Creating a Socratic Practice for the Writing Center — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

Instructions

Student presentations must have a faculty sponsor.

Abstracts must include a title and a description of the research, scholarship, or creative work. The description should be 150-225 words in length and constructed in a format or style appropriate for the presenter’s discipline.

The following points should be addressed within the selected format or style for the abstract:

A clear statement of the problem or question you pursued, or the scholarly goal or creative theme achieved in your work.
A brief comment about the significance or uniqueness of the work.
A clear description of the methods used to achieve the purpose or goals for the work.
A statement of the conclusions, results, outcomes, or recommendations, or if the work is still in progress, the results you expect to report at the event.

Presenter photographs should be head and shoulder shots comparable to passport photos.

Additional Information

More information is available at carthage.edu/celebration-scholars/. The following are members of the Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Committee who are eager to listen to ideas and answer questions:

Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

Creating a Socratic Practice for the Writing Center

Name: Emily Nickel
Major: Studio Art
Hometown: Oak Creek, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Independent research
Funding: Writing Center

Name: Rachel Jason
Major: English, Great Ideas
Hometown: Deerfield, IL
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Independent research
Funding: Writing Center

Name: Emily Oleson
Major: English
Hometown: Wisconsin Rapids, WI
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Independent research
Funding: Writing Center

Abstract

As writing tutors at a liberal arts college our education has instilled in us the value of Socratic questioning and dialogue as it applies to the learning process. We find that Writing Center sessions that rely on such dialogue are often successful and productive. By participating in a Socratic dialogue with our clients we have been able to address areas of content deficiency and grammatical problems without stepping over the boundaries of client ownership.

Even more significantly, we teach our clients how to think instead of what to think, fostering their independence. Largely this tutoring model has been used implicitly and informally in our tutoring sessions. We would like to formalize this model as part of our Writing Center’s tutor training system. Therefore, we have created a research plan designed to study this phenomenon and learn how to use Socratic tools most effectively in our Writing Center sessions. We will first conduct qualitative observations of our co-workers tutoring, then use that information to formalize a method, and finally implement and test that method.

Poster file