First Reflection

Writing center is relatively a new concept to me since we do not have such center in our home university or probably not even in the whole country. However, there are some points in this week assigned reading that have caught my attention.

First I was fascinated about how scholars in the writing academia do not share the same view on what writing center is all about. North’s frustration for those who view writing center as a “fix-it shop” is clearly demonstrated in his essay “The Idea of the Writing Center”. According to North, the writing center is not all about fixing mechanical problems such as grammatical error or punctuation; instead writing tutor has a fundamental role in helping writer during the writing process. It prompted me to wonder whether similar misunderstanding would also be presented should there be a writing center in Cambodia and what roles the writing center has in Cambodian’s education institutions.

Furthermore, I found North’s idea about giving more focus on the writer rather the writing itself surprising. He claimed that changing the text is not necessary but changing the writer is, and that the writing center’s job is “to produce better writers, not better writing” (38). I was struck at this because though I have never been a formal writing tutor before, there are lots of times when my friends ask me to help with their writing assignments. Nonetheless, what I usually focus on is on the text only. I have never given a single notice on how my friends engaged themselves in the writing process. Having read North’s essay, I promise myself that when I am helping other writers, I would try giving more attention to writer and their writing process rather than just locating and correcting errors found in the paper.

What also interests me is how the writing center plays part in producing better citizens for the society. I have never thought that writing tutorials also seek to keep students aware of social issues as said in the text The Tutoring Process “…the goal of writing should not be the simple improvement of student writing. Instead, the goal is to give student writers a heightened awareness of the social injustice perpetrated by the dominant culture’s racist and classist agenda and to empower these writers to resist this agenda” (Murphy and Sherwood 4). I mean I know that most of the topic in my school writing assignment is about various issues recently discussed in the society. I do not know that by writing about such thing can produce a better citizen out of me nor am I aware that by tutoring others I am also learning to be a better citizen.

Last but not least, what is also intriguing is Bawashi and Pelkowski’s concern about the writing center taking away student’s originality so that his/her text could be fit in the university standard. They suggested that “under-prepared students, especially those marginalized by race, class, and ethnicity, are encouraged to adopt critical consciousnessas a means of functioning within the university and its discourses” (qtd. in Murphy and Sherwood 5). As a non-native user of English, I started to think if I have ever been unconsciously forced to give up my own perspectives so that my ideas could fit into “frameworks acceptable to the university”.

This week reading has shed me some light on what is expected from me for being a tutor in the writing center. As both an ESL learner and tutor, I am eager to explore more about the writing center and to learn from other tutors so that I can relate what I have learnt and observed when I am to get engaged in the tutoring practicum in the next few weeks.

Reference:

Murphy, Christina and Steve Sherwood. The St. Martin’s Sourcebook for Writing Tutors. 3^rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 1-24.

North, Stephen. “The Idea of a Writing Center.” In Murphy and Sherwood, 32-46