Peer-to-Peer Marketing

After my previous blogpost, I really wanted to find some examples of peer-to-peer marketing of writing centers in high schools, universities, or other institutions that used peer consultants in their writing centers. Unfortunately, it proved to be more difficult than I imagined to find marketing tools that reach out to the students instead of requiring the professors to be intermediaries between the writing center and those that it was created to help - the students. Why can't the writing center speak to the students themselves? Though I did not find specific examples, I did come across an entertaining video online created by a high school writing center that had some great ideas and points on marketing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtDg6Nks3pI

The video itself was pretty hilarious, but I garnered some great ideas from their presentation that could possibly be applied to the University of Richmond context.

1. Making a youtube video - As we have discussed in our readings on literacy, new media is essential to the new literacy of this generation. Everyone goes watches youtube videos, makes videos themselves, and posts them on their myspaces, facebooks, blogs, websites, etc. Thus to ignore even the content of the video itself, the idea of making a video to put on the writing center website as well as youtube introducing the writing center, what it does, and maybe the tutors themselves would be an extremely prevalent and effective way of getting the information out to the student body themselves.
2. Posters - I have noticed writing center posters in the center itself and some in Jepson, but no where else. The reality of this campus is that posters are the primary marketing tool used by clubs, events, and organizations, so why shouldn't the writing center jump on board? Putting posters in every academic building, as well as in bathroom stalls for special occasions would guarantee that every student will at least have heard of the writing center.
3. Word of Mouth - I felt fairly stupid when I watched this segment of the video for not having thought of this marketing tool before. Our student body is fairly small and tight-knit, and so word of mouth would be a great way to not only get the writing center's name out there but also what it really does. Maybe tutors could be encouraged to talk with their friends/classes about the writing center. Even better, the example of the tutor providing a student with a pass to fill out gave me another idea. The center could table in the commons every now and then with a way for people to sign up for appointments right there, bringing the center to the students instead of requiring them to go searching for us.
4. Attitude - Throughout the video, especially when they were demonstrating the "good" vs "bad" marketing techniques, the thing that set the good apart from the bad was the atmosphere and attitude created by the center and the tutors. Though we have discussed this before, I think it is extremely important to remember that the center should be a relaxed, casual, peer-motivated place where writers from any background, discipline, or stage of the writing process can come and discuss and work in a collaborative atmosphere. The minute the writing center gets grouped with terms like "failures", "problem students", or "mandatory", it loses the power that peer tutors give it. 

Marketing the Writing Center

When Professor Dolson mentioned that we could do our own project for the final, my mind automatically jumped to marketing. It's funny, because marketing has never been my strong suit. I have always been more of a theoretical person, someone who likes to think about lofty ideas and theories that never really make it into reality. Yet this entire semester the marketing question has kept on coming up in my blogs and in my mind. I remember very vividly sitting in class with Gyra and Allie, discussing why the Writing Center is so empty and how we could change it - they came up with the brilliant idea of the Writing Center doing a campaign to help with love letters on Valentines Day. And so when the idea of doing your own project came up, I automatically jumped on board with Gyra and Allie to start thinking about exactly how we could get the Writing Center out of Weinstein and into the rest of the campus.

I found a very interesting article about just this, marketing the writing center, in the Writing Lab Newsletter (linked below)
Marketing the Best Image of the Community College Writing Center

Though (as you can tell from the title) this article deals with community college writing centers, it has some very interesting strategies to get the name of the Writing Center out there. For example, it gives a list of recommendations for instructors in encouraging their students to use the Writing Center:

1. Give students a specifi c task(s) to complete in the writing center. 

2. Tie the task to an assignment or a graded paper. 

3. Have students bring specifi c assignment(s) to the center. 

4. Keep models of good completed assignments in the center.

5. Focus on the hierarchy that works with all levels of student writers. 

6. Tell students verbally and in their syllabus that they should take advantage of the writing 

 center’s services. 

7. Take their students into the center and have the staff explain the process and  services of 

  the writing center. 

8. Ask someone from the writing center to talk to their class. 

9. Be aware of what the writing center does and does not do. Accentuate the positive. 

10. Help students to become wiser users of the center . . . learning what questions to ask 

 and seeking guidance for the higher order concerns instead of looking only for editing 

 corrections. One way we can help instructors is to share our hierarchy with them. 

Emphasizing inclusivity, lack of labels for both the Center and the students, and intimate relations between the instructors and the Center, this article provides some answers in how to both eliminate the stigma attached to the Writing Center and how to make each consultancy more effective. 

However, this article does not touch at all on how to reach the students directly rather than going through the channel of their professors. Perhaps that is a less popular means of promoting the Writing Center, but I think that in the University of Richmond context, it would be extremely effective and beneficial if we could get the students to use the Writing Center out of their own free will, not because told to by professors. In fact, separating the Center from professors could create a more collaborative, relaxed, and less stressful environment. How can we reach the students themselves?

No Show

This Wednesday I went to my weekly writing center shadowing appointment, and my consultant did not show up. Perhaps it was a miscommunication, perhaps he didn't have any appointments, perhaps he simply forgot. I'm sad I didn't get a chance to shadow and observe a consultancy, and I will try to find some hands-on consulting experience on my own this week. I can't imagine it would be too hard, especially if everyone has as many papers to write as I do!

Boys and Girls Club, Take 2

Yesterday we went to the Boys and Girls club for a second round of tutoring. Michael and I had tutored a girl last time together, and though it went fairly well, the girl was not very invested in what we were saying or in the project in general. Though it was not a failure, it was not a rousing success either, and I remember leaving feeling a bit let down. I suppose I expected to go in and really feel like I was helping someone, whereas when we left I didn't really know what we had done to bring this girl any closer to finishing her story or helping her be a better writer.

When we returned on Monday, I didn't know what exactly to expect, but I did not expect what happened. It turned out that the girl we worked with before was no longer with the program, and we were assigned to another girl who also had not completed her interview. This is yet another example of the disparities between theory and practice, between the class room and the "real world" - nothing ever plays out how you think it will. At first I was a little worried, as we had spent all of last time forming a bond with this girl and now we had to start all over again. Yet it was a wonderful experience all in all. The new girl we tutored was very talkative and, more importantly, seemed genuinely excited about the project. She had many ideas as to what she wanted to do, and she seemed interested in our descriptions of what a digital story is, how we conducted our interviews, and our lives as college students in general. We helped her formulate her own questions for her interview as she had yet to receive the prewritten questions that they handed to every student. This ended up being a wonderful exercise for us to help her with, because we were able to discuss what makes a good story, what makes her want to interview her grandmother, and it helped her focus on what exactly she wanted to convey at the end of the project. The fact that she was able to focus her questions and see the story as having a goal, a message, rather than the ramblings of some older person, was really exciting, and it was even more exciting to help her get to that point.

What's the lesson I've learned? First of all, never expect things to turn out the way you planned, especially in hard-to-control situations. Secondly, no effort or time invested in a tutoring is lost or wasted. Thirdly, never underestimate the student you're working with, because they will surprise you!

Preparing for the paper...

I just received a copy of Michael's paper to revise for the Classmate Consultancy project, and am beginning to determine how I will conduct the appointment, how and if I'll mark up his paper, and in general what kind of writing consultant I'll be. To be honest, though no one likes doing work, it has been interesting looking back through our readings and even looking at essays we haven't read to determine what I want to do. I have a blank slate, I can take whatever direction I want, as long as I can justify it. The St. Martin's Sourcebook for Writing Tutors has been one of the best resources so far, and so I have been looking at the introduction to think of essential questions I need to address in my paper. So far, I have come up with this list:

Current traditional rhetoric vs expressivism vs social constructionism?
What role do I take? Teacher? Guide? Peer? Collaborator?
How do I create a context for the consultancy, especially with someone I know already?
Who will have the power in the consultancy?
Minimalist approach or not? 
Directive or nondirective?


The introduction separates a consultancy into three stages: Pre-textual, Textual, and Post-textual. These separations will prove helpful for both the outlining of the session and my justification, as I will have to make crucial decisions on how to handle each stage. 


Michael's paper is in the idea stages, more of an outline than a paper itself, and I have been looking for articles that specifically deal with idea-formation. I know that Lunsford's article on collaboration and the different perspectives on knowledge creation will be helpful, but I am having trouble finding others...does anyone have any suggestions?  

Empty Writing Center

Last night I went to the Writing Center to shadow my consultant. Unfortunately, he did not have any appointments during that time, and so I was not able to sit in on a tutoring session. I am always surprised and a little disappointed when the Writing Center is so empty, and this sensation struck me even more strongly yesterday. This is the time of year when essays are piling up, when students are stressing in the library until 2 am trying to write that final essay that will pull up their grade or in some cases just allow them to scrape by. In short, this is the time when the Writing Center should be filled to the brim with students, when there shouldn't be any open appointments left. But it was empty. Why is this?

Though I cannot fully answer this question, I have some ideas as to the causes. For one thing, we are a university of procrastinators. Even the best students will sometimes wait until the night before to write the paper, and I'm sure if one conducted a survey the results would show that at least 50% of students procrastinate on their papers. This unfortunately stands in the way of them using the Writing Center, as you obviously cannot take a draft to the Center at 3 am the morning of the due date. I honestly don't know how the Writing Center can do anything to change this. Perhaps if a student goes to the Center once then they will develop better writing processes and learn the importance of recursive writing and various drafts, therefore creating a consistent client for the Center. Yet for this to happen the student has to get into the Writing Center in the first place. And the majority of people I know have never stepped foot into the 3rd floor of Weinstein.

Another reason could be bad publicity. Many of my friends don't even know where the Writing Center is, let alone what they do and how to make appointments. I know that once we were joking in class about the Writing Center offering to edit love letters for Valentines day, and as goofy as that idea is I think that fun things like that could really get the name out there. Rather than see the Center as an intimidating place where teachers send you if you're a bad writer, students need to see the Center as a common resource and a collaborative environment that everyone should feel comfortable using, even a fun place. Why not use hoky advertising or tabling things like the love letter idea to get the name out there, to change the Center's reputation?

Entre les Murs

"According to Flynn, these kinds of negative first impressions seem to be a vicious circle in high 

school classrooms.  Students like Tina go into a class challenging the teacher to teach them— 

they have a standoffish attitude that seems like hostility but which is actually, according to Phil, 

more of a challenge to earn their trust.  But some teachers perceive that attitude to be hostility, 

and they respond in kind." - Tina: A Portrait of Literate Awareness 

Christie S. Johnson 

While reading Christie Johnson's Honor's Thesis on literacy and its application in tutoring "at-risk" or "difficult" students, her problem defining literacy was what jumped out at me the most. This was partially because I myself have had many difficulties defining literacy - is it being able to read? to write? Or more broadly, is it simply able to understand and communicate effectively? Or is it how Johnson seems to see it, an double-sided issue of acting and reflecting? All of these questions are important, especially in this age of literary crisis. 

However, another aspect of the article stood out to me after having viewed a film for my French film class later this week. The movie, "Entre les Murs" (directly translated to "Between the Walls"; its English title is "The Class") details a year in a middle school on the outskirts of Paris, one of the arrondissements that deal with poverty and increased immigration. The movie hit many chords with me, but most relevantly for our writing class was its depiction of the often vicious circle of student-teacher interactions in difficult classrooms. Just as Johnson notes, a sense of hostility comes about when students "challenge" teachers to in turn challenge them, and this is detailed sometimes painfully in the movie. One of the students, Khoumba, has a very strained relationship with the teacher, M. Marin. At first I did not understand her hostility and then his responding hostility, but placing it in the context of Johnson's article it makes perfect sense. It is a simple yet large problem if miscommunication - Khoumba was wanting to be viewed seriously and to be challenged, but her stand-offish attitude just seemed like insolence to M. Marin, which caused him to treat her with even more condescension, exacerbating the problem. 

This is mostly a problem in the classroom, and I am not quite sure how the Writing Center can help or what role it can play in decreasing miscommunications between students and teachers. Does anyone have any ideas?