The Network of the WLN
There are many networks that have grown out of the WLN. Below are just a few of them!
The Writing Center Journal (WCJ)
The Writing Center Journal was established in 1980, four years after the WLN, by scholars Lil Brannon and Stephen North. The WCJ is the official journal for the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA), an assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). As the primary research journal in the field of writing center scholarship, the WCJ is “committed to publishing strong empirical research and theoretical scholarship relevant to writing centers. In addition, [the journal seeks] to build a stronger research community for writing centers” (The Writing). The journal is published twice a year with only a 17% acceptance rate, illustrating its prestige within the field of rhetoric and composition. The WCJ aims to further extend the point of contact initiated by Harris’s WLN by providing accessibility at both regional and international writing center conferences, as well as leading professional development events relevant to writing center scholarship and research. |
Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA)
The Writing Program Administration (WPA) is a publication of the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA). WPA publishes a journal and newsletter, holds an annual workshop and conference, makes grants and awards, develops position statements, offers consulting and program evaluation, and fosters extensive discussions about college writing and writing programs (Council). The journal bi-annually “publishes empirical and theoretical research on issues in writing program administration. [The journal publishes] a wide range of research in various formats, research that not only helps both titled and untitled administrators of writing programs do their jobs, but also helps [the] discipline advance academically, institutionally, and nationally” (Council). The administration cordially invites graduate students and faculty members to join the WPA to further develop their interests in professional writing program administration, creating another space for discourse regarding writing and writing center scholarship to take form. |
International Writing Center Association (IWCA)
Initially called The National Writing Centers Association, The IWCA is a NCTE affiliate that was established in 1983. The IWCA “fosters the development of writing center directors, tutors, and staff by sponsoring meetings, publications, and other professional activities; by encouraging scholarship connected to writing center-related fields; and by providing an international forum for writing center concerns” (International). Harris and the WLN contributed to the origin of IWCA. According to the IWCA Service Award Committee: “Propelled by the Newsletter, many others began joining Harris in building the community, which quite naturally resulted in the formation of The National Writing Centers Association (later renamed the International Writing Centers Association)” (6). In underscoring Harris’s contribution to writing center scholarship, The IWCA has an award titled the “Muriel Harris Outstanding Service Award Information.” The IWCA continues to nurture professional development for writing center scholars, ranging from tutors to directors and those interested in further research pertaining to rhetoric and composition. |
"The Idea of a Writing Center"
by Stephen North Published in the journal College English in 1984, Stephen M. North's critical article, "The Idea of a Writing Center," raises a multitude of concerns with the role writing centers have been misconstrued to play, as "the grammar and drill center, the fix-it shop" (439). In moving through this issue, North makes some pointed claims about the "idea" of a writing center that all seem to settle on the central notion that the main purpose of a writing center is to "talk to writers about writing" (441). A key part of North's argument is that writing center work must be "student-centered" and focused on the process, not the final product. North’s claim that writing centers are to be spaces that devote their services to helping develop better writers—not better writing—began a crucial conversation in the field of rhetoric and composition about effective tutorial approaches within writing center spaces, which finds its roots in the established discourse the WLN helped create. |
Teaching One-to-One: The Writing Conference
by Muriel Harris Muriel Harris, the pioneer of the WLN, published her book Teaching One-to-One: The Writing Conference in 1985 in NCTE. According to Kinkead and Pemberton, the book is “[p]art theory, part history, part training manual, this text was used to prepare a whole generation of writing center tutors and directors, and also set the tone for how scholars and practitioners talked about writing centers for years to come” (7). In her book, Harris makes clear that the writing conference is not science—it is an art. In a book review published in College Composition and Communication, Stephen North expresses that the purpose of Harris’s book is not to examine the philosophical implications of writing conferences; rather, her purpose is to show us, as educators, what to do within a writing conference by rooting the conversation in realistic, concrete contexts of the classroom (362). As North emphasizes in his review, this is a book written by a teacher for teachers and extends the point of contact for discourse about writing pedagogy within rhetoric and composition. |
"Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center"
by Andrea Lunsford Scholar Andrea Lunsford’s essay, “Collaboration, Control, and the Idea of a Writing Center” was first published in The Writing Center Journal in 1991. Lunsford asserts that collaboration in its traditional sense needs "careful interrogation" due to its tendency to only appear to grant a certain balance between autonomy and equality; in reality, collaborative settings can often lead to feelings of alienation and subjugation for those not displaying "individually knowable, measurable" knowledge (4). Lunsford explains that knowledge must be viewed as "mediated by or constructed through language and social use, as socially constructed, contextualized" (4). This shift in identifying how knowledge is produced interactively within the context of peer tutoring supports the social turn and post-process movement within rhetoric and composition, an approach to writing that writing centers well-serve in their social and conversational space. |