The Struggle Is Real

The article I found in the Writing Lab New Letter was extremely relatable. Written by Tabetha Adkins who is the writing center director at Texas A&M it goes over the struggles writing centers and we as writing tutors come in contact with here on campus. The main focus of the article was perception and how the college views her writing center. Many faculty members made comments to her regarding the fact that the WC does not help student with their grammar. This is obviously a huge misunderstanding and when Adkins tries to combat this misconception with the fact that the writing center is here to help with all aspects of writing but that grammar is not the most important aspect, her colleagues just hear that the WC is open for grammar correction.

                Unfortunately, we are all too familiar with the idea that we are here to fix papers and get the students the best grade possible. Yes, we are here for the students’ success but even more so we are here to help make students better writers. The biggest problem we face is what exactly we do and why we do it. The misconception that we are a one stop fix-it shop starts from the ground up, the professors. It  may not be their fault that they have not looked into what the writing center’s purpose is but that misguided idea carries down to the students.

I believe professors are the reason why we get those students who come in saying they need help with their grammar and when it comes time to sit down with them it is apparent that their grammatical errors are the least of their worries. I believe that this is not the biggest issue we have as tutors it is the student writer’s resistance to changing priorities on what needs to be worked on and what doesn’t because he/she has been taught that grammar is the biggest factor in writing and the professor has solidified that idea by sending them in to get their grammatical errors fixed. Now there are students who come in and the only thing they need help on is their grammar and most likely it is because he/she has worked with me on the paper in previous sessions. The most important statement made in this article is that writer’s level of grammar does not carry over to whether or not he/she is a good writer

Overall, we have to appreciate the amount of effort our director puts into the WC. I have read many articles on what issues are taking place in other writing centers and the preventative measures they would have taken given another chance. Megan has implemented most of the ideas other directors or admin have recommended. She has given the WC a clear path to help students as well as maintaining the flow of ideas with exercises such as the blog and other activities. With her help we have a much more in-depth idea of what a WC can do.

Works Cited

Adkins, Tabetha. "The (un)importance of a preposition: How We Define and Defend the Writing Center   Work." The Writing Center Lab 36.1-2 (2010): 1-5. Wlnjournal.org. Web. 4 Apr. 2016.