Indications of Single-Session Improvement in Writing Center Sessions

Abstract

In the complementary fields of Composition and Writing Center Studies, the common goal is to guide writers toward improvement in literate practices. However, the meaning of the word “improvement” has undergone radical shifts across time within both fields. It has of late shifted away from a concrete, product-oriented definition toward a non-concrete, process and person-centered nebula. In short, the field of Writing Studies has become very sure what improvement is not, while less sure what it is. Despite this uncertainty, one area of recent agreement appears to be the importance of control that writers hold in navigating within and across literate contexts, often referred to by the slippery term, agency. This pilot study seeks to utilize the voices of researchers across a spectrum of fields to more precisely define agency. This definition will be consistent with current scholarship in both Composition and Writing Center Studies and informed by related fields such as linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and philosophy. It will then utilize that definition in constructing a RAD (replicable, aggregable and data-driven) qualitative analysis of post-session interviews between researcher and writer. This method will attempt to determine possibilities and guidelines for future research. Particularly, it will provide a framework for future researchers to measure improvement in writing through a more refined definition of social agency. Through that, it will seek to support previous study which suggests as little as a single session in the Writing Center can demonstrate improvement in students’ perceptions of their own writing.