Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

2018

Date of Submission

2021-08-03

Advisor

Maria Hassan Siddiqui, Assistant Professor & Coordinator - CWC

Committee

Aliya Iqbal Naqvi, Visiting Faculty, Department of Social Sciences

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Abstract

This paper explores the question of how one might improve the quality of support and proposed outcomes of an English Writing Centre at a Pakistani university, tailored to the real needs of those who come for help. The research for this study was undertaken at the Ardeshir Cowasjee Writing Centre at the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, one of the premier tertiary level educational institutions in Pakistan. To this end then, this paper uses analytical autoethnography as its methodology to provide the context within which the Writing Centre operates, and collect data in regard to the Centre’s administrative structure, its functions, and stakeholders. As I have been working at ACCW as a writing consultant for the past three years (2015-2018) I am well placed to carry out an autoethnographic research. Moreover, the setup of Writing Centre is a considerably new phenomenon in Pakistan (García 2017). Therefore, there is much work that needs to be done in theorizing how they work, but more importantly how they can work better.

That is why, I will use scholarship by Women of Color, such as Audre Lorde and Kimberle Crenshaw, and Indigenous American scholars, such as Shawn Wilson and Stan Wilson, to demonstrate how any ethical and conscientious research requires that I first of all account for my own positionality. That is, I must carefully reflect on how I came to occupy the position of power that I am currently occupying and how I must be considerate of my position of power in relations to others who might be adversely affected by my carelessness.

Thus, to this thesis is an attempt to collate and reflect upon my experiences at the Writing Centre, on my growth, and the impediments to this growth as a consultant, in order to propose a more rigorous and kinder pedagogical approach viz. the consultation sessions. Lastly, this paper shall end with some recommendations for introducing certain reforms on the administrative level and certain personal measures that the consultants can take on their own.

Pages

63, 2, 16

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