An article the mentions Jimi Hendrix and Writing Centers??? YES PLEASE

Since Professor Dolson encouraged us in class Wednesday so start thinking of a question or concern that we are particularly interested in and then doing some research about it, I found myself exploring Google Scholars this morning trying to find 1. a question and 2. some articles about it. I thought about researching community literacy and some of the school implimented programs, but then I realized that I might want to focus on something a little bit smaller, something that applies to the Richmond writing center.

So I did some research on writing centers and found that many writing centers seem to be

" stuck" in their ways. I think that this is true of Richmond's writing center as well- it is in this weirdly located place on the top of Weinstein, in what seems to be a soundproof room that is neither comforting or inviting. The tutors only have an hour to try to fix someone's writing, and these are students that oftentimes seem to be angry or embarrassed that they have to be in the writing center in the first place. There is definitely a stigmatized view of the writing center, and there is absolutely no reason that this should be an issue. Everyone, even professional writers have someone look over their writing and offer feedback. It's not a bad thing, and embarrassing thing, or a sign of weakness at all- in fact, its a requirement!

So I started thinking about ways that writing centers could change, could make themselves more visible over campus and more inviting to the students. I was drawn to and article ( or book, I'm not sure, its really long!) titled "Noise from the Writing Center" by Elizabeth Boquet. To be honest it was really long so I read the introduction and then focused on one chapter. I didn't understand a lot of it, but I was able to pull out some ideas and get the general sense that writing centers everywhere seem to be stuck and are looking for ways to reinvigorate their images on many college campuses!

Here is the link if anyone is interested - http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/usupress_pubs/30/

This also mentioned another article that I am looking into finding and will blog about later!

I am enjoying doing some individual research and finding articles that I'm interested in reading. I am also excited to see what issues everyone else chooses to explore!!

Have a great Friday afternoon!