English Language Arts/ General
Guest Editors’ Introduction: Restarting the Conversation: Why We Need a Special Issue on Two-Year College Writing Centers
The editors of this special issue of Teaching English in the Two-Year College highlight the lack of scholarship on two-year college writing centers despite their widespread presence. Systemic barriers are in place at most two-year colleges including heavy workloads lack of institutional support for research and limited incentives for two-year-college writing center staff to publish. The issue features new research showcasing the unique challenges and innovations in two-year college writing centers. The editors hope this issue sparks an ongoing conversation around the important and distinctive work happening in two-year college writing centers
Queer Books and Bodies in the Writing Center
Answering recent calls for more scholarship on LGBTQIA+ experiences in the writing center this article reflects upon the joys and emotional labor involved in queering our center’s programming by offering an LGBTQIA+ literature writing group.
Tutoring on Demand! Exploring the Creep of the Higher Education For-Profit Online Tutoring Landscape on College Campuses
The article explores the prevalence of for-profit tutoring services contracted by four-year and two-year colleges and the perceptions writing center professionals have about for-profit tutoring services. Applying a grounded theory approach the researchers found five main themes that emerged from an open-ended survey sent to writing studies and writing center listservs in fall 2022. The article concludes with suggestions modeled after not-for-profit tutoring initiatives such as the Western eTutoring Consortium.
Establishing Best Practices: Guidelines for Starting or Improving an Embedded Tutoring Program in the Writing Center
In recent years the college writing center at our community college began an embedded tutoring program in hopes of reaching more developmental English students. A combination of the pandemic and the temporary shift to online-only tutoring pandemic funding opportunities and changes in the college’s developmental education program led tutors to rethink how best to help developmental students succeed. Ultimately this article shows that developing our embedded tutoring program facilitated a partnership between instructors tutors and students that resulted in higher academic performance student and faculty engagement and faculty buy-in.
Information for Authors
Please Explain Your Reasons Below: Analyzing Qualitative Data from a Community College Writing Center’s Nonusers
As part of a study I conducted to investigate the variables that influence our students’ writing center participation students who had not used the center were asked to submit free-response data to further describe their reasons for nonuse. For this article the nonusers’ narrative data are interpreted within the context of the quantitative results I obtained to gain a deeper understanding of why some students do not use our writing center. Based on my findings I offer recommendations for tailoring writing center support to better meet our students’ needs with the overall aim of increasing their use of our services.
What We Bring with Us: A Multivocal Look at the Experiences of Two-Year College Peer Writing Tutors
This article examines two-year college peer writing tutors’ preparedness for the emotional labor of writing center work. Through stories this multivocal piece shares the experiences of nine current and former peer tutors from a writing center at a large midwestern technical college and challenges the narrative of two-year colleges as remedial spaces.
It’s Giving (Non-)Performative: Toward a Radically Inclusive Two-Year Writing Center
This collaboratively composed paper recognizes the juxtaposition and resonance between two writing center workers’ experiences writerly voices and perspectives on the future of diversity equity and inclusion in the two-year writing center. It also takes into account our shared commitment to honesty with ourselves and each other about where we succeed and where we fail in our work as diversity practitioners.