(1984) I agree. When it comes to North's first edition of "The Idea of a Writing Center". I feel as though not many people, either, know what a writing center does or what it has to offer. There is a deep misconception when it comes to writing center and North touches upon most of those facilities. People either think a writing tutor will write the paper for them or they think their paper is perfect and don't need the help. North gives factual evidence to this to prove otherwise (pg, 435) "first, which goals each group deemed the most important in the teaching of writing, and second, what role they thought the writing center ought to play in that Teaching, which is goals it ought to concern itself within". My favorite part was actually pg 438) "our jobs is to produce better songs writers, not better writing (pg 438).
(1994) A full 10 year difference since he wrote the first "The idea of a Writing Center" i thought it was interesting how North poked holes in his own work. He found that as time went on that writing changed, the writing process changed and how people see writing changed as well. On page 13 of the article he acknowledges the pressure that those students are under and how adding to that (from the teacher or tutor side) does not help but instead increases those anxieties. So here he is saying: this is our problem and here is how we fix it. And then at the very end he offers 4 different alternatives to his entire critique, he presents his dream writing world...but are we close to achieving this?
I related more to the second revision of "The idea of the writing center" only because in today's college setting or even high school setting, you don't see many students excited over writing. You see a lot of anxieties towards the form or the culture in its entirety and i feel like that is because people don't understand. That is what North i think is doing, he is trying to get people to understand what writing centers and what writing tutors do. With both works he is teaching the reader through examples on how people perceive what writing is and how it is wrong, and correcting those misgivings by giving different life scenarios.
