1. FACILITATING INDEPENDENT
LEARNING IN AND BEYOND THE
WRITING CENTER
Ryan Burt, Johnson Deng, Caitlin Lowe,
Olivia Michaels, Gail Parsons, Sushen Tu
(slides designed by Olivia and Johnson)

2. Academic Support Programs (ASP
■ Unit in Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA)
■ Supports students in transition through academic
achievement courses.
■ Classes offered:
– General Studies 101 (High-challenge, high support)
– Education 401: Tutoring and Mentoring in Higher
Education (one-on-one, holistic mentoring)
■ Runs the Center for Learning and Undergraduate
Enrichment (CLUE)

3. The Center for Learning and
Undergraduate Enrichment (CLUE
■ Free late-night multidisciplinary study center located
in Mary Gates Hall
■ Offers drop in tutoring for a variety of subjects (math,
chemistry, computer science, languages, etc.)
■ CLUE Writing Center: the second largest writing
center on campus
– An important year for us: a wonderful new Writing
Center cohort!

4. Overview
5min 10min 10min 10min 10min
troduction
ypothesis
etacognition
Question 1:
Present
Question 2:
Future
Question 3:
Implications
Take-away
Practical
strategies
Conclus
Question
Contact

5. QUESTION:
How do students learn beyond the writing centers?
• How can we nurture their independent writing skills?

6. HYPOTHESIS:
METACOGNITION—
“the awareness and understanding
of one's own thought processes”

7. We conducted both academic research and personal
interviews with multiple other campus writing centers,
dividing our overall investigation into 3 sub-questions:
Question 3:
What are the
implications of our
findings from 1 and
relating to our work
the writing center?
Question 1:
What did our research
and interviews tell us
about metacognition?
Question 2:
What did our research
and interviews reveal
about how we can
encourage
metacognition?

8. 1a) What did our research tell us about
metacognition?
Motivational Interviewing:
§ Client-centered counseling
style
§ Focus on resolving
ambivalence
§ Support the student through
the process;
§ validation, reflection
§ Non-directive style
(SAMHSA, 2007)
“Critical thinking has to be
something more than just
plain good thinking. And her
it should be acknowledged
that just plain good thinking
is itself difficult.” (Johnson &
Hamby, 423)

9. 1b) What did our interviews reveal
about metacognition?
Most tutors are at least
indirectly aware of the
concept
• Reading materials were
helpful to a certain exten
• However, most writing
centers’ training seems t
take place on-the-job,
between tutors.
Was meta-cognition ever
addressed?
§ Surprisingly, it was
addressed very little.
§ Current practices
border on including
metacognition—but
not explicitly.

10. 2a) What did our research reveal about
how we can encourage metacognition?
Motivational Scaffolding:
the feedback tutors use to build
rapport and solidarity with
students and consistently engage
them in sessions.
§ Positive politeness strategies
§ Praise, encouragement,
concern, sympathy,
empathy, reinforcement of
student control
“Tutors in writing center conference
can use motivational scaffolding …
“a kind of social accelerator” where
the speaker indicates he or she wa
to strengthen the connection he or
she has with the hearer (103).”
both left and above:
(Mackiewicz and Thompson, 2013)

11. 2b) What did our interviews reveal about
how we can encourage metacognition?
§ Many students who visit writin
centers are English Language
Learners (ELLs)
§ Interviewees noted their
difficulty in overcoming langua
barriers
§ Due to these barriers, structur
concerns sometimes take a
backseat in sessions with ELL
§ Most common tutoring approach
described: asking neutral questions to
open up discussion about a paper’s
structural elements.
§ Students have generally been capable
of addressing structural concerns—
when they are pointed out.
§ Whether they continue by asking
themselves helpful questions for later
papers remains to be seen.
§ Tutors don’t see the same students
enough to track if they substantially
improved their writing skills.

12. 2b) What did our interviews reveal about
how we can encourage metacognition?
§ For Native speakers, over-confidenc
in their own compositional quality
occasionally blinds them to the
structural critiques tutors proffered.
§ Some arrive with an understanding
that the tutor’s role was not that of a
peer educator but that of a
subordinate.
§ If anything, breaking through these
mental barriers in unreceptive
students is key to helping them on
their way to better writing.
§ ELLs prioritize seeking grammar
help without recognizing or
addressing the underlying
linguistic causes for their
mistakes.
§ Interestingly, interviewees cited
the students least receptive to
tutoring as being usually native
English speakers. Why?

13. 3a) What are the implications of 1a) and 2a) regard
our work in the writing center?
O
A
R
S
Open Questions: invite others to “tell their
story” in their own words without leading them
in a specific direction.
Affirmations: genuine statements of client
strengths which acknowledge and promote
behaviors that enable positive change.
Reflective Listening: method of building
trusting relationships and fostering motivation
to change. (repeating, rephrasing/
paraphrasing, reflection of feeling)
Summaries: special applications of reflective
listening. They can be used throughout a
conversation, but are particularly helpful at
transition points.
(SAMHSA.gov, 2007)

14. 3a) What are the implications of 1a) and 2a)
regarding our work in the writing center?
Philosophy: “Wittgenstein
(1980, p. 74e) said ‘‘denken
ist schewer,’’ thinking is hard:
there is a tendency to float on
the surface and not to take a
real effort to dive down below
it.” (Johnson & Hamby, 423)
“The problem, as we
conceive it, [with defining
critical thinking] is not
that there are no good
definitions, but that there
are an overabundance of
problematic definitions.”
(Johnson & Hamby, 417)

15. 3b) What are the implications of 1b) and 2b)
regarding our work in the writing center?
§ Current process-oriented methods
are effective at helping students
adjust their writing to the specific
requirements their coursework
expects.
§ However, a consistent focus on
encouraging students to engage
in continuous meta-cogitation
when approaching a paper is not
always present.
§ Some students are more receptiv
discussion-based approaches tha
others
§ However, a tutor’s structural
approach to a paper is insufficien
for handling less-receptive studen
§ Stressing ‘metacognition’ means
heightening and reinforcing the
already established ideologies of
‘process oriented’ writing critique
into a more potent set of real
methods.

16. TAKE-AWAY POINTS

17. Gail:
“Tutors can improve their tutoring
by being better counselors.”

18. Sushen:
“Explicitly discussing metacognition with
students encourages them to connect wha
they already know with what they're learnin
and writing about.”

19. Johnson:
“Openly talk about metacognition with student
Get them to understand their own writing proce
by questioning how and if their methods achiev
their intended purpose.”

20. Olivia:
“Encouraging metacognition in students
is crucial--but we must also remind
ourselves to step back and re-evaluate
our own thoughts and methods.”

21. QUESTIONS?

22. hank you for
stening!
Contact Information:
Caitlin Lowe – Writing Center Lead
lowe.caitlin@gmail.com
Ryan Burt - Program Manager/ELL Resources
rburt@uw.edu
Olivia Michaels – CLUE Writing Tutor
oliviafi@uw.edu
Johnson Deng – CLUE Writing Tutor
johnson.jy.deng@gmail.com
Sushen Tu – CLUE Writing Tutor
sushentu@gmail.com
Gail Parsons – CLUE Writing Tutor
gmpprofessional@gmail.com
Writing Center Email:
wcclue@uw.edu
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Affirmation, Reflective Listening, and Summary
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Ralph H., and Benjamin Hamby. "A Meta-Level Approach to
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cience+Business Media Dordrecht, 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 11
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z, Jo, and Isabelle Thompson. "Motivational Scaffolding,
, and Writing Center Tutoring." The Writing Center
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hui. "Training in Brainstorming and Developing Writing
Libraries Database. Oxford University Press, 2 Apr. 2007.
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isa. "Using Motivational Interviewing to Help Your
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