I’m in a bad way right now.

I’m waiting on the last notification regarding my admission to a graduate school for a doctorate program in comp/rhet. To be clear, this is both the fifth notification of the Fall 2012 group, and the tenth when combined with the Fall 2011 group. So far I’m 9/10 in the “no thank you” column. I’ve told myself throughout that only one has to say “yes,” but that has been less consolation each time and every single day without an answer becomes harder than the last. This is it. The last one. They have to say “yes.”

Here’s a different kind of admission: when I started graduate school in 2009, I was aimlessly returning to school because my journalism BA hadn’t been enough use in finding a career I was really interested in. I had attempted to start a career as a graphic designer because it was tangentially related to layout and design for publications, and the field seemed kinda neat, but I had quickly realized that it was a field where only the most skilled and dedicated to the art advance, and that I didn’t like any of my possible futures should I remain. I retreated to retail management for an optical chain because it paid better, but that was obviously inadequate salve to a growing sense of being directionless. I felt it was a long shot that UM-Flint would be a good place, seeing as I had been so thoroughly dissatisfied by my time at Michigan State and the related career woes, but I applied anyway. I was accepted, but under probation since my GPA at MSU had been so thoroughly average. I didn’t know where I was going, but I figured ending up with an English Language and Literature MA had to be better than where I was.

I had no idea how much better it was about to become.

I took to the program like the proverbial duck. My first semester consisted of a general foundation course and an unrelated elective, but everything clicked starting in May of 09. It was then that I took Teaching College Composition with Jacob Blumner, which led me directly onto the path that has brought me to this point. I realized that my personal love of writing, which I had always associated negatively with academics through high school and undergrad, could be channeled so much differently at the graduate level. Soon I had joined the writing center on campus and continued to grow in my appreciation for the incredible complexity of the writing process, and the myriad difficulties students face in completing writing tasks in college and beyond. Thanks to the writing center, my work with amazing faculty and fellow tutors, and the genuinely enriching classwork, I’ve grown immensely as a student and theorist. Beyond justifying the school’s faith in me (my probation was lifted by August 09, and I’ve maintained a near-perfect GPA since enrolling), I’ve redeemed my faith that there IS a direction for me.

The final school I’m waiting for word from is Georgia State University in Atlanta. This is also, in a twist of drama, the school I want most and feel the most connected to after a visit to the campus in January. For three weeks now, I’ve been checking the Applicant Status screen nearly every waking hour. Each time I submit my login and await the response, I feel suspended in a moment between two equally possible realities: in the first, my application has been accepted. I’m elated. From there it’s on to a life where I really settle into my future as an instructor of writing, and a continuing student of writing. I’m proceeding on the exact path I’ve intended to for over two years.

In the second, I find out that I’ve missed on the tenth out of ten tries in the past year and a half, and I am faced with the very ugly choice of giving up on my hopes for more study – I can go on to be a lecturer, which will still put me in touch with the writers I want to help, but I’m leaving an academic journey that I feel has only really just begun, and I can’t help but feel that I’m also missing out on a level of access to writing pedagogy that has been part of my plan for two years.

When I received the final denial of the 2011 cycle last March, I crashed hard, but I refused to let it get to me for too long. I resolved I would do what I could to fix my perceived failings and try again. Part of that was having kept to myself in the field’s discourse, so I took hold of opportunities to present at two conferences on topics related to the writing center. More importantly, I was honest with myself about two fundamental changes that had to happen internally.

First, I had erred in how I’d selected schools in the 2011 cycle. I’d chosen most of my schools based on my desire to attend the university at large, and figured any university with an English PhD would fit. Of course, the “spray and pray” method didn’t work. Those schools couldn’t see a place for me because I hadn’t articulated my place with them. That was an easy fix: for the 2012 group, I chose schools with more fitting composition/rhetoric presences where I could already see myself fitting in. The second change was far more crucial: I refined my own sense of why I wanted to study at the doctorate level. Before, I think I had been infatuated with the idea of getting a PhD. I’d romanticized the accomplishment of being accepted, and the eventual life of the professor to come after. It may turn out that the 2011 denials were for the better because I know a harsh truth about myself: my interest in a thing wanes when it gets hard unless I really, truly want something. But this? A life facilitating writing – I wanted it. Badly.

I refocused. The frustration of round one had tempered me. I immediately realized it wasn’t just the chance to live the dream of the academic wonk, but it was the chance to help people have a better experience with writing. I’d always enjoyed working in the writing center, but I better appreciated this position’s power to connect another writer with writing. Despite academic experiences in my teens and twenties that could have undermined it, I had managed to preserve my genuine love of writing. Composition pedagogy and the writing center offered a path to appreciate that not everyone was so fortunate. I was sitting next to people who had either never believed in their own writing, or who had that belief beaten out of them. Nearly every single person who lays their paper down on our chipped purple tabletops says, “I can’t write.” They genuinely believe it. I don’t pretend that I can reverse years of conditioning in 30 minutes, but nothing pleases me more than helping one of these nonbelievers see the better writing already within their draft and the better writer already within themselves.

Sometimes it takes a while to realize what you want to do. I know I’m a better applicant now. I also understand that I’m weighing in against many others who are just as, if not more, qualified on paper. What I have left at this point is a confidence in my own mission, and confidence in how I present that. I don’t just want a PhD; I want all the tools and experience possible to enable others to see beyond their writing pasts to different writing futures, just as I have. This is what I want to keep doing. This is what I want more of.

One year ago, I was paralyzed with indecision. 

For no other reason than because it felt like something to do, I’m posting what I presented Saturday, November 5 at 8am during the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing. For those of you unfamiliar with the format, I modeled it loosely after the format seen here, although I did not autotime the slides and used some very minimalist wording for takeaways – that’s why it’s so graphic heavy and so text-light. The text is the (approximate) script I used to accompany the slide you’ll see with it.

Hi. I’m Roger Austin. I’m a tutor at the Marian E. Wright Writing Center at the University of Michigan-Flint. We’re a small to medium sized writing center, with between 15-20 student tutors on staff in a given semester. I’m talking today about negotiating how we approach our use of directiveness as tutors.

Like my fellow tutors, I underwent a great deal of training – our writing center requires its tutors to take a full-semester class with an observation component – and in that class, we are of course introduced to a whole range of tutoring styles and theories. The intention was to give us the range of options and tools. Our instructor and center director was really specific about only one thing he wanted in the center: “I don’t like minimalism.” So what happened in my first semester tutoring?

Of course, I went minimalist. I heard myself saying “what do you think” to everything students asked me and I cringed, but I kept doing it. For the first couple of months, I’d sit back and let the students do the work, and the results were usually good, but I felt like I was ignoring opportunities to help them better. Finally, I realized I had started tutoring as a minimalist because I felt intimidated by the power I’d been given over my fellow students. I didn’t want to screw this up. So then what happened for the rest of the semester?

I did the exact opposite. Suddenly I knew the answer, I was in a position to share it, and share it I did. I answered questions with certitude. I suggested the best words. I stopped saying “I think you could” and started saying “I think you should.” I quickly realized this was no better and vowed to move somewhere toward the middle. I had to establish a few things, first.

Writing center tutors are not really peers. Placed in this position of reviewing, critiquing, and suggesting methods of development for other students is scary. We do these things as a peer, but from a formal, institutional role in which the writing center casts us. It’s no wonder there’s a pressure to back off and maintain the sense of peership minimalism offers. The consequences are lower.

On the other hand, it’s easy to swing the other way once the tutor realizes that first and foremost, they are there to help. From there it’s a short trip to seeing writers as possessing “flawed” documents that can be “fixed.” Tutors are put there with an authority. Exercising it is startlingly easy, and what the writer leaves with is undoubtedly a “better” paper, but it is no longer really their paper.

Just because a tutor has authority, that does not mean the tutor should be authoritarian. A tutor has the opportunity to introduce the writer to a two-way conversation about writing: suggestions are made, arguments are examined, and content is weighed, but all decisions to revise remain ultimately with the text’s owner. Two writers discussing a spectrum of writing options while maintaining the authority of both contributors is pure collaboration. How does the tutor define the boundaries of that spectrum, and of that collaboration?

“Directive” is not (always) a bad word. When a writer turns to you not because they want you to do the work, but because they don’t know or aren’t sure how to do the work, give them a direction because they may feel directionless. You don’t have to be a turn-by-turn GPS with “A Paper” as the destination. You can be a compass and give the writer a heading.

But purely directive removes the writer. If a writer hasn’t turned to you for direction, or needs only a little nudge, there’s a fine line for the tutor between making a suggestion and taking over.  Being too directive can preempt the writer’s invention process, mute their voice, and rob them of their stake in the outcome. Instead of showing the writer what they can do to write better, you’ve only shown them how you write better.

“Minimalist” is not (always) a bad word. When your writer has the idea, has the drive, and has the skills, but needs a sounding board or a warm body to listen to their plans, sit back and see how far they can go. Ask questions about their work, not their questions. Make them think about how their audience will read them, don’t just tell them. Giving the writer a chance to take control can lead them to a better learning experience.

But purely minimalist stalls the writer. Refusing to ever read the writer’s paper to them is denying them the chance to hear their words more objectively. Mirroring the body language of a disinterested writer borders on being petty. If you meet the writer’s every question with a question of your own, you are obstructing their search for answers, while plainly displaying that you know but are not sharing. Doing this abuses your position of authority, is evasive, and almost elitist.

It may be easy to make assumptions about where a writer will be on their spectrum of writing skill, and what help they will need accordingly, but be willing to move along the spectrum to meet your writer where they need you.

When you start out minimal, you offer the writer a chance to step up and assert their authority over their work. If they don’t seem to want that authority, or don’t think they can handle it, help them find it. Even though they didn’t want that authority at first, they may want to take it back from you as the session unfolds. Offer the reins back frequently.

The best sessions can be when you sit back, and with only a few questions or comments, inspire your student to see their own text in a whole new way. Not only can it be enjoyable for you to watch that session unfold so well, but you’re demonstrating that writers own their writing, and can add, subtract, invent, reinvent, or discard their words any time they want.

If the writer resists their authority, insisting they take it helps no one. Ask questions about the assignment. Establish what they know about their topic. Make suggestions. Tell them if something isn’t clear. Tell them there are alternatives, and don’t be afraid to show them a few. If their paper lacks a clear thesis, tell them so. If a supporting argument is underdeveloped, tell them that. This doesn’t mean you have to tell them exactly how to fix it.

The best sessions can also be when you help a writer who was frustrated by their work step back, break the assignment down into its component parts, and help them form a plan to attack each one. Not only can it be enjoyable for you to watch that session unfold so well, but you’ve also defanged the assignment before it became unmanageable, and have show them that a hard assignment is not an impossible assignment.

We tell our writers that writing is a recursive process that moves back and forth along invention, drafting, and revision constantly. The journey along the spectrum of directivity is not a straight line, but a path that twists back on itself. Starting minimalist and going directive doesn’t mean the tutor has to stay directive. If the session needs to start directive, it doesn’t mean the tutor can’t put the power back in the writer’s hands by offering more minimalist input later.

The writer may have abandoned control, but it is the tutor’s duty to keep giving it back. The writer may keep pushing the reins away, and if they do, don’t force the issue. The writer may also want to take the reins back after seeing one barrier fall away, and be eager to push the rest aside themselves.

Writers exist at many places on the spectrums of writing skill and engagement. By moving fluidly along the spectrum of directivity, tutors can more nimbly intercept the writers wherever they are on their personal writing spectrums, and more assuredly guide them to where they want to go.

Thank you.

A few months ago, I attended Computers and Writing 2011 in Ann Arbor. I went at the suggestion of James Schirmer, who correctly thought I’d find the topics there interesting. But this story is not about that conference … much.

A few weeks ago, I was asked by Jacob Blumner to attend the Lilly Conference in Traverse City, and also to fill in for his role in a joint presentation with faculty connected to the Doctor of Nursing Practice/Marian E. Wright Writing Center online writing collaboration. But this story is not about that conference … much.

What this story is about is the role of Twitter in such academic venues. In the case of one conference, the role was robust, and in the other practically non-existent. The only detour into the actual conference content I’ll take is to acknowledge that I was frankly far more interested in the C&W schedule, being that it aligns so closely with my own interests, both personally and academically. The Lilly schedule was much more multi-disciplinary, its strength lying in drawing ideas from multiple systems of thought. I should probably note that, given the groups the conferences would attract, it’s probably not surprising that C&W was the conference big on tweets.

What strikes me is the opportunity missed by Lilly organizers and attendees to enhance their conference discussions. The rich, swift moving Twitter backchannel discussion at C&W stands out as one of the best experiences related to the conference. Not only was I benefitting from the enriching discussions from attendees and presenters of the sessions I was personally attending in the physical world, but I was also gleaning additional insights from the same people in the digital space concurrently. Twitter also offered benefits not possible in the physical space: participants who didn’t feel comfortable speaking up in the session, or who missed the opportunity to contribute in a timely manner but still wanted to offer a comment, and participants who wanted to distill the proceedings into salient takeaways all had a venue in which to speak. And as a bonus, pearls of insight freshly shucked in other concurrent sessions had an outlet to attendees who may have wanted to join in, but chose to participate in other, equally-tempting sessions. At C&W, thousands of #cwcon tweets created an entirely secondary conference experience over the course of four days, not even accounting for the days leading up to and weeks after. Any combination of search terms you can think of related to the Lilly Conference, including the official Twitter account, produces barely a dozen relevant results – two of them were my own, and there were hundreds of attendees there.

This comes just a month shy of my trip to the National Conference on Peer Tutoring and Writing in Miami (shameless plug: join me for “Tutoring Across the Spectrum of Directivity,” tentatively scheduled for Saturday morning, Session B at 8 am – stay tuned for changes!). I anticipate that just like the C&W conference in May, the NCPTW conference is more applicable to a narrower group of subjects, which may bolster the interest all attendees may have in most sessions, both in sharing and learning from second-hand. By contrast, the sessions at Lilly were much more varied in subject and scope, so the universality of interest must have been lower. I think the fate of Lilly can be easily avoided at NCPTW, and I think the conference experience would be better for it.

Unfortunately, at this moment there’s nothing to indicate an official Twitter presence for this upcoming NCPTW conference. Being the busy body I can be sometimes, I’ve just emailed the social networking coordinator for NCPTW, suggesting a more formal effort here. Until I get a response, I’m going to start tweeting with the #NCPTW tag. I do hope something official is announced soon, and well before the actual start date. *** Beside the obvious benefits of a concurrent conference backchannel, Twitter functions well in its most basic role as a social network, allowing attendees to connect before they arrive, plan what they intend to do during non-conference times, and to build networks of like minds to carry with them beyond the sessions.

I truly hope that either #NCPTW or something similar can take off as an umbrella hashtag. Even if I’m surrounded by those of a similar interest in Miami, I’d hate to feel as detached from other attendees as I did at the Lilly Conference.

*** EDIT: I’ve had the pleasure of learning from the NCPTW Social Networking Coordinator that they’ve taken my suggestion and created @NCPTW. Now to swell the following ranks…

At 11:23 Friday, I used a break from my legendary opticianry to be witness to one of the saddest things I’ve seen as an American. It was delayed a few moments in happening to ensure safety, but at 11:29, Space Shuttle Atlantis lifted off, carrying four astronauts and supplies bound for the International Space Station.

This was the last shuttle mission. The last planned manned space launch. It was so definitely the last mission that, unlike all missions before it, no other Shuttle and crew were on standby to rescue STS135 in the event of craft failure in orbit. Thus, the crew was limited to only four, the number of people the ISS and a returning Russian Soyuz capsule could accommodate.

We let the shuttle program expire with nothing ready to pick up where it left off, and worse, the planned replacement isn’t even a sure thing. The earliest date for the US to return to space is set at maybe-gonna-happen-but-likely-to-be-delayed 2016. NASA is targeted constantly for defunding of its already ludicrously low budget.

I do not want to detract from the impressive and valuable work of NASA’s unmanned science missions in landers and probes. With Hubble, Spirit/Opportunity, and New Horizons as prime examples,the usefulness of our inspiring unmanned exploration initiatives is not the issue (although I’m not surprised that recent house appropriations proposals would see the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope, pretty much killed). What galls me, even as a humanities academic-to-be, is our complete disregard for the science necessary to support the future of humanity. We cannot stay on this single lump of dirt orbiting one star indefinitely. We cannot hope to eek out a “quality” of life equal to our current level forever if we restrict ourselves to this finite, limited Earth.

I’m not trying to be the Star Trek Geek Roger with this rant; I understand that the future of space exploration isn’t easy. Theoretically, we are going to be confined to this solar system for centuries, and may never be able to leave. Space is expansive and expensive, hazardous and humbling. While I personally believe that the limitations we’re unable to reconcile now have more to do with our inexperience than true, iron-clad, immutable laws, I recognize that it isn’t practical to see a future galavanting with the Vulcans, Klingons, and Cardassians – the science doesn’t support it. The science does support distribution of  population, resource riches great enough to achieve a post-scarcity society, and a better understanding of our/Earth’s evolutionary past. 

I don’t buy the argument that the money is better spent on Earth. When two years of Iraq/Afghanistan operations exceed NASA’s ENTIRE 50+ year budget, the argument of mutual exclusivity looks particularly absurd. Such backward thinking is what brought us here today, to an America without a manned spaceflight program and vague, ever-movable timelines for a return to the moon or a trip to Mars. 

When Atlantis returns to Earth on July 20 – the 42nd anniversary of the first moon landing and a painful juxtaposition to behold – it will be the last display of America’s human space flight for at least five years. Atlantis will then be decommissioned, stripped down, and take up residence as the centerpiece of a public exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center, flipped upside down with its bay doors perpetually open. The concept is to recall Atlantis as it lived, in orbit around Earth, frozen in a pose it may have held when it was 190 miles above our heads instead of 192 feet. Like all taxidermy, however, I’m inclined to think it will exhibit not a farcical recreation of life, but a chilling, spectral memorial of death. How long must we wait for a new friend to help us move on from the loss of a three-decade friendship?