Group items tagged

discussion of 1:1 vs. group tutoring methods

conference announcements, questions on materials and programs, mailing list

Via CompPile: "This review-essay of Lee-Ann Kastman Breuch's Virtual Peer Review: Teaching and Learning about Writing in Online Environments focuses on virtual peer review (VPR) and its place in composition pedagogy. Breuch's two main points of interest are what is gained by immersing students in online learning, and what could the composition community lose during the transition. In six chapters, Breuch discusses these ideas respectively: 1) how to distinguish the differences between VPR and face-to-face peer review through the use of remediation, specifically with reference to three characteristics of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC): time, space and interaction; 2) how these dimensions play out in virtual communication and instruction; 3) a more focused analysis of the 'tension' that arises when peer review is placed in the virtual world; 4) the challenges of the ownership of ideas in VPR; 5) other concerns raised about VPR; and 6) how VP can be used in the classroom and other writing contexts, the university Writing Center being one example. [Jennifer Maness] "

Praxis Editorial BoardThe University of Texas at Austin Part of who we are as writing center practitioners is defined for us by the job titles that we're given. While the most common titles-coach, consultant, and tutor-carry their own advantages, none of them is entirely free of negative connotations.

Praxis takes you to The Write Place at St. Cloud State

requests for evaluation techniques and for information on teaching strategies, conference announcements, example forms for evaluation of writing centers by both faculty and students, mailing list

"Post-secondary writing centers have struggled to produce substantial, credible, and sustainable evidence of their impact in the educational environment. The objective of this study was to develop a college-level writing self-efficacy scale that can be used across repeated sessions in a writing center, as self-efficacy has been identified as an important construct underlying successful writing and cognitive development. A 20-item instrument (PSWSES) was developed to evaluate writerly self-efficacy. 505 university students participated in the study. Results indicate that the PSWSES has high internal consistency and reliability across items and construct validity, which was supported through a correlation between tutor perceptions of client writerly self-efficacy and client self-ratings. Factor analysis revealed three factors: local and global writing process knowledge, physical reaction, and time/effort. Additionally, across repeated sessions, the clients' PSWSES scores appropriately showed an increase in overall writerly self-efficacy. Ultimately, this study offers a new paradigm for conceptualizing the daily work in which writing centers engage, and the PSWSES offers writing centers a meaningful quantitative program assessment avenue by (1) redirecting focus from actual competence indicators to perceived competence development and (2) allowing for replication, causality, and sustainability for program improvement. "

a report on student self-referrals attributed to advertising; a report from a new WC; review of _English 3200: A Programmed Course in Grammar_ (Joseph C. Blumenthal, HBJ); a WC that offers group instruction; mailing list

updates on lab classrooms, interdisciplinary writing, learning skills centers; mailing list

The Journal of Response to Writing publishes papers based on research, theory, and/or practice that meaningfully contribute to an understanding of how response practices lead to better writing. JRW has three purposes: 1. Provide a venue for theorizing and reporting ground-breaking research on response to writing 2. Invite writing theorists, researchers, and practitioners to a venue to share their work with one another and colleagues in adjacent fields, most notably Composition, Applied Linguistics, and Foreign Language teaching viz a viz L1 and L2 writing 3. Provide new or inexperienced teachers with immediate suggestions for use in giving, encouraging, or managing responses to their students' writing

Discusses research findings that writing center users procrastinate less on their writing, and that writing centers can be particularly helpful for student who have a high procrastination tendency.

Suggests that writing centers should look to Long's Reactive Behavior Patters in order to better understand writer and writing center consultant behavior.

Bell, Diana C., Holly Arnold, and Rebekah Haddock. "Linguistic Politeness in Peer Tutoring." The Learning Assistance Review 14.1 (2009): 36-54. From abstract: "use[s] politeness theory to analyze the developing tutorial relationship between students and peer tutors in a university writing center" (36).

Monica Jacobe, a graduate consultant at the American University Writing Center, takes center stage.