Sean Tyler: Blog 9

 

I don't believe research is the path for every tutor, but I do believe that research is important for writing centers. I think quantifying what works and what doesn't is important and sharing that information is valuable for other centers. The research I have studies has helped me prepare for tutoring situations I haven't personally encountered. I think a balance of instruction focused educators and research focused professionals is an ideal combination.

As an MFA in the painting/drawing program I am interested in researching how students in the visual arts use the writing center and what specific needs they have. In my undergrad I noticed than many visual arts students had a lot of writing anxiety, but very few used the writing center unless a professor required it or offered some sort of bonus points. I know many students have writing anxiety, but it was pronounced in the visual arts. Writing in the fine arts usually incorporates research papers in art history, artist's talks, and artist's statements.

 I would be interested to study if there is a combination of techniques that would help reduce writing anxiety while also appealing to students who prefer working visually. To study this topic I would survey visual arts students about their approaches to writing, tutor a small group of visual arts students through a semester, and conduct a literature review focusing on visual learning in the writing center and working with writers who have severe writing anxiety. I am also interested in developing specific guidelines for tutors when working with artist's statements, artist's statements are quite specialized. For my research questions I would focus on: how to engage visual learners in the writing center, why students in the visual arts are so adverse to writing, and how tutors can best teach art specific writing genres.

Comments

  1. C ONovember 4, 2020 at 12:22 PM

    Your questions about how visual art students use writing centers and their general writing anxiety reminded me of parallel questions librarians have asked themselves about the topic of library anxiety. In the library literature, many researchers are trying to understand how different student populations use libraries and their services. In many of those papers, there’s a big focus on understanding how to make academic libraries less overwhelming and intimidating so that their services and resources are more accessible to students, particularly to those that have not had much previous experience in an academic library context.

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