Locating the Center: Exploring the Roles of In-Class Tutors in First Year Composition Classrooms

In “Diplomatic Relations: Peer Tutors in the Writing Classroom,” Teagan Decker contends that “one of the most crucial” things that defines a writing center is “the relationship it has with those who assign the writing in the first place” (17). Decker’s contention, that looking to the other can clarify the self, poses important questions that every writing center, and writing program for that matter, should ask itself: who are we and what do we do? Essentially, we conducted this study to answer these questions. As these things are wont to do, our initial questions led to other, more specific questions: how do/should CI composition faculty view our in-class tutors (ICT)? What expectations do we have for each other? Do the Writing Center and the composition department have an understanding of the authority of the ICT within the classroom space?University Writing Cente