Sucess Stories

Learning About Writing from Both Sides of the Desk

by Kenneth Appelt
TCALL Professional Development Specialist

“Success Stories” can inspire readers to strive for their personal goals, and it is certainly a moment of triumph for the writer who sees his or her writing “in print” for the first time. Each summer the Texas Center for the Advancement of Literacy and Learning (TCALL) publishes the “Success Stories” issue of our quarterly publication, and each year the number of submitted stories rises. In fact, we received so many great stories in recent years that we decided to begin posting a new success story on our Website each month. (Click the “Success Stories” link in the “What’s New” area of the TCALL Website homepage for the story archive.) The demand for copies of the issue has also increased because more and more teachers find the inspiring stories useful and encouraging to students in their classrooms.

In this article, I want to share a personal narrative of my experiences working with “remedial writers” in the Writing Center at the University of Iowa during the early 1980s under the direction of Lou Kelly. However, before I became a tutor of other students, I sat on the “other side of the desk” – as a student.

On reflection, I can say that throughout high school and my undergraduate degree program (late 60s to early 70s), I never had a teacher who actually taught me writing. Sure papers were assigned and sometimes we had to turn in an outline before we wrote the paper, but most of our class time focused on “how great” the GREAT writers in literary history were. We did plenty of vocabulary study to prepare for the SAT, but “writing” instruction was mainly about grammar and punctuation and what one should NOT do. Writing appeared to be a field of land mines, and my teachers nearly convinced me that I could never become a writer. It was not my gift.

I returned to graduate school almost six years after completing my undergraduate degree. The jobs I held during those six years did not require much writing. When I started graduate school, the meager writing skills I did have were uncomfortably rusty. I had certainly not been writing the kinds of analytical and critical papers required in my graduate courses. In this new environment, I was experiencing major culture shock; I was a “remedial” writer.

Feeling embarrassed, desperate, and unprepared, I went to the University of Iowa Writing Lab to sign up for tutoring sessions. While signing up, I was calmly assured that the tutors have helped many graduate students with their academic writing. Although I was not aware of it at the time, the Iowa Writing Center began in 1934 and is the first university writing center established in the United States.

While the politically correct term is now “Writing Center,” the first writing tutor at Iowa, Miss Carrie Ellen Stanley, intentionally chose the term Laboratory because it was the place where students labored to become better writers. From the beginning, the “Lab” was not a “fix-it-up” shop. The goal was always to help struggling writers develop strategies for researching, organizing, drafting, editing, and revising.

My first day as a student in the Writing Lab began with introductions and a conversation with my assigned writing tutor. She asked about the difficulties I was having and what things I felt needed improvement. After a short time, she excused herself to work with another student and asked me to continue our conversation by “talking on paper” about myself as a writer. She asked that I use my everyday conversational voice without worrying about "correctness” and encouraged me to tell her as much as I possibly could.

My tutor began the second session by acknowledging my “talking on paper” and said she enjoyed hearing my “voice” in the writing. We talked briefly about goals. Then she gave me another “invitation” to write. The Iowa Writing Lab “invitations” began with Lou Kelly, director of the center from 1965 to 1989, and are designed to prompt freewriting by stimulating memory and reflection leading students to “talk on paper,” connecting experiences, ideas, and feelings.

Kelly’s “invitations” begin with autobiographical subjects: the writer’s reading and writing habits, home, special talents, or dreams. Creative “invitations” prompt wordplay and experimentations with form and style. The progression of assignments leads toward more academic topics as students are invited to form opinions and support them with evidence and reasoning. (Many of these invitations are available on the University of Iowa Writing Center Website at http://www.uiowa.edu/~writingc/)

My experience as a student in the Iowa Writing Lab was a blessing. My rusty skills were polished up and my confidence built as I learned to experiment with my writing until it said what I wanted it to say. I was able to move from “talking on paper” about my personal experiences to “thinking on paper” about new ideas and information. I looked forward to my writing time; it was a place to discover rather than a place to produce a product for a grade.

Two semesters later I took Lou Kelly’s graduate level course, Teaching in a Writing Lab. The following semester I served as tutor to other “remedial” students as they also labored to improve their writing ability. It was fascinating and enriching to reflect on the experiences of my students and my own experiences from “both sides of the desk.” For my own development as teacher of writing, the insights gained have lasted a lifetime.

The University of Iowa Writing Center – The oldest writing center in the U.S.! “Tutors are oriented not to “fix” individual papers but rather to assist writers in improving their strategies for researching, organizing, drafting, editing, and revising.” Resources area of this Website has links to great resources, ESL instruction tips, and other writing Websites. http://www.uiowa.edu/~writingc/