9/9

1. Community - The idea of community is a cornerstone for everything when it comes to tutoring. The structure of camaraderie (rather than hierarchy) provides the opportunity for conversation and an overall social feeling in the Reading and Writing Center.

2. Conversation - Bruffee introduced some lofty ideas about the role of conversation as a historicized living discourse, but the core of the concept - about experiences intercepting in individuals, in social settings - has stuck with me. I’ve always believed the more you talk about something, the more you can understand it. Good writing can sometimes come from a week (or a day) or research, but more often than not I think it takes some internal connection to things we’ve already internalized, worried about, learned about in completely different places. It usually takes a conversation - even just a ten minute one - to jar those things loose and beef up a paper.

3. Acquisition - Sorry for the simile but I think a lot of good writing ends up being something like a Polaroid with double exposure. You can never read one book or understand one argument to write something true. As with conversation and community (as well as all the terms I’ve picked) everything comes from a variety of lived-experiences and hare-brained connections, as is the spirit of acquisition. Some suggestions about where similar themes or situations might be found can turn a boring, dead-end paper into something of a week-long passion project.

4. Social activity - Social activity is often used as a definition of writing, or at least the writing process. Writing is most often portrayed as a private activity - novels come out of years locked up in a cabin, essays come from long nights in library corners. However, writing is so much better - and so much fun - when it's talked about. The reclusiveness of The Writer seems to be an extension of ideas about privacy and oversharing. There's loads to be insecure about when it comes to how you write or what you write about and I think that’s why so many people think the Writing Center is more like stylistic therapy than anything else.

5. Constructive reflection - As mentioned in the big ol’ acquisition block, looking back and understanding how arguments could be made against your points - and how to appropriately defend your points against these claims - is important to writing a holistic and good piece of work.