Hobson, "Writing Center Practice Often Counters Its Theory. So What?"
Hobson responds to criticism that writing center theory lags behind practice by saying that “the distance between theory and practice in writing centers . . . results less from a lack of knowledge than from how we think about knowledge production,” referring to writing center lore (1). While composition theory may lead to practice in composition classrooms, Hobson asserts that in writing centers, writing center practice leads to writing center theory. He urges us to acknowledge lore as “the primary knowledge-making system of the writing center community” (8).
Hobson’s other crucial point is that conflicts between theory and practice in the writing center should signal a need to explore, not necessarily a need for hand wringing. “A pragmatic perspective toward writing center knowledge,” Hobson says, “accepts contradiction between theory and practice; we reject the ‘logic’ of dialectics” (8).
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