In the last decade, writing centers have become increasingly prevalent in higher education institutions around the world. In these institutions, writing centers play an important role in cultivating the development of the literacy and writing skills necessary for academic success. Because of the critical role of writing centers in supporting student writing development, it is important to continually examine common writing center practices. Some of the principles of current-traditional writing center pedagogy (I use “current-traditional” in this article to refer to principles rooted in traditional writing center pedagogy that are still very much a part of current practice) may not always constitute the most suitable practices for consultations with English language learners although they are still often promoted as essential best practices for writing center tutoring. For instance, a recently published writing center guide for multilingual writing centers (that I will not name here) promotes the current-traditional principles I focus on in this article. It is important to critically examine these principles with regard to tutoring English language learners because current-traditional writing center principles might preclude English language learners from receiving the writing help they need from writing center visits. Current-traditional writing center pedagogy specifies that higher-order concerns should be dealt with before lower-order concerns; conferencing sessions should be non-directive; and writing centers should not provide proofreading or editing services (Moussu & David, 2015). Although other scholars, in addition to Moussu and David, have also brought forth these issues, it is important to reiterate this conversation because these principles seem to stubbornly persist. Writing center tutors, whether they are working in contexts where all or some tutees are English language learners, should be aware of these issues. This article focuses on these three common principles of writing center pedagogy, considering their utility as effective principles for writing center consultations with English language learners. The article starts with a focus on higher-order and lower-order concerns. The article then addresses the issue of student-directed conferencing. Finally, the article discusses the issue of editing in writing center pedagogy.

Higher-order Concerns (HOCs) over Lower-order Concerns (LOCs)

The importance of addressing higher-order concerns (henceforth HOCs) over lower-order concerns (henceforth LOCs) has been a longstanding principle in writing center pedagogy. HOCs, also called global concerns, refer to the macro-level features of a text, such as content, organization, and development of an argument. LOCs, also called local concerns, refer to micro-level features, such as grammar, spelling, and punctuation. This principle likely originated in early writing center publications, such as North’s (1984) seminal article “The Idea of a Writing Center” and Reigstad and McAndrew’s (1984) early training manual Training Tutors for Writing Conferences. It is important to situate the origins of the HOCs over LOCs principle historically. When North’s and Reigstad and McAndrew’s works were published, the process approach was the dominate method of writing pedagogy. Although process pedagogy does not eschew treatment of error, it generally places consideration of form as the final step in the writing process.

Writing experts have often advocated for HOCs over LOCs with the explanation that too much attention to LOCs in early drafts could interfere with students’ ability to productively create drafts as they might become overly concerned with form over ideas. However, this principle presents a binary that might not always be relevant. For instance, Reigstad and McAndrew (1984) categorized voice as a HOC; however, voice is often informed by LOCs such as grammar, choice of vocabulary, and punctuation. It is not always possible to completely separate treatment of HOCs from LOCs since HOCs and LOCs work together to produce the meaning of a written text. In addition to the difficulty of firmly establishing binaries of HOCs and LOCs, in some cases, English language learners might need help with LOCs before moving on to HOCs. When surface-level errors make meaning unclear, a tutor might need to work with a tutee on LOCs before HOCs. Furthermore, English language learners themselves might want help with LOCs during early drafts. For many English language learners, LOCs might be priorities as they are often not only developing composition skills but are simultaneously developing language skills. In a study on expectations of writing conferences, Liu (2009) found that ESL students viewed help with LOCs on their essays as a priority.

Non-directive Conferencing

Another mainstay of writing center pedagogy has been the principle of non-directive and collaborative tutoring sessions. This means that tutoring sessions should be student-led. This principle harkens back to North’s (1984) article in which he insisted that the function of the writing center is to offer writers the opportunity to talk about their writing. This was and still is an important notion. Writing centers are places for writers to talk through their writing and get a reader’s response. However, there are two potential problems with the dialogic conferencing strategy and English language learners.

The first issue concerns cultural beliefs about authority and the transfer of knowledge. In cultures where the instructor is viewed as the authority figure whose role is to impart knowledge, tutees might find non-directive conferencing odd. In such cultures, the tutee expects the tutor to be a source of knowledge, leading the discussion and helping them understand how to revise their paper. In Liu’s (2009) study, English language learners indicated that they did not feel comfortable directing the conversation in a conferencing session. Similarly, Maliborska and You (2016) found that only four percent of English language learners in their study preferred student-led conferences.

The second issue concerns assumptions regarding knowledge of writing in English. In many writing centers, tutors are encouraged to employ a non-directive questioning technique to help the student writer find solutions to their writing problems through a series of questions. The tutor might ask questions such as the following: What do you think is working well in this draft? What challenges are you facing in writing this paper? This questioning technique can prompt the writer to reflect and find their own answers, but it might not always be effective with English language learners. While some English language learners might have a lot of experience writing in English when they visit the writing center, others might have little experience writing texts in English, and some might not have much experience writing in any language. Even when English language learners have experience writing in English, they may not have much experience with academic English in general and writing in the particular genres they are assigned. Non-directive tutoring may not be effective with English language learners because it presumes knowledge of rhetorical patterns and conventions of writing in English they may not have (Moussu & David, 2015). For instance, if a tutor asks a tutee what they need to do to move forward with their writing when they do not have a clear idea of the expectations of the genre they are writing in, they will be hard-pressed to find the answer through a reflective process.

Editing

The third principle of current-traditional writing center pedagogy concerns a dismissive approach to editing. This principle can also be traced back to North’s (1984) article which insisted that writing centers are not “fix-it shops” (p. 435) whose purpose is to edit papers. North maintained that writing centers should be places where writers could have conversations about their writing, not places where surface-level errors are fixed. North’s article was published at a time when many writing experts were pushing back against writing pedagogy heavily focused on form. This principle against editing in writing centers has become so engrained that many writing centers continue to have policies against proofreading or editing papers. However, surface-level errors do impact a reader’s perception of a text. In some cases, English language learners’ papers might be judged for surface-level errors as harshly as their L1 counterparts. English language learners might go to the writing center specifically for help editing their papers (Liu, 2009; Moussu & David, 2015). While writing center tutors should not necessarily be expected to comprehensively edit student papers, English language learners might need more help correcting surface-level errors than do their L1 classmates.

Conclusion

In this article, I have investigated three principles of current-traditional writing pedagogy that may not constitute effective practices for writing center consultations with English language learners: HOCS over LOCs, non-directive-conferencing, and a dismissive approach to editing. When these principles were established, they were not developed with a consideration for the needs of language learners. It is important to approach writing center consultations with English language learners with flexibility. An adherence to these policy-as-pedagogy principles could prevent English language learners from receiving the help they need and desire from writing center consultations. English language learners might need more attention to form and can benefit from directive conferencing techniques that provide specific guidance as they draft and revise. English language learners might also need help to locate and correct surface-level errors in final drafts that could adversely impact the reader’s perceptions of the text. To maximize the potential benefit of writing center tutoring sessions with English language learners, it is important to recognize that their needs might be different from the needs of L1 students and that those needs might fall outside of the principles of current-traditional writing center pedagogy.

References

Liu, Y. (2009). What am I supposed to say: ESL students’ expectations of writing conferences. Arizona Working Papers in SLA and Teaching, 99–120. https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/AZSLAT/article/view/21248/20828

Maliborska, V., & You, Y. (2016). Writing conferences in a second language writing classroom: Instructor and student perspectives. TESOL Journal, 7(4), 874–897. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.249

Moussu, L., & David, N. (2015). Writing centers: Finding a writing center for ESL writers. In N.W. Evans, N. J. Anderson, & W. G. Eggington (Eds.), ESL readers and writers in higher education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315762654

North, S. (1984). The idea of a writing center. College English, 46(5), 443–446. https://doi.org/10.2307/377047

Reigstad, T. J., & McAndrew, D. A. (1984). Training tutors for writing conferences. NCTE. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED240589