Silence in the Writing Center: Comparing Student to Consultant Word Ratios.

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Silence in the Writing Center: Comparing Student to Consultant Word Ratios.
Language: English
Authors: Kreiser, Chris
Peer Reviewed: N
Page Count: 13
Publication Date: 2002
Document Type: Reports - Research
Speeches/Meeting Papers
Tests/Questionnaires
Descriptors: Case Studies, Classroom Techniques, Comparative Analysis, Consultants, Discourse Analysis, Higher Education, Questionnaires, Teacher Student Relationship, Writing Instruction, Writing Laboratories
Abstract: A teacher may assume he or she has power in the classroom and utilize what he or she considers to be thoughtful dramatic pauses to frame and enhance certain points during the lecture. A student, seated in the back row, may regard these pauses not as the rhetorical flourishes intended but as indicative of the teacher's hesitancy or confusion and comment as such, in a subversive way, to fellow classmates. Within the classroom scenario many applications and interpretations of power exist as do many uses, and understandings, of silence. This paper explores three contrasts in three writing center consultation case studies. Specifically, the paper proposes a new methodology for analyzing consultation transcripts, a methodology that can indicate which participant is letting the other speak--and conversely, who is enforcing or who is deploying silence. It finds that this methodology can note many perspectives of the subjective and dynamic interplay of silence and power during a writing center consultation, and that it is one more training tool to improve the consultant's collaborative and power awareness. The student questionnaire and post-questionnaire and consultant questionnaire are attached. (NKA)
Entry Date: 2002
Accession Number: ED464358
Database: ERIC
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