Writing Center Mission
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Providing assistance to LCC students with writing projects in courses across the
curriculum.
A Pedagogy of Direct Intervention
Our mission in the Writing Center is most clearly articulated by Stephen
North in his 1984 landmark essay, "The Idea of a Writing Center." 
North
explains that writing centers are designed to help students (and faculty) become
better writers, not necessarily or immediately to produce better texts. To
reflect classroom practices in LCC's Communication Department and Department of
Language Skills, the Writing Center emphasizes the entire process of writing
rather than just the final end product. Our practice of providing writing
assistance in the Center is based on a model of peer assistance and what North
calls "a pedagogy of direct intervention," in which we seek to interrupt and
alter the writing process by working with students in the process of
writing.This direct intervention necessarily causes students to reflect on
writing processes and practices and, in so doing, to become better prepared to
approach college writing assignments.
"The Writing Center helped me to make good decisions
about how to structure my paper and how to develop my paragraphs."
- Alyssa Clouse, Sonography Major
The keys to direct intervention are timing and motivation. Our intention is that Writing Center services be required of no one. The Writing Center serves its mission best as a place where writers come when the timing is right and when they are motivated to receive feedback.
In reflecting practices in the Communication Department and the Department of Language Skills, our mission involves supporting the writing standards developed in the two departments. These standards have been designed in four areas: content/ideas, organization/structure, style, and mechanics. We assist students with content/ideas first, early-on in the writing process, and mechanics later in the process when drafts are being polished for immediate submission.
The Writing Center works to support classroom instruction not to replace it. This is perhaps most true in the area of mechanics. Our work with mechanics does not involve editing or proofreading but instead what we call "instructional editing," in which we assist students in addressing patterns of error. This assistance usually involves pointing the student to relevant sections in current writing course texts, or, when these texts do not provide adequate information, to offer other reference books housed in the Center.
Again, we passionately resist correcting students' errors for them but
instead assist
students
in finding the resources to address their own errors, and thus, to take
responsibility for their own writing projects. Students will, in all likelihood,
visit The Writing Center and return to class with mechanics errors in their
papers, as it takes the students time to learn how to use resources efficiently
in identifying their own errors. As the Writing Center is not designed to
provide instruction - but rather to support it - we advise that students who
need more direct instruction in writing seek their classroom instructor's
assistance during office hours - hours, which students often forget, expressly
set aside for this purpose.
"A good thing about the Writing Center is they make you
think about what you've written. Of course, you may not way to, but from my
experiences, I am learning it is necessary to do so. I know I would not have
matured as a writer, or even student, as much as I did if it wasn't for the
Writing Center."
Brandon Briegel, Engineering Major
We embrace a model of peer assistance in the Writing Center because we value what the research of many scholars in our field have asserted since the early 1970's: that peer consulting draws on natural social synergies and socially constructed/justified knowledge that exists between peers in a way that it does not exist between students and their instructors.
We are eager to assist you with your writing needs. Please feel free to contact us.
Arts and Sciences Division
Arts and Sciences Bldg, Room 255
Phone: (517) 483-1018
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