Thursday, January 24, 2008

Like So Many Mushrooms

To prepare for an orientation meeting in the Writing Center tomorrow, today I leafed back through North's "The Idea of a Writing Center," which is on the short list of recommended readings that will be used to prime the conversation in the meeting. I suppose this just proves what I'd already suspected: I haven't been reading nearly enough lately, but I find North's 1984 CE essay both funny and edgy in a drop-the-gauntlets sort of way. His intensity shows; he is not bored with what he is writing. Consider this passage:

People make similar remarks [about error] all of the time, stopping me or members of my [Writing Center] staff in the halls or calling us into offices, to discuss--in hushed tones, frequently--their current "impossible" or difficult students. There was a time, I will confess, when I let my frustration get the better of me. I would be more or less combative, confrontational, challenging the instructor's often well-intentioned but not very useful "diagnosis." We no longer bother with such confrontations; they never worked out very well, and they risk undermining the genuine compassion our teachers have for the students they single out. Nevertheless, their behavior makes it clear that for them, a writing center is to illiteracy what a cross between Lourdes and a hospice would be to serious illness: one goes there hoping for miracles, but ready to face the inevitable. In their minds, clearly, writers fall into three fairly distinct groups: the talented, the average, and the others; and the Writing Center's only logical raison d'etre must be to handle those others--those, as the flyer proclaims, with "special problems." (435)

North also spars with Maxine Hairston's off-handed remarks about writing centers in her "Winds of Change" essay, where she writes, "Among the first responses were the writing centers that sprang up about ten years ago [1972] to give first aid to students who seemed unable to function within the traditional paradigm. Those labs are still with us, but they're still only giving first aid and treating symptoms. They have not solved the problem" (82, qtd. in North). North calls this a "mistaken history" (among other things); he tells of the anger he felt in "read[ing] one's own professional obituary" (436), and adds that "her dismissal fails to lay the blame for these worst versions of writing centers on the right heads. According to her 'sprang up' historical sketch, these places simply appeared--like so many mushrooms?--to do battle with illiteracy" (437).

The second half of the essay is more constructive; he details his vision for the new writing centers and how they hinge on professionalism, a nuanced understanding of process (also processual complexity), and principles of writers rather than texts alone. I have a few more notes posted here, and it's possible (though not promised) that I will have more to blog in the months ahead about my appointment in the Writing Center this spring.

Posted by Derek Mueller at January 24, 2008 8:45 PM to Writing Center