Bita Bookman: Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today. Could you tell me about yourself, your institution, and your involvement in the writing center?

Darius Cureton: I am a graduate of Winston-Salem University, where I am the current director of “The Writer's Block” (writing center). My institution is a small liberal arts HBCU (Historically Black College or University) in North Carolina. We are considered a master’s one level university. We offer master’s degrees and a Doctor of Nursing Practice program.

What is a typical day like in your writing center?

Our center is open Monday through Thursday from 9 am–8 pm, and we're open on Fridays from 9 am–5 pm. The day will vary based on which instructors are sending their students or what students need help with that day. Around midterms and finals, we have many students that come into The Writer's Block because they are either required by their instructor/professor to come or they are working on some big paper or project that they need much assistance with.

Suppose I am a student in your university and I want to get help on an essay I am writing for my English composition class. Could you walk me through the steps? What should I expect?

When you come into The Writer's Block, the first thing you will do is log in at our GradesFirst kiosk. GradesFirst is a monitoring software that does many things, but one important thing that it does is it tracks the traffic of all of the support centers on campus. The next thing that you will do is to check in with the information clerk (a work-study student) who’s usually stationed at the front of the center. The information clerk will give you one of two forms, or both, depending on if you need proof to give to your instructor that you visited the writing center. The first form is a logistical form and keeps track of what time you arrived, what course you are working on, and other demographic information such as your major. If your instructor is asking for proof that you came to the Writing Center, then in the second form we inform the instructor of the date you came in and what was discussed during your session.

After you have completed the initial information…you will go over to where the consultant is located or the consultant will come to the table where you are. Usually, the consultant will ask you what you need assistance with and what you are working on. This exchange begins the dialogue between the consultant and the student. If the student doesn’t have anything specific in mind, then we let him or her know that we are going to go through the first page and a half of the document so that we can identify common errors that he or she is making in the essay. If the student has something specific that he or she is seeking assistance with, then we help specifically with that.

In accordance with writing center pedagogy, our sessions do not usually last more than 30 minutes. If the consultants can get through a session in under 30 minutes, that's great because then we can help more students. However, if consultants need to take the whole 30 minutes (or more if the day is slow), they definitely can. If students need longer, they can make another appointment. If there's not a lot of traffic, students can continue to work with the consultant if they need to.

After the student or the consultant finishes the session, the student will then fill out a survey that gives the writing center data on how well the services were performed. That helps us figure out if there's anything else that we need to amend or anything else that we need to change from a customer service standpoint.

What qualifications do you look for when hiring a consultant at your writing center?

Applicants who are interested in becoming consultants will initially complete an application packet. They have to submit a writing sample anywhere from 7–10 pages. They then have to respond to a short-answer question about how they write and how their processes for writing translate to helping another student. Their response basically looks at their own writing reflectively: “Here's how I write and the ways that I write. How can that help someone else?” Also, applicants are given an essay prompt and a student response to that prompt. The essay clearly has issues, so they evaluate the essay and write a paragraph about how they would “coach” the student on fixing certain errors in that essay. After they have completed the application packet (including turning in an unofficial transcript), all current consultants vet those applications and give recommendations for who should be hired. If applicants make it through that process, then they have a grammar diagnostic test they have to take. The grammar diagnostic is a 100-question grammar test (taken on the computer) and addresses many of the issues that we see on our campus and in the writing center which deal with common errors. Applicants have to pass that test with 81% or higher. Once they've passed that, they're pretty much hired.

After being hired, consultants go through a shadow period. The new consultants sit in on sessions with veteran consultants. They listen and take notes on how to handle sessions. During the last week and a half of that shadow period, they switch places, so the new consultant becomes the main consultant with the veteran consultant acting as a mentor during that session. We also have a GroupMe app for asynchronous communication. If a consultant is unsure about something, he or she can pose a question in the GroupMe group where all of the consultants can see it. If somebody knows the answer or how to answer the question posed within a consultation, they can get an answer immediately.

Do you get students who come to the writing center and expect proofreading services?

Absolutely, we get those all the time. They come in and they say “I just need my paper looked at.” That doesn't give us any direction as to what they need. At that point, we have to start asking questions. Our consultations are inquiry-based, so it is really all about what we can do to help them. We ask questions such as “Did you mean put punctuation at this point?” and “Do you feel you need to breathe at this certain point?”, and make statements such as “This is unclear what are you trying to say.” We are definitely there to help as far as inquiry is concerned.

What kind of resources and materials do you have in the writing center?

Most of our resources are online, so if students have extra questions we refer them to OWL Purdue (the Purdue Online Writing Lab). If we are unsure about something, we go there with them so they can see how to navigate it and we discover information together. Oftentimes, we refer them to documentation manuals (e.g., the APA [American Psychological Association], MLA [Modern Language Association], or even the Chicago manual).

What are some core values and guiding principles in your writing center?

One of our core values includes customer service. We want to make sure that students feel appreciated and feel as if they actually gained something from the sessions and it’s not just “I came because I was forced to come and that was all there was.” We definitely value customer service in that respect. We also value professionalism. We try to make sure that everything is done to satisfaction. We usually ask students if they enjoyed their sessions or if there was anything else that we could help them with within that session.

Do you have any challenges in the writing center?

Some of our challenges are the same as other writing centers all across the nation. Definitely, funding is a challenge. My university is pretty supportive in what we do in the writing center not only verbally, but if I have any need and if I can think about that need well enough in advance, I usually do not have any issues. On the other hand, I try not to need as much; I try to work with what I have because I know budgets are tight everywhere. I try to think about all of our needs prior to those cuts, and usually we are very well supported.

Another challenge is that some faculty members are still a little unsure about how writing centers actually work. That is a work in progress, and we just have to make sure that they understand that we are definitely not an “editing service” but we are there to support students and to supplement what they are doing in the class. We are not there to “teach” but to supplement what they are already doing, what they have already been taught in class. Despite that minor challenge, most faculty are very supportive. They refer their students, and we have no issues with that.

Do you have any final comments or points you’d like to share?

Writing centers are definitely integral in any university structure if that university values writing skills. If writing is not an issue for your students, then the writing center can still function as a place that can help or supplement what goes on in the classroom. In either situation, I think that it is best to support writing centers because they can help you reach whatever goals you are targeting related to writing with your students.

Thanks so much, Darius, for taking time out of your busy schedule for this interview. Much appreciated!

Thank you!

Recommended Readings

Bruce, S., & Rafoth, B. A. (2009). ESL writers: A guide for writing center tutors. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Cooper, M. M. (1994). Really useful knowledge: A cultural studies agenda for writing centers. The Writing Center Journal, 14(2), 97–111.

North, S. M. (1984). The idea of a writing center. College English, 46(5), 433–446.

Ryan, L., & Zimmerelli, L. (2010). The Bedford guide for writing tutors. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins.

Williams, J. (2016). Writing center interaction: Institutional discourse and the role of peer. Interlanguage pragmatics: Exploring institutional talk, 37.

Bita Bookman is an academic English lecturer at the University of California, Irvine, and a test development consultant. She is pursuing a PhD in composition and TESOL at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests include language assessment, linguistic landscape, English as a lingua franca, and identity.