Group items tagged

"As student populations in colleges and universities continue to diversify, composition programs do not always meet students' varying needs. English as a Second Language (ESL) students appear to fail mainstream writing courses at higher rates than their traditional counterparts, yet mainstreaming continues to be mandated, often due to budgetary constraints. Many programs offer multicultural writing courses, but these, too, are often ineffective for many students. Meanwhile, as Paul Kei Matsuda shows, there is a decided split between the disciplines of composition and ESL. Since ESL scholars have a much stronger history of working with diverse student populations than composition scholars do, this study aims to look to ESL scholarship, specifically to contrastive rhetoric, to explore more effective methods of teaching writing to students with varying needs. This case study takes an in-depth look at one student's journey writing across cultures. Ming, a Chinese immigrant who has been in the United States for approximately ten years, is a junior at the University of Rhode Island who struggles with writing. Over the course of one semester, three of her projects were studied in depth. Data include transcripts of audiotaped tutorial sessions in the URI Writing Center, Ming's assignments and papers, and the researcher's notes from interviews with Ming following the tutorial sessions. ^ The new contrastive rhetoric (Connor, Kaplan, Purves) insists that external factors such as culture, education, and media influence the rhetorical patterns writers use. Through a lens of contrastive rhetoric, it becomes clear that most of Ming's difficulties when writing stem from a lack of familiarity with the conventions of U.S. academic discourse or of what her reader expects from her text. The source of much of this is cultural. While Ming's experiences are not generalizable, an in-depth look at her experiences foregrounds some of the issues that contrastive rhetoric addresses, making th

From abstract: "This dissertation theorizes the writing center as bridge-as an institutional resource that supports second language graduate writers as they journey from outside the academy to the inside-including its strengths and limitations, both locally (for these writers at this writing center) and for the field more broadly. I offer the metaphor of the writing center as bridge, both as an alternate writing center identity and therefore as an alternate approach to tutoring, and as an approach that privileges the multiple subject positions that students hold as they use the writing center.  [...] Based on the literature, the experiences of these participants, and my own experiences as a tutor-turned-coordinator, I ultimately argue that nondirective tutoring is rooted in practice with native-English-speaking undergraduates and that this practice so dominates many writing centers' identities that it has left little room for other subject positions, including those of second language graduate writers."

"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. "

This study examined the perspectives of both tutors at university writing centers and the Non-Native English Speaking (NNES) students who use the centers. Using qualitative methods, this study looked at perceptions of the academic writing needs of the NNES students, along with characteristics of tutoring sessions which made the sessions successful in the eyes of tutors and students. The study used interviews, observations, a survey, and artifacts to look at these topics and then compared the perceptions of tutors and students. Additionally, the study compared writing centers at two universities, one of which employs an ESL specialist, in order to learn if employing this specialist affects success for the tutors and NNES students. Results indicate that student and tutor perceptions of student needs were similar in that they expressed consistent need for grammar assistance and help with low-order concerns (LOCs). Sessions at both universities were successful, according to tutors and students, if sessions focused on these grammar and LOC needs. Employing an ESL specialist did not affect the perceptions of students or tutors nor did it seem to effect the success of sessions for either students or tutors.

The Journal of Response to Writing is an international, peer-reviewed journal for writing theorists, researchers, and practitioners of Second and Foreign Language Instruction, Applied Linguistics, and Composition to make quality contributions to the study of response to writing.  While we value traditional forms of response, including marginal notes, face-to-face interactions, electronic feedback, self-reflection, and peer review, we also value and encourage the research of alternative response methods, purposes, and practices. The journal is open-access This journal responds to a growing need and interest for additional scholarly venues to publish articles about writing theory and response practices that allow for a cross-disciplinary discussion of response to writing. The focus on response is intentional since nearly all forms of writing benefit from response, and responding to writing is perhaps the most time-consuming responsibility of a writing teacher. Therefore, understanding the theory and best pedagogical practices for response can benefit the writer while maximizing a responder's effectiveness and efficiency. This journal is meant to fill these needs by crossing disciplinary divides and providing an additional publication venue for writing theory and response practice.

"Measurable Outcomes for Writing Centers--An Eclectic Bibliography"

A guide for learners of English as an additional language (EAL/ESL) from the University of Adelaide. Topics cover grammar (voice, tense, prepositions, etc.) and oral presentations. Online guides supplemented with video.

The Consortium on Graduate Communication is an independent community of educators who provide professional development in academic written and oral communication to (post-)graduate students before and during their master's and doctoral degrees. The purpose of the CGC is to create online and face-to-face opportunities to discuss and share resources, ideas, research, and program models for this vital segment of international higher education. CGC members are interested in ESL/multilingual students as well as those studying in their first languages, and both written and oral communication.

St. Cloud State University has a certification program in Writing Center Administration. Open to writing center administrators with a bachelor's degree. Pairs well with an undergraduate or graduate degree in English or a graduate or doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration. The program is 10 credits. All courses are available online.

American University Writing Center's blog, with an index of the blog posts on various writing concerns,e..g, punctuation, topic sentences, being explicit, etc.

Archives ToC by issue, 1986-present

This link goes to an archive of volumes and history of Composition Studies, back to 1986.

This links to an index to Freshman English News journal, with a bibliography of articles in all those issues. Useful resource!

This purpose of this web site is to maintain an online archive of the proceedings of the Two-Year College Association of the National Council of Teachers of English (TYCA/NCTE). Contact TYCA Archivist Clint Gardner for more information.

The goal of the WPA Census is to create an online database that would serve as a first stop for people to find answers to questions that come up often in writing program administration practice and research.  The WPA Census embodies the idea that the administrative work of WPAs, WCDs, and WAC directors is scholarship. By ultimately providing these directors with a database that catalogs and organizes the diversity of writing programs, the Census will allow researchers to analyze macro- and micro-trends in the landscape of US institutions.

Name: Marilyn E. Little Age: A perennial 39 Writing Center: College of Lake County Writing Center Grayslake, IL (A two-year college) School enrollment: 15,828 Year in school and area of study: I earned an Associate of Arts degree in Languages in 2003. I'm currently enrolled in an ESL for teachers certificate program.

discussing how to keep student records when online records aren't an option

An example of the University of Montana Writing Center's Annual Report (2014-2015 academic year). The purpose of this report is to showcase for administrators the scope of our work as well as make visible a handful of the Writing Center's programs that reach across the curriculum. Authored by Kelly Webster, Director of the Writing Center.

An extensive, detailed, widely viewed YouTube video on writing a literature review, by the Assoc. Director of the Writing Center at Texas A&M University

"An Interactive Guide to Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism" with a quiz, put together by Monmouth University Library

Includes: APPENDIX: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LGBTQIA/WRITING CENTER SCHOLARSHIP "