Group items tagged

Launched in March 2013, the National Census of Writing seeks to provide a data-based landscape of writing instruction at two- and four-year public and not-for-profit institutions of higher education in the United States. Despite numerous calls for empirical data to ground the design and administration of writing programs and writing centers, this is the first comprehensive study of its kind and covers the following sections:  * Sites of writing * First-year writing/English composition * Identifying and supporting diversely-prepared students * Writing across the curriculum (WAC) and writing beyond the first year * The undergraduate and graduate writing major and minor * Writing centers * Administrative structures * Demographics of respondents

"Launched in March 2013, the National Census of Writing seeks to provide a data-based landscape of writing instruction at two- and four-year public and not-for-profit institutions of higher education in the United States. Despite numerous calls for empirical data to ground the design and administration of writing programs and writing centers, this is the first comprehensive study of its kind and covers the following sections: Sites of writing First-year writing/English composition Identifying and supporting diversely-prepared students Writing across the curriculum (WAC) and writing beyond the first year The undergraduate and graduate writing major and minor Writing centers Administrative structures Demographics of respondents With data from 900 institutions, the National Census of Writing will help educators and administrators across the country to better understand the variety of ways in which writing instruction is delivered in the twenty-first century. The research team has made the processed data available through this open-access database, which allows individuals to gather national data on pressing local questions. The database is searchable by type of institution, institutional size, geographical location, and, when we have consent, by the name of the institution."

Faculty and writing center tutors bring expertise to writing as practice and pro-cess. Yet at many institutions, the two groups work in relative isolation, missing opportunities to learn from each other. In this article, I describe a faculty de-velopment initiative in a multidisciplinary writing program that brings together new faculty and experienced undergraduate tutors to workshop instructors' com-ments on first-year writing. The purpose of these workshops is to assist faculty in crafting inquiry-driven written responses that pave the way for collaborative faculty-student conferences. By bringing together scholarly conversations on tu-tor expertise and the role of faculty comments in student learning, I argue for the value of extending partnerships between writing centers and programs. Such ac-counts are important to the field for challenging what Grutsch McKinney (2013) calls the "writing center grand narrative," which limits the scope of writing center work by imagining centers primarily as "comfortable, iconoclastic places where all students go to get one-to-one tutoring on their writing" to the exclusion of lived realities (p. 3). In this case, I describe a writing center where tutors bring their expertise outside the center and into the faculty office, consulting in small groups with faculty with the aim of enriching the quality of instructor feedback in first-year seminars.

Saint Mary's University Writing Center blog has posts about tutoring, such as this one about asking questions as tutoring tools. 

writing centers as MOOC mentors; writing center theory courses offered via MOOCs

"The 18 entries in this bibliography summarize select articles and dissertations that focus on the effects of mandatory writing center visits. The entries are divided into two parts: Part 1 presents summaries of studies that emphasize quantitative and qualitative data. Part 2 presents studies that rely on anecdotal evidence and theoretical arguments."

Writing centers and mandatory visits, an annotated bibliography, in the WPA-CompPile research bibliography series, July 2013

discussion on many issues related to starting a new writing center

discussing the stage during which most students go to the writing center

crowdsourcing a list of resources related to high school writing centers see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=21691333

a discussion of the top five reasons students visit the writing center

crowdsourcing a list of must-have books/journals/handbooks for a new writing center see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=20273332

a discussion on how to encourage students from various disciplines to visit the writing center

crowdsourcing a list of sources for decorations

see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=19365376 see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=20940331

discussing how and why to start a blog

discussing the oldest WCs that are 100% online

a discussion of paint colors

crowdsourcing a list of possible texts for a course on peer tutoring see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=19344332 see also: http://lyris.ttu.edu/read/messages?id=24436340

discussing a library's plans to move a WC to the basement because of the "stigma" attached to WC use