Infinite Menus, Copyright 2006, OpenCube Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Writing Center
 Sander
Hall 110 (the old dining hall)
Phone (513) 556-1683
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Advice for
Filling out the Writing Center Report
Part One: Purpose of the Report
The first aspect
to remember about the Writing Center Report is that it has three
purposes, all important and all very different. The first and most
direct purpose of the report is to inform the student of the details of
the visit. The student will review her report first. It should remind
her of the session that she just participated in, and it should “hit the
high points” effectively enough that it will jog the student’s memory.
As such, the WCR may be of value at just the time when the session is
beginning to dim in the student’s recollection. A clear, concise record
of the tutoring session can give added impetus to the student to the
matters discussed—or to reflect upon a lesson learned or still being
learned.
The second purpose of the WRC is the reason it has to be somewhat
detailed—it must give the instructor a brief, accurate, and
pedagogically sound interpretation of the student’s visit to the Writing
Center. In a sense, the report allows the instructor to “overhear” the
student’s and the tutor’s session. Because of this second purpose, with
the interest of enriching the instructor’s understanding of her
student’s efforts to seek help from another professional—the WCR, while
it can be brief—should not be cursory. A few words may be enough to
enable the student to recall the session—but the instructor may need to
know more.
The third purpose of the report is the most abstract, but that does not
make it less important. This last purpose runs under the explanation of
“institutional” or “research” purposes. The hope is that at some point,
either a CAT professional will do research on the Writing Center, in
which cases it will be very helpful to know the details of each
particular student visit, or for institutional reasons, the Writing
Center or the CAT will want to know in a brief way how our work is being
done and/or, how our time is spent. This purpose can be very important
as a record, when records and measurements are taken, several parts of
the overall “puzzle” of the student’s performance can be helped toward
solution by the WRC.
Part Two: Filling Out the Various Boxes
This is not “rocket science,” obviously, but it is important. I suggest
that when you fill out the boxes that you be generous to yourself
instead of stingy. If the conference was mostly about organization, but
you discussed the student’s plan for her essay, mark “Planning and
Drafting” as well. If the student came in to work on her transitions,
but in the process of explaining them, you also discussed revision of
the essay, I would suggest that by all means you mark “Revision” as
well. The wider the net you cover as a tutor, in general, the better,
because a tutor has a chance to affect change for a writer upon all the
aspects of the writing process, and making the writer aware of her
process by pointing out its various aspects is an extremely agreeable
eventuality of the tutoring session.
Commentary on the Session:
There are two effective ways to write a WCR Commentary section. Probably
because of my training, I much prefer to write a narrative report in
this section, telling a story, as it were, of the session. The advantage
of a narrative report is that it reads in a way to helpfully capture the
imagination of the student and the instructor, and to add a frame of
purpose for any reader of the report (even including the tutor if she
looks back on her work).
However, tutors with other training understandably find the narrative
method too lengthy and overstated. Thus a terse, truncated account can
work, such as, “Semi-colon usage, esp. in dividing two independent
clauses,” can be a viable approach to writing comments.
“Tutor Recommendations” Section:
This section is often a repeat of what has been stated before, though it
could be a new suggestion, such as, “Review thesis development,” or
“Sentence Mechanics.” In any cases, this entry is likely to be brief,
almost certainly a rendition of points described in the Commentary
section.
Last Suggestion:
No matter how conscientious one is doing one’s work as a tutor, the WCR
may seem like a less important aspect of one’s work than the actual
tutoring that goes on, but remember that decontextualizing the tutoring
experience by “looking back” on it can be an important part of one’s
professional role. Forcing one’s self to recall the significant points
of the tutoring session immediately after it happens has the effect of
analysis and even theorizing, which can’t hurt a tutor in coming to an
understanding of their overall effectiveness and in finding points for
improvement in their performance.
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Questions? Contact Eric Mast,
Coordinator.
Writing Center and Math Resource Center
Center for Access and Transition
Sander Hall, West- Room 110 (The Old Dining Hall)
2815 Commons Way
PO Box 210168
Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0168 |
Contact Information
Office Phone: 513-556-3239
Email: eric.mast@uc.edu
Copyright Information ©
University of Cincinnati.
Last modified 6 December 2007
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