes in recruitment, staffing, and training models, as well as a post-assessment (Fall 2015) analysis of the changes in student knowledge of the WC and its purpose. It also offers data on the trajectory of student development in relation to number of sessions attended. In 2014, students’ experiences at the writing center were inconsistent; the poorly articulated mission of the WC adversely affected students’ knowledge scores, and the center’s reliance on editorial-like feedback, given predominately by adjunct faculty, contributed to inconsistent reportage in perceived learning by attended sessions. Many of these trends, however, reversed in 2015. This paper seeks to demonstrate the important role that RAD research can play in evaluating student learning within writing center contexts and articulating how and at what moments, and under what conditions, learning and development occurs in the student-writing center relationship. It also offers a replicable experimental method that researchers at other institutions can adapt and apply to their own institutional contexts and programmatic needs.

Abstract In an attempt to create more meaningful and effective assessment, the Howe Writing Center at Miami University implemented a new post-consultation/exit survey. During the course of the Fall 2012 semester, over 800 students responded to the post-consultation survey. Writing center theory has documented the limitations of the post-consultation survey; however, this type of feedback still represents the best and most accessible way to assess and expand the knowledge of writing centers. This assessment project provided important feedback concerning the writing center at Miami University about student demographics that use the writing center, including academic year and classes students wanted to work on. The assessment project also contributes to writing center theory and discourse by providing a different narrative for non-native English speaking students and native English speaking students that use the writing center. The assessment challenges the view that writing from non-native English speaking students is only concerned with so-called "lower order" writing issues and writing from native English speaking students is primarily concerned with so-called "higher order" writing issues. Instead, it was found that non-native English speaking students are interested in working on many "higher order" concerns and were very similar, after sentence-level concerns, in their writing needs to native English speaking students.