I sit now on the balcony of my hotel room in Miami. The
Atlantic churns steadily below, but it has been especially tumultuous since
yesterday afternoon. My notions of a post-conference dip were pulled out to sea
with the riptide warning that’s been in effect for almost the entire weekend.
I, of course, curse myself now for having left some work to do on my
presentation Thursday afternoon. The feeble consolation prize wade I took
tonight only deepened that regret: the water was pleasantly warm and would have
been perfect for a swim, except for those pesky 10 ft waves and the purple flag
advisory indicating the presence of “Dangerous Marine Life.”
Fortunately, I did not just wade into the National
Conference on Peer Tutoring and Writing (see what I did there? Heh. Writing is
neat). Having been to one conference already this year as an attendee, a second
as a co-presenter, and finally NCPTW as a solo presenter, I knew well enough to
really get in deep and get soaked this time. I’d scheduled my flights for the
purpose of taking in the whole conference without missing a session, and I kept
to that plan. Being a first-time attendee to NCPTW, I went off the assumption
that it’d be a bunch of tutors talking about tutoring. I was right, but it
really was so much more.
When you really commit to something, really think about it
as constantly as I have come to do with writing center theory in the past 12-18
months, a thought roams wider inside your head the deeper you go: Am I really
getting this, or am I just scratching the surface in a pale imitation of real
theorists? The answer NCPTW provided: I am just scratching the surface, but I
am also really beginning to get this.
Many times this weekend, I found myself simply getting it. I don’t know how else to
describe that sense of philosophical zen or oneness. I didn’t necessarily agree
with everything I heard, but what I observed in sessions and their related
discussions was relatable to something I had experienced, had read about, or as
in some cases, had been studying closely myself. Jennifer Forsthoefel (Georgia
State), in talking about achieving (or retaining) peerness in a writing center
session as a graduate writing tutor/consultant, made observations very similar
to my own from my session the day before, even going so far as to draw her
theory from some of the same sources.
This unexpected philosophical parity is reassuring, but not
because I feel like someone working at a higher level has independently drawn
some of the same conclusions I have. It’s that I know I’m not off in left
field, not completely missing the point of these key discussions. It’s exciting
to realize that while I may not yet have joined the larger venues of the
discussion, I recognize that I’m almost there. I’m only scratching the surface
of what the sessions at NCPTW accomplished for me right now, and I really hope
to explore the after-conference effects in upcoming posts.
So to shoehorn home the metaphor I so artlessly started
earlier, attending and presenting at NCPTW has gotten me to a point past wading
and past treading water. I’m not swimming in the rough surf yet, but NCPTW has
at least convinced me I’m in no imminent danger of rhetorically drowning. Now
about that “Dangerous Marine Life” …
Special note: I’d like
to express my sincere appreciation to the selection committees working with the
University of Michigan-Flint’s Fran Frazier Travel Grant and NCPTW’s
Registration & Grub Grant. The support provided by these grants made this
trip and all its positive results possible.
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