Around the Texts of Writing Center Work: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Tutor Education - Paperback

by R. Mark Hall (Author)

Around the Texts of Writing Center Work reveals the conceptual frameworks found in and created by ordinary writing center documents. The values and beliefs underlying course syllabi, policy statements, website copy and comments, assessment plans, promotional flyers, and annual reports critically inform writing center practices, including the vital undertaking of tutor education.

In each chapter, author R. Mark Hall focuses on a particular document. He examines its origins, its use by writing center instructors and tutors, and its engagement with enduring disciplinary challenges in the field of composition, such as tutoring and program assessment. He then analyzes each document in the contexts of the conceptual framework at the heart of its creation and everyday application: activity theory, communities of practice, discourse analysis, reflective practice, and inquiry-based learning.

Around the Texts of Writing Center Work approaches the analysis of writing center documents with an inquiry stance-a call for curiosity and skepticism toward existing and proposed conceptual frameworks-in the hope that the theoretically conscious evaluation and revision of commonplace documents will lead to greater efficacy and more abundant research by writing center administrators and students.

Author Biography

R. Mark Hall is associate professor of rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies at the University of Central Florida, where he directs the University Writing Center. He has also led writing centers at California State University, Chico, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has published chapters in several edited collections and articles in College English, The Writing Center Journal, Writing Lab Newsletter, The Writing Instructor, and Praxis: A Writing Center Journal.