In the last chapter of this book, co-editor Laura Drennan conjures up the image of university students having to navigate their challenging paths in order to reach their final, successful destination:
It is the task of mentors, helpers and protectors, in the form of lecturers, tutors, peers and the like, to help the student-hero overcome these challenges and come out victorious at the end of their educational journey.
It is in this quote that this anthology of writing centre reflections and studies sets its goal—and achieves in doing so.
Reimagining Writing Centre Practices: A South African Perspective is a welcome and much-needed addition to the research of academic writing interventions at university level. Aside from one or two South African practitioners’ research, not much work on university writing centres and its practices have seen the light. This book therefore provides a valuable contribution to the field by including perspectives and practices from different institutions. Consequently, by highlighting different challenges and solutions practitioners have experienced in this field, the contributions in this book form a critical dialogue as well as reflection on such matters. This will undoubtedly benefit future researchers— especially those who want to explore writing centres and Academic Literacy in the South African context. In it, practitioners from a number of local universities share their thoughts and findings on case studies, unique approaches and fundamentals of writing centre practice. As Carstens and Rambiritich propose, “writing in South Africa should acknowledge the need to identify theoretical and analytical lenses that are appropriate to their specific institutional contexts” (2020, p. 235).
The book, part of the University of Pretoria’s Emerging Scholars Initiative, contains 12 chapters that are divided into four parts: “Reimagining Writing Centre Practices”, “Discipline-Based Writing”, “Lessons from Covid-19” and “Transforming Our Training and Development”.
It is especially the reflections on discipline-based writing and transforming training and development that this book makes an invaluable contribution to our field. Throughout the book, the philosophy of Ubuntu and its relationship to epistemological access (as set out by Govender, 2014) via writing centres is accentuated. It is not so much about introducing students to a set of skills to master their learning, but rather to overcome the divide between the experiences of students and lecturers (see Boughey & McKenna, 2021). However, when reimagining writing centre practices and looking at lessons learned from COVID-19, there is also plenty to take away.
Navigating the anthology is a bit tough; it would have made it much easier if the chapter titles were printed on the top of the pages instead of the names of the editors appearing on every page, but this of course does not take away from the content.
Speaking of the content, the book sets out to write a South African “writing centre narrative”. Any practitioner would agree that this is necessary, as locally published research in our field is quite scarce. But what the authors reflect on is not limited to South Africa; in the chapter by Clarence of Nottingham Trent University in the UK (but reflecting on her experience of working in South Africa) the author discusses the physical space of a writing centre and how it must be a place where students feel safe, and where they are brave. How to achieve this is a goal of any writing centre at any university in the world. And it is no small feat, as this “can involve simultaneously working within and against systems that act to constrain who we are as practitioners and teachers” (Joubert and Clarence in Ding & Monbec, 2024). This book could perhaps have shed some light on initiatives from universities, such as Academic Advising (usually set in Centres for Teaching and Learning) that aim to support and assist students in these challenges, as well as the strong connection between the work done on academic literacy courses and that in writing centres.
In the introduction, the role of language and literacy development in the current [South African] context is labelled as contentious. This could have been elaborated a bit, as it is an important statement. Add to this the allusion to the “marginalised, understaffed and underfunded” status of practitioners in the field. I would imagine readers from other countries could do with some context here. As suggested to by Carstens and Rambiritich (2020, p. 236), factors such as how writing can be learned (McCarthy, Woodard & Kang, 2014), adhering to institutional mandates (Smagorinsky et al., 2002), poor support of staff (Clarence, 2016) and applying latest fashionable practices uncritically (Weideman, 2007) could have been discussed here to offer greater context and explain the difficult position language and literacy development finds itself in currently.
A highlight of the book comes from Janse van Rensburg’s chapter, entitled “Writing Centre Apologetics: A Case for Writing Centre Efficacy Studies in South African Higher Education”. His elucidation on the role that writing centres play in meeting the difficulties posed by massification and internationalisation at universities with specific reference to quality and relevance should be read not only by practitioners in our field, but also by other academics so that they can understand the challenges writing personnel face. For as we know, establishing fruitful collaboration between writing centres and academic staff continues to be a hard task. The concern over interdepartmental collaboration is echoed in the penultimate chapter by Dison et al., entitled “This Work has Paid Off in Bountiful Ways. Development of Writing Centre Tutors as Emerging Academics at a South African University Writing Centre”.
Preceding van Rensburg’s insightful chapter, is one that is a bit of a head-scratcher. In “Bridging the Multilingual Divide: Enhancing Academic Literacy through Metaphors in South African Writing”, Alberts offers an exploration that would feel more at home in a book about teaching methods than one on writing centre practice. The author makes valid points on the role culturally specific metaphors can play in communication and learning. However, it is my personal experience of writing centre consultations that using colourful imagery or creative descriptions rather adds to students’ confusion about their academic assignments.
These days, a major threat to writing centres is the irresponsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and large language models such as ChatGPT. At my institution, the University of the Free State, we are often approached by concerned academic staff who ask us for help in detecting and fighting over-reliance on these kinds of tools. This anthology, although not directing this threat directly, actually provides some insight and assistance in the fight against AI. Lamberti and Archer, in their chapter entitled “Academic Argument in Development Studies: Resources for Access to Disciplinary Discourses” explains (amongst other things) the necessity of academic writing features such as the three levels of argumentation in student writing and how a strong thesis statement can contribute to developing a student’s argument. When considering the poor thesis statements (amongst other things) that ChatGPT spews out, academic staff would do well to explore Lamberti and Archer’s chapter.
Subsequently, the following chapter, “A Reflection on Curricular and Non-Curricular Writing Support for Postgraduate Students in the School of Public Management and Administration” by Vivian provides an insightful case study at the University of Pretoria on how personnel can actually strengthen their writing programmes (or writing components in academic modules) within a relevant pedagogical framework. This reflection can also be very beneficial for any lecturer who faces the challenge of students over-relying on AI tools when doing their written assignments.
The next part of the anthology focuses on lessons learned during the COVID-19 epidemic. Pandemic fatigue made me sigh when I reached this part. However, the three chapters provide insight, tips and examples that cannot be confined to the era of the Coronavirus.
Moore’s chapter, “Reflections on Risk and Resilience: A Law School Writing Centre’s Learning from the Covid-19 Storm” sheds interesting light on the workings of this specific writing centre at the University of the Witwatersrand. As a practitioner at another institution, I am offered ideas to possibly implement in my centre. It is also interesting to note the challenge highlighted by Moore of law students’ struggle with academic writing, because so often we think of these students as having superior writing skills to those say in education or the humanities.
As writing centre practitioners, we take the approach of guiding students to becoming better writers by asking them questions and thereby starting conversations about their writing. In doing so, we allow the students to reflect on their learning process and communicate their ideas. Chapter 9, “In the Forest of the Library: Five Paths Through Letter Writing and Writing Groups Towards Sustainable Writing”, by Nichols et al., is one of the highlights of the anthology, as it provides examples of questions, phrases and challenges for the conversational process. Here the authors consider two strategies to (re)activate self-motivated learning in the forms of letter writing and writing groups. What is really interesting is some of the personal insights and examples from writing centre personnel that are included here. The questions/prompts themselves that are (pro)posed to unlock reflection can be of cardinal importance to academic staff members as well, as they inadvertently provide guidelines when investigating student submissions suspected of over-relying on AI.
The final part of the book, “Transforming Our Training and Development” provides the reader with refreshing and applicable reflections. Muna et al., in their chapter “Reimagining Writing Centre Consultant Training: Establishing a Conceptual, Reflective and Values-based Approach to Support Transformative Learning” offers a few practical recommendations for other writing centres looking to transform their spaces. Using students’ input, the authors here examine and explain the need for reflective practice in writing centres. This is one topic that links South African Writing Centres with their international partners, as the challenge of creating environments where students can feel safe to express themselves and reflect on their writing journeys is at the top of the list for any practitioner at any institution.
Lastly, Rambiritich and Drennan take a look at the mentor roles and functions in their chapter, “Invoking the Power of the Mentor”. They draw from Vogler’s mentor functions and roles (that of teacher, gift-giving, inventor, motivator and planter) and present a very interesting case study of what roles mentors fulfil during student consultations. The data collection comprised ten consultation sessions with first-year students. One would have hoped for a larger sample size with a wider variety of students to support the writers’ statement that interactions between students and consultants tend to be more “teacherly” and directive than non-directive peer-like review kind of sessions. However, this kind of study should be done in every writing centre; it not only offers an idea of the experience of our mentors (or consultants), but also gives us insight into the journey students embark on when they tackle their academic writing.
With Reimagining Writing Centre Practices: A South African Perspective Rambiritich and Drennan have hopefully provided the kindle to the much needed fire of writing centre research in this country. It should be noted that the book’s publication was followed by the first international conference of the South African Association of Academic Literacy Practitioners (SAAALP). During this event a two-day writing centre colloquium was held, providing opportunities to display and discuss many of the themes included in this book.
To conclude this review, I want to refer back to the first phrase quoted from Drennan and state that a publication such as this one (and hopefully many others to come) will contribute to anyone involved at writing centres in assisting students to reach their victorious academic hero-destination.