Speaking in Tongues: Coordinating Multiliterate Work of Tutors and Students Across Disciplines

John Trimbur recently wrote that for writing centers, literacy has become redefined as " multiliteracy, " referring to the " multimodal activity in which oral, written, and visual communication intertwine and interact " (" Multiliteracies " 29). At once, broadening the term " literacy " complicates the role of the writing center in a university while clarifying how it can fulfill cross-disciplinary responsibilities. Writing centers have long grappled with the fact that texts reflect intersecting and sometimes unfamiliar literacies. The trouble is that how these multiple literacies " intertwine and interact " and how someone acquires those literacies is somewhat mysterious. Clearly, one's multiliterate expertise is built up through experience using genres, which embody the motivations and interests of practitioners in a field (Bamberg 12-13; Berkenkotter and Huckin 60-65; Miller). However, missing from this formula is a sense of the role that writing centers play in helping students acquire disciplinary multiliteracy, especially when that literate background is not shared by the tutor. Do practices exist that enable writing centers to engage students in " writing-to-learn " practices that help reveal the conventions of writing in their disciplines? I believe so, and by paying attention to genres and to texts as " tools " that reveal the routine activity those genres embody, tutors and students of different disciplinary backgrounds will find ways to share their expertise. To develop this position, we must first consider the role of genre in scaffolding a writer's progress toward disciplinary literacy. Following this discussion , I will focus on texts and why they are not adequate tools for talking about the multiliterate uses of genres across disci