College Composition and Communication Dec 2023

Decentering the History of the Writing Center: A Case for the Mesopotamian Edubba as an Early Writing Center

Kathryn Rosser Raign

Abstract

This paper tells the story of theedubba, the Mesopotamian scribal school. First, theedubba’s pedagogy demonstrates that the first formalized center for teaching writing was more akin to the modern writing center than to the composition classroom. Second, unlike many modern writing centers, theedubbawas multilingual. It is easy to look at the past and congratulate ourselves on how much better we’ve made the future, but theedubbahas something to teach us beyond the fact that it preceded the composition classroom. A circle has no beginning, and both the writing center and the writing classroom are part of one circle—equally important to the students they serve.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2023-12-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc2023752418
Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing pedagogy writing centers multimodality multilingual writers

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (0)

No articles in this index cite this work.

Cites in this index (8)

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    College Composition and Communication
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Show all 8 →
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    College Composition and Communication
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CrossRef global citation count: 0 View in citation network →

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