Neutral Zone: The Writing Center and the Classroom
Access full-text files
Date
2007
Authors
Chadwick, Marjorie
Bae, Kyung-Hee
Doss, Michelle Miley
Gary, Mary
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Department
Description
At the forefront of current educational discourse is a call for a more relevant relationship between what is taught in the classroom and what is practiced in the workplace. In order to meaningfully prepare students to participate in today’s rapidly changing global economy, academia must transform its outmoded theoretical approach to educating students by replacing it with a pragmatic model suited to the current socio-political reality of globalization. With the interconnectivity and interdependence characteristic of globalization, come the need for versatile, practical communication skills, making Writing across the Curriculum and Writing in the Disciplines movements critical in bridging the gap between the abstract and the concrete. In order to better assist our students in navigating today’s marketplace, we at the University of Houston (UH) Writing Center have recognized the necessity of implementing an integrated, heterogeneous approach to teaching writing, one which provides students with a toolbox of strategies and techniques to handle the contingencies inherent in writing for today’s wide-ranging audiences. Importantly, the UH Writing Center exists as an autonomous neutral zone, an in-between site with no political agenda belonging to everyone. It is the UH Writing Center’s neutrality and integrated approach to writing that facilitates what Jonathan Monroe identifies as “the development of multiple literacies and a capacity for discursive mobility.”