writing in the disciplines / writing across the curriculum; writing process; scaffolding feedback approaches;

revising / editing; global / higher-order / higher gravity concerns

ABSTRACT

Writing center tutors often work with topics, papers, and genres outside of their discipline. Any experienced tutor knows how challenging it can be to advise writers when we aren’t familiar with the subject matter or conventions of a given assignment, like when an English major encounters a chemistry paper for the first time (Finocchio, 2017). 

So, what do we do? 

One answer is to recognize that certain traits, principles, and practices of writing transfer across genres—that pieces from two different disciplines are often more similar than not. This lesson hopes to build tutor confidence by offering a simple framework, centered on principles of storytelling, to help the humanities major feel more comfortable tutoring a STEM paper, and the STEM major more “at home” with a humanities paper. 

Note: We focus on two common variants of writing in this lesson—the research paper in STEM and literary criticism in the humanities. Of course, there are many more variants in each category, as well as many types of writing, such as popular science books and creative non-fiction essays, that cross disciplinary boundaries. This lesson is simply designed to help tutors think about applying an oft-siloed rhetorical framework across domains.

CONTENTS

TRAINING DETAILS

LESSON OVERVIEW

This training responds to a recurring need for more facility with different genres and disciplines and connects to the WAC-centric idea that “the application of genre theory can only strengthen writing center theory and practice by empowering tutors and facilitating writers learning the discourses of their field” (Walker, 1998, p. 38). Our center conducts more than 16,000 consultations each academic year, of which ~20% involve STEM-related undergraduate and graduate writers. Because around 70% of our staff comes from the humanities—and predominately the English major—we encourage our tutors to familiarize themselves with writing across the curriculum. This training originates from that encouragement.

The research that informs our training includes Dinitz and Harrington (2014), who found that disciplinary knowledge enhanced general tutoring strategies (p. 94). Disciplinary awareness is especially relevant for STEM and the humanities as these two domains rely on different contextual knowledge—“an abstract set of rules” coupled with “observable knowledge” for STEM, and “a set of texts” for the humanities (Lotto, 1988, p. 16). To address this difference, our training adapts a conceptual framework from Schimel (2012), who notes that principles of storytelling can help to bridge the STEM and humanities discursive divide.

It is important to note the ever-present danger that the “knowledgeable tutor” may be tempted “to think of writing in terms of the final product,” while tutors who perceive themselves as less expert in a subject are more open to acting as a “sounding board or critical reader” (Hubbuch, 1988, p. 29). Our training does not try to impart expertise. Rather, we follow Malenke et al. (2023) who found that “equipping tutors with knowledge about the purposes and conventions of particular genres” helps clients build “transferable [writing] skills” (p. 99).

LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

In our training we help participants to do the following:

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

INTRODUCTION (10-15 minutes)

Agenda: Brief tutors on the plan for the training in accordance with the agenda items on slide 2.

Activity (slide 3): Ask tutors to engage in a short freewrite on the following question: “What do you do when a student brings in a kind of paper you’ve never seen before?” (i.e., “less-familiar genre,” “idiosyncratic assignment prompt,” “unfamiliar assignment type,” etc.)

• Alternatively, facilitators might collect responses to the following question on Google Forms or a similar survey app: “On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being ‘very confident’ and 1 being ‘not even a little confident,’ how do you feel when tutoring writing from the following disciples? Possible example disciplines: English, history, political science, biology, chemistry, psychology, accounting, sociology, cultural studies, etc.”

Discussion (slide 4): As time permits, ask tutors to share their freewrite responses. Possible questions to help lead this discussion include the following:

• What prior tools, trainings, resources, or experiences have you relied on when tutoring an unfamiliar discipline or genre?
• What worked, if anything? What didn’t work, if anything?
• What tools, trainings, resources, or experiences would help you to feel more comfortable when tutoring an unfamiliar discipline or genre, if any?
• In your experience, what makes tutoring an unfamiliar discipline or genre most challenging?

Today’s Key Ideas (slide 5): Share these core ideas to prime students for the following discussion on writing in STEM and humanities domains.

• Different disciplines write in different ways
• There are principles of effective writing that apply across disciplines

BODY OF LESSON (30-40 minutes)

Part 1 (slide 6): OCAR (5-10 minutes)

Introduction to OCAR (slides 7-8): Explain each step of Schimel’s “OCAR” storytelling model (“Opening,” “Challenge,” “Action,” “Resolution”). Mention that Schimel is a scholar who developed this model to describe common rhetorical moves in their field but wait to reveal the nature of Schimel’s field—environmental science—until later.

• Note for Facilitators: We’ve provided a citation for OCAR, Schimel (2012), and his framework (OCAR) is used to help understand science writing as storytelling. We’ve purposefully left details about Schimel off the slides at this point to “reveal” that even scientists think of their work as storytelling later in the lesson (see slides 29-30). Of course, it’s up to facilitators to decide to do the same.

Breakdown of OCAR (slide 8):

• Opening: Establishes characters and setting, such as who the main character is, where they live, and what their “normal” life entails
• Challenge: Introduces a problem or question, or the inciting incident that sends the character on their “quest”
• Action: Events or decisions that help the character work towards solving the problem or question
• Resolution: Shows how the problem has been solved, the challenge overcome

Part 2: OCAR and the Humanities (10 minutes)

Discussion (slide 10): Ask tutors what they know about writing in the humanities, especially research writing. What are the conventions of research writing? What steps or processes does this research involve?

Discussion (slide 11): Outline some common elements of humanities writing, listed below:

• Thesis / Claim
• “Joining the Conversation” / Engaging the “Debate”
• Evidence / Analysis
• Commentary
• Conclusions

Discussion of OCAR and Humanities Paper (slide 12): Ask how the characteristics of research writing in the humanities overlap with those in storytelling. Suggest that, applying the OCAR framework, we can see similar results:

Humanities	OCAR
Thesis / Claim	Opening: Setting up the main character (thesis)
“Joining the Conversation” / “Debate”	Setup / Challenge: Identifying the problem to be solved (debate)
Evidence / Analysis + Commentary	Action: Working toward solving the problem, exploring, questioning, challenging
Conclusions	Resolution: Concluding the quest by identifying that the problem has been solved, or that the thesis has been satisfied

“Good humanities writing tells a story” (slide 13): Emphasize that we can use the OCAR framework to make writing in the humanities clearer and more compelling. Explain that you will now practice applying this framework.

Humanities Analysis Activity Part 1a-b (slides 14-15): Using short examples like those found in slides 14-15, help students compare humanities writing with storytelling by asking them to identify the opening, challenge, action, and resolution of a body paragraph from a literary analysis paper. Our PowerPoint includes a “less-effective” and “more-effective” example and uses William Carlos Williams’ “The Red Wheelbarrow” as the subject. This poem is in the public domain, so facilitators can also find it and include it in their slides or handouts.

• Note for Facilitators: You may want to print the example paragraphs for more careful reading or group work. Printing may be especially helpful for accessibility purposes. We’ve provided the writing samples on a document for easy use (see “Humanities Handout”)

Humanities Analysis Activity Part 2 (slide 16-17): Now ask students to map the OCAR framework onto the second paragraph. A fully mapped version of the paragraph on the next slide. We’ve used colors to indicate the rhetorical moves the author is making that follows the OCAR storytelling framework, and facilitators can also ask tutors to highlight or code their findings to make the framework more visible.

Part 3: OCAR and STEM (10 minutes)

Discussion (slide 19): Ask tutors what they know about writing in STEM? What are the conventions of STEM and science writing? What steps or processes does this writing and research involve?)

Discussion (slide 20): Explain the common STEM writing structure below:

• Introduction: Establishes the problem to be researched (the gap in knowledge), including prior attempts at solving the problem (literature review)
• Aims: Describes the author’s hypothesis or plan for addressing the problem
• Methods: Describes the methodology or experiment the author used to solve the problem
• Results: Describes the author’s findings / data after performing the experiment
• Discussion: Interprets the data, addressing whether it fills the gap, shows limitations or a need for additional research, etc.

Discussion (slide 21): Ask tutors about how the characteristics of writing in the STEM overlap with those in storytelling. Explain that, applying the OCAR framework, we can see similar results:

STEM	OCAR
Introduction	Opening: Setting up the main character (thesis)
Aims	Setup / Challenge: Identifying the problem to be solved (debate)
Methods/Results	Action: working toward solving the problem, exploring, questioning, challenging
Discussion & Conclusion	Resolution: concluding the quest by identifying that the problem has been solved, or that the thesis has been satisfied

STEM Analysis Activity Part 1a-b: Using short examples like those found in slides 22-23, help tutors compare STEM writing with storytelling by asking them to identify the opening, challenge, action, and resolution of the sample provided. Our PowerPoint includes a “less-effective” and “more-effective” example and uses a real student example (provided by one of the student authors).

• Note for Facilitators: You may want to print the example paragraphs for more careful reading or group work. Printing may be especially helpful for accessibility purposes. We’ve provided the writing samples on a document for easy use (see “STEM Handout”).

“Just like in the humanities, good science writing tells a story” (slide 24): As with the previous parallel “headline” slide in part 2, emphasize that OCAR can be fruitfully applied to STEM writing as well as humanities writing.

STEM Analysis Activity Part 2 (slides 25-26): Now ask students to map the OCAR framework onto the second paragraph. In the slides, we’ve used colors to indicate the rhetorical moves the author is making that follows the OCAR storytelling framework. Facilitators can also ask tutors to highlight or code their findings to make the framework more visible.

Discussion (slide 27): How does looking for narrative elements prepare you for tutoring STEM papers? How might this framework simplify (or even complicate) your tutoring?

Discussion of Key Takeaways (slide 28): Observe that the technical structure in STEM writing can feel transactional or formulaic. That’s for a reason—STEM genres are meant to communicate clearly, concisely, and predictably. Even so, they can be challenging for tutors who are not familiar with a lab report’s technical nature.

“Origins of OCAR” (slides 29-30): Direct tutors’ attention back to Schimel’s (2012) model. Reveal that Schimel’s discipline is, in fact, environmental science. This is a chance to drive home the idea that even scientists (at least some of them) think of their work as storytelling.

CONCLUSION OF LESSON (5 minutes)

Wrap-Up Freewrite (slides 32-33): Ask tutors to spend the last five minutes of the training in a freewriting session that addresses what they learned from this training. The questions below might be helpful prompts. Explain that you will collect these afterward—invite tutors to leave their responses blank.

• Has your view of the rhetorical moves in humanities and STEM changed during this training? If so, how?
• Consider a scenario in which a STEM major brings in a paper and asks, “How can I make my organization flow?”
• How do you think a framework like OCAR could affect students’ understanding of a genre like the IMRAD paper or literary analysis?
• How would applying a framework like OCAR help a tutor see familiar concepts beneath technical jargon? How does seeing a familiar pattern impact your confidence as a tutor?

ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

Each activity and discussion should help identify:

RESOURCES & REFERENCES

Dinitz, S., & Harrington, S. (2014). The role of disciplinary expertise in shaping writing tutorials.” The Writing Center Journal, 33(2), 73–98. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1769

Hubbuch, S. M. (1988). A tutor needs to know the subject matter to help a student with a paper: _Agree _disagree _not sure. The Writing Center Journal, 8(2), 23–30. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1164

Finocchio, N. (2017). Tutors' Column: Not yet a specialist?: Overcoming genre phobia in the writing center. WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, 42(3-4), 19–22. https://wacclearinghouse.org/docs/wln/v42n3/finocchio.pdf

Lotto, E. (1988). The texts and contexts of writing. The Writing Center Journal, 9(1), 13–20. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1164

Malenke, L. B., Miller, L. K., Mabrey, P. E., & Featherstone, J. (2023). How genre-trained tutors affect student writing and perceptions of the writing center. The Writing Center Journal, 41(3), 8–106. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1336 

Schimel, J. (2012). Writing science: w to write papers that get cited and proposals that get funded. Oxford UP.

Walker, K. (1998). The debate over generalist and specialist tutors: Genre theory's contribution. The Writing Center Journal, 18(2), 27-46. https://doi.org/10.7771/2832-9414.1399

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to Melody Denny for her support and insight, as well as Amber Jensen, who organized the 2024 SWCCA conference at Brigham Young University, which was the impetus for developing this training.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Coleman Numbers, Maren Sorber, Merlin Blanchard, Ben Christensen, and Zachary Largey 

Brigham Young University

Coleman Numbers studies English at Brigham Young University. He plans to pursue PhD work in literary studies. Among his many interests are AI and Writing Center studies, about which he recently presented at the International Writing Centers Association conference. Coleman is currently the student administrator over course-embedded consultants. 

Maren Sorber receive her BA in English from Brigham Young University in 2026. Her current plans are to attend law school. Maren has worked in the Research and Writing Center for two years, and outside of regular tutoring, she has developed student-facing resources for the RWC’s website, served as an embedded tutor in Russian literature and American history courses, and worked as a student administrator.

Ben Christensen graduated from Brigham Young University in 2025 with a BS in biology. He loved his time working in the Research and Writing Center, both as a writing tutor and as a course-embedded consultant in classes like business writing and research methods in biology.

Merlin Blanchard graduated in 2025 with a degree in editing and publishing and is currently working at Utah Valley University as a professional tutor. His time in the Research and Writing Center included just about everything, from holding more than 1000 consultations, to serving as a student administrator for more than 3 years as a course-embedded tutor, to presenting at conferences and publishing research.

Zachary Largey used to direct the BYU Writing Fellows and now supervises the Research and Writing Center’s course-embedded tutors and graduate tutoring program. Of all the things he loves about writing center work, one predominates: watching tutors grow in their own writing self-efficacy. 

Numbers, et al., Center Moves, no. 5, 2026.