WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship
Voice of College, University, High School, Domestic, International, All Writing Centers." |
Promoting the exchange of ideas in the one-to-one teaching of writing." |
WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship is "[a] forum for exchanging ideas and information about writing centers in high schools, colleges, and universities" (WLN). Formerly known as the Writing Lab Newsletter, the WLN now has over 350 issues and over 1,000 contributing authors consisting of both professional and peer scholarship. According to the WLN website, “[across] five issues per year and through numerous online resources, WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship promotes exchanges on challenges in tutoring theory and methodology, handling ESL issues, directing a writing center, training tutors, designing and expanding centers, and using tutorial theory and pedagogy" (WLN).
The journal is published bi-monthly from September to June, and it is an IWCA (International Writing Centers Association) publication. NETWORK AT A GLANCE
|
Founded in 1977, the WLN was created by scholar Muriel "Mickey" Harris who still presently serves as editor-in-chief. Harris joined the Purdue faculty in 1976 as an assistant professor. Through collaboration with Purdue graduate students, Harris founded the Purdue Writing Lab and began theorizing writing center pedagogy and scholarship. Additionally, Harris developed instructional materials for both students and faculty, which were made available on the Purdue Online Writing Lab (Purdue OWL). The WLN is another space wherein conversations and theorizing about writing center scholarship and tutorial approaches occurs within rhetoric and composition ("Muriel"). In 1977, a panel of writing center directors and tutors at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) was responding to the CCCC 1973 report on the learning skills center. The CCCC 1973 report about "Skills" centers was a response to the changing student profiles and academic climate within college campuses at the time, resulting from open admissions. "Skills" centers had been the center of pedagogical debate within the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and CCCC programs since 1971, as educators became fearful that these mechanized "Skills" centers may replace writing teachers and argued about the best ways to support incoming students. Harris was a part of this 1977 panel, and "[at] the end of this volatile session, [she] took out pen and pad, invited participants to write their names and addresses, and, using that list, mailed out the first issue of the Writing Lab Newsletter (WLN), produced on a Sears typewriter at her kitchen table" (Kinkead 3). Before this initial newsletter following the 1977 panel, there were no books, journals, or conferences that focused on writing center pedagogy. In this issue and those that followed, Harris sought to explain, through illustrative contributions by practitioners, the rationale and mission of writing labs and writing centers, calming the fears of those who thought such places focused exclusively on the ‘mechanical aspects of writing.’ By editing the primary organ of communication for the writing center/lab community, she, in effect, set the agenda for its development” (Kinkead 3). The change in title from The Writing Lab Newsletter to WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship was integral to the growth of the journal— the recognition that WLN had "outgrown its origin as a newsletter and had become a journal" (Harris).
SEMINAL WORKS
For more information on the network which has emerged from the WLN, click "Network" below.
|