Prince William Center Grows as Campus Expands

by Sarah Anne White, MFA / TA, P.W. Writing Center Coordinator

The clients at Prince William are as diverse as the classes offered on campus, including Nursing, Tourism, Exercise and Health Science, Bioinformatics, IT, and Forensic Bioscience.  Open four days a week in the Occoquan building, the writing center sees an increasing number of students each semester.

The writing center has added both tutors and hours over the past two years.  In its first semester, the writing center saw a total of 33 tutees, many of whom came in for multiple sessions.  The writing center has seen more than 40 tutees already this year, with many scheduling multiple sessions. The number of tutees grows each week.  As the Prince William campus grows and expands, so will the writing center services at this location.

Research Offers Insights into Students' Development as Writers

by Ryan Call, MFA / TA

In fall 2006, writing center director Terry Zawacki and research assistant Ryan Call began a project examining writing center data. Their inquiry considers a number of topics: the stages of development of student writers, their understanding of faculty expectations and writing in their majors, and faculty and student perceptions of the writing center. The research findings will offer insights into effective writing center practices, including improving tutor training and increasing communication between faculty and tutors in order to best serve student writers.

As part of this project, the researchers conducted two focus groups with writing center tutors, asking the tutors questions about their perceptions of students’ revision practices, their understanding of the writing required in their majors and teachers’ expectations, and the role of the writing center in helping to improve student writing.  The following are some of the tutors’ comments from those focus groups.

On Helping Students Revise

Corey: “I think less experienced students write under the assumption that to revise is to correct errors.  I’ve often had sessions where I’ll say to a student, ‘This section isn’t clear so fix that,’ and they’ll say, ‘So if I just fix that then it’s okay?’ I’ll say, ‘No no no no, because if you change that, you’ll need to go back and address this.  Remember, we were talking about how you had a problem in your introduction, so you’ll want to make sure you talk about this new thing,’ and they’ll say ‘Then that’s it?’ And I’ll say, ‘Well, it’s all connected, you understand, because if you change your support then your introduction changes, and then your conclusion will also change,’ and they don’t understand how it all fits together.  They think, ‘That was a wrong answer, so I just fix that sentence and then it’s a fixed paper.’”

Nat: “I tell students that if they end every paragraph in their paper with a citation, they’re kind of cheating themselves out of the most important part of a paragraph when it’s their turn to say something about the evidence.”

On Helping Students Understand Teachers’ Expectations

Wade: "I often suggest to students that they go back and talk to the professor, but then the students will have questions about what to ask the professor, so we’ll talk about how to pose those questions, like what they should ask specifically, because they ask questions and they get these general or vague answers, so I try to give them knowledge as to how they can ask questions that might get them the specific answers they want.”

Jessica: “Many of the students I see don’t quite know how to write properly in the discipline. When they come in with a lab report and don’t know how to write the different sections, I always wonder is it because they were never told how to do it or because they don’t go to class, or because they don’t know that they should be reading what’s written in the journals. If the professor hasn’t said anything about disciplinary conventions, go look at the journals and the textbook.”

Jessica: “Students seem to be the most confused on assignments that have these long lists: you have to do this and this and this. They seem to get overwhelmed, so they’ll do one section and they won’t even read some of the other ones, and I think they get afraid.”

Meet Our Peer Tutors

Ahriel Harris is a junior majoring in Accounting. After graduating in 2008, she hopes to get her CPA license and Corporate Law degree.

Angela Panayotopulos (above, left) is a junior majoring in English and minoring in Business. After earning her B.A. in May 2008, she plans to attend graduate school. She hopes to return to Greece and teach English at a university or open an English-language institute.

Lauren Najdul is a graduating senior English major. She hopes to teach or attend law school.

Sharon Barksdale (above, right) is a junior majoring in Government and International Politics and minoring in Legal Studies.  She hopes to attend  William & Mary in the fall 2008 to specialize in Criminal or Family Law.