Hemmeter all identify definition as an issue critically important to the writing center community. Ede and Runciman assert that current definitions inadequately describe what happens in centers and invite us to redefine our positions within centers and the academy as a whole. Addressing such redefinitions, Carino states, "In one sense, this is how it should be. . . [Definition is always already tenuous, for to define is to symbolize, to create metaphors, to be in language" ("What Do" 31). Although Carino commends these re-creations, he nevertheless warns that "we must maintain critical consciousness about ourselves" (39), an idea shared by Hemmeter, who likewise remarks that we "need to become more self-conscious of how we talk to ourselves" (44). Examining the act of definition itself, both Hemmeter and Carino investigate the impact current definitions have on writing centers, and suggest that only through continual self-reflection will we understand how these definitions influence our theorizing about writing centers and our activities within centers.

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Published on 01/01/97

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By the 1 850' s the industrial potential of the United States was as apparent as its agrarian past, and there emerged a growing awareness that a new age required new training and new preparation. What was lacking, however, were any certain institutional foundations upon which to erect programs of agricultural and mechanical

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Published on 01/01/97

P]ower is, at its roots > telling our own stories. Without "good" stories to rely on, no minority or

Recounts a history of the National Writing Centers Association based on the author's personal recollection and minutes, back issues of "The Writing Center Journal" and "Writing Lab Newsletter," miscellaneous correspondence, and convention proceedings and programs. Explains why the organization exists and what road led the founders to it. (TB)

Writing in College Teaching several years ago, Richard Leahy pinpointed a frustration still shared by most writing centers: though the writing center seeks "to attract good writers ... on the majority of campuses it still predominantly serves weak writers, those who are struggling with their composition classes and competency exams, and those who have finished their requirements but still have problems" (45) . Our writing center at Salem State College is no exception to this pattern. In memos to the English department we talk about the center as a community of trained readers available to all students; we explicitly point out that "above average writers" can benefit from going to the center; we even remind

In recent years, compositionists in writing centers and in writing-acrossthe-curriculum and writing-in-the-disciplines

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Given their knowledge of the workings of language, few writing center professionals would doubt that material history is always more complex than the discourse that strives to record it. And most would certainly recognize that historical discourse constructs the past at least as much as it records it. Despite this dilemma, writing center scholars recently have given increased attention to writing center history.

Most of us can recall the clients who got away, the ones who needed our help but left the writing center without getting it. Perhaps my own most glaring failure was Byron, a returning student whom I suspect suffered from a number of what we now call learning disabilities. I was a new graduate student when Byron first came to see me with a paper full of starts and stops, logical inconsistencies, and randomly chosen words. He asked if he could record our conversation, explaining that an accident had left him with an impaired short-term memory. The tape recorder sounded like a good idea. But as I commented about particular aspects of his paper, Byron frequently stopped the tape, rewound and replayed my earlier remarks. These unpredictable interruptions were unnerving and derailed my train of thought. I would leave out points I'd intended to mention and lose touch with insights I'd had about his essays. I probably should have seen our fragmented sessions together, which moved with the same jolting starts and stops as his prose, as a window into Byron's thinking and writing processes (and perhaps the key to solving his problems, assuming they could be solved). Instead, Byron's eccentric use of the tape recorder unsettled and frustrated me, as did his perhaps related difficulty with modulating his voice and keeping his balance (sometimes he would literally fall out of his chair). We worked for hours at a time, over most of two academic quarters, and made little detectable progress in his writing. I had no training in helping students cope with learning disabilities, much less with the effects of a severe brain injury. With good reason, I felt incapable of assisting Byron. And so he and I suffered together until one day, after plaintively wondering if he would ever get it,

Published on 01/01/96

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Since the

At first glance, it might be difficult to find two writing programs that seem to work together more harmoniously than Writing Across the Curriculum and writing centers. WAC engenders more writing in more classes, and writing centers help students to improve their writing skills and produce, presumably, better papers. Administratively, the two programs are often seen as complementary if not conjoined. If more writing is going to be demanded of more students in more classes, then those students will need additional support services as they work to complete their assignments. And though there may, in some cases, be the money and motivation necessary to create intradepartmental tutorial services for the benefit of students within each major, most often the responsibility for writing assistance either falls on (or is specifically delegated to) the campus writing center This approach may appear to have significant merit and may, in fact, be looked on with a good deal of satisfaction by interested parties on all sides.

After years of writing, teaching, and overseeing a writing center, I have become more and more convinced of the importance of paying attention to how writers feel about their writing -the affective dimension -as well as what they think about it. Textbooks deal with writers' feelings pretty incidentally, if at all. The call to study the affective dimension has been made before (McLeod), and it has been studied (see, for instance, Brand), but nearly all the attention has gone to negative feelings. Not much has been written about positive feelings, about times when writers feel good about their writing -and what that has to do with the final product. In this essay I will consider what possibilities there might be for identifying and making use of positive feelings, especially in the writing center.

Published on 01/01/95

Published on 01/01/95

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Published on 01/01/95

Published on 01/01/95