ECWCA

A great conference. That's pretty much the consensus after this weekend. Seven advisors went up to present at IUPUI on Friday and Saturday, and everything went well. Leigh and Kali talked on chaos in the writing center, and no less than Mickey Harris, the keynote speaker, attended their session (yup, she wrote the article you read, Sarah). She said the presentation was excellent. And so was Jordan, Tyler, and Rebecca's, on how work in other centers influences their work in the Writing Center, and so was Colin and Kelsey's on how we talk with writers. I may even try to have them come in to 242 and give the presentation. They examined both student texts and transcripts of sessions to uncover what questions we ask and how they might affect a writer.
I also found some other sessions that sparked a lot of ideas. I've got a copy of a tutoring rubric that I'll bring in to show you. And, there are more ideas for research that we can, and should, conduct in a writing center, trying to measure and evaluate the work we do. If we look to make better writers, and better texts, then how to we determine how well or even if we are doing that.
And, of course, we found a good restaurant. An Italian place where we ordered together and ate as much as we liked. For dessert, tiramisu. Fantastic. And the fried zucchini was excellent, too. They announced at this conference that the next one will probably be over in Clarion, Pennsylvania, so perhaps some of you will be interested in attending that one. A good, energizing, invigorating time, which is what a conference should be.