Questions are an important means by which students actively participate in and exercise some control over the moment-to-moment focus of writing center conferences. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis of student questions in 35 writing center conferences, we examined the frequency and type of students’ questions, finding no differences between native English speakers and non-native English speakers’ overall question frequency or their use of each question type. Students used common-ground questions most frequently, and knowledge-deficit questions second-most frequently. Our qualitative analysis revealed how students used questions to coconstruct potential language for their papers and to steer the course of their conferences. It also revealed the dilemma that arises when a student’s questions probe not only the tutor’s writing knowledge but also their subject-matter knowledge. This study demonstrates some ways that students take power over their conferences by asking questions and indicates that tutors might expect similar question frequency and similar types of questions from NESs and NNESs. It also suggests that tutors might use the tutoring strategy of reading aloud to create conversational openings for students’ questions. And it suggests potential benefits of attending to the type of questions that students use, as these types can indicate on a local level the extent of students’ contribution to their papers.

This article presents findings from a study of a U.K. university writing centre regarding understandings of tutor roles, involving 33 Chinese international students, 11 writing tutors, and the centre director. The research used interviews and audio-recorded consultations as data to analyze and explore participants’ beliefs and understandings. The most common roles associated with tutors were proofreader, coach, commentator, counsellor, ally, and teacher. Mismatches were found in understandings of the proofreader role and counsellor role when comparing students’ views, tutors’ views, and the writing centre policy. Policy recommendations are made in light of the findings regarding how writing centres frame the tutor’s role and the function of writing consultations, in terms of (1) interrogating traditional conceptualizations of tutor role, (2) disseminating the centre’s aims to the student population and to the wider university, (3) expanding the centre’s activity across the university, and (4) strengthening tutor training and development.

In this microanalysis, a university writing center conference with an experienced tutor and a student he has never met before is analyzed for the tutor’s use of direct instruction, cognitive scaffolding, and motivational scaffolding. Along with verbal expressions of scaffolding, this analysis also considers the tutor’s hand gestures—topic gestures, which operationalize instruction and cognitive scaffolding, and interactive gestures, which operationalize motivational scaffolding. As defined in this analysis, instruction is the most directive of the three strategies and includes telling. Also directive, cognitive scaffolding leads and supports the student in making correct and useful responses, while motivational scaffolding provides feedback and helps maintain focus on the task and motivation. The microanalysis points to the importance of the student’s cognitive and motivational readiness to learn and the need for the student to control the agenda throughout the conference. It also contextualizes admonitions against tutor directiveness.

Scholars of adult basic literacy curricular materials have argued that the skill-based, deficit-oriented approach of many such materials denies the interests and motivations of adult learners. Exploring why these kinds of curricular materials are prevalent in adult basic literacy education, this article focuses on the case of ProLiteracy, a nongovernmental adult basic literacy organization that grew out of missionary Frank Laubach's work in the 1930s to convert illiterate adults to Christianity and a belief in American-style capitalism. This article argues that the legacy of Laubach's evangelism continues to affect adult literacy instruction in the United States today, through the content of many of the materials in the ProLiteracy catalogue, as well as through the volunteer-based one-to-one tutoring model's positioning of low-literacy adults.

The reliability of secondary students' scores from a previously published measure of attitudes toward writing, Daly and Miller's Writing Apprehension Scale (WAS), and a newly developed Attitudes Toward Writing with the Computer Scale (ATWCS) were appraised and validity evidence gathered in two separate studies. Data came from 354 7th through 10th graders in seven school districts and from 658 10th graders in one school district. Alpha coefficients were .94 and above for the WAS and .86 and above for the ATWCS. Construct validity indicators were (a) low correlations between WAS and ATWCS scores and substantiating interview data; (b) higher correlations between WAS and holistic writing scores than between ATWCS and holistic writing scores; (c) greater sensitivity of the ATWCS to the effects of participation in a computer writing lab; and (d) independent factorial structures for the two scales. A three-factor solution was obtained for the WAS, contrary to Daly and Miller's unifactor solution.