Clint Gardner

The following was presented in a roundtable session at the National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing (November 3, 2018) at the South Padre Island Convention Center, Texas with Romeo García of the University of Utah, Jorge Ortega of Weber State University, and Jonathan Ramirez of Salt Lake Community College. I’m looking at my yellow notepad on which I’ve scrawled “NCPTW 2018” at the top.  Yes, I do still primarily draft by hand, even though I have handwriting that would put even the most diehard pharmacist to the test.  I’ve written a note to myself, lest I forget, “START WITH SOMETHING CONTROVERSIAL” in all caps.  And now, as I’m actually typing this into my computer I’m asking myself why? As a rhetorical device, starting with a controversial statement is, most likely, meant to rile your audience up--get them to pay attention.  I don’t know about you, but I’m a little weary these days of the controversial--the attention-grabbing. Ok, so in case you were won...

Presented at CCCC 2018 in Kansas City, Missouri with Chris Blankenship.

I want to share a story with you.  It is a story that I’ve shared before in venues like this.  It is a story that I’ve shared in just talking with folks about peer tutors and writing centers.   While I do apologize for the repetition, I must add that this is one of those stories that I repeat not simply because it is a good story, but, more because it is a foundational story to my work at a community college.  I usually call it “A Tale of Woe and Intrigue.” Way back in the 90s when I was pretty new to my writing center directing gig, I was presenting at local TYCA conference about developing the SLCC Student Writing gCenter.  It was a pretty standard writing center start-up story, overall--Nothing really any different from other types of institutions, I supose. You can imagine, then, during the question time, that I was rather taken aback when my whole presentation and premise for hiring peer tutors was dismissed by a writing center colleague from another comm...

My colleagues Dawn Fels, Maggie Herb, Lila Naydan, and I have been asked to innagurate the Writing Center Journal's blog community series.  We're writing about the working continditions of contingent writing center employees weekly during the month of February, 2016.

Sustaining Writing & Writing Centers Adapting & Growing Under Challenging Conditions November 7, 2014 Canadian University of Dubai Thank you and good afternoon. I've been told by very reliable sources (students) that funny cat videos get people’s attention and help you make new friends.  Since I want to do both, here goes nothing. But if that didn’t get your attention, here’s another one. Sorry for that. But I did get your attention, right?  Getting the attention of people isn't always the easiest thing to do. I think we know that as teachers. In the classroom, I find that starting with writing tends to get everyone’s attention, and gets them focussed on the subject matter  In the spirit of engaging you with my subject matter this afternoon, like the inveterate teacher of writing that I am, I’m going to have you do a bit of writing.  About a month or so ago, I was chatting online with my writing center...