Group items tagged

Kaplan University Academic Support Center Facutty Blog, entries about writing, writing center pedagogy, tutoring, etc. Has a search box to find various topics.

"The Citation Project is a multi-institution research project responding to educators' concerns about plagiarism and the teaching of writing. Although much has been written on this topic and many have expressed concerns, little empirical data is available to describe what students are actually doing with their sources. At present, therefore, educators must make policy decisions and pedagogy based on anecdote, personal observation, media reports, and the claims of corporations that sell "solutions." The Citation Project begins the process of providing descriptive data. Our research team systematically studies randomly selected, source-based student papers from a range of different institutions. Our purpose is to describe how student writers use the sources they cite in their papers. With this information, educators will be able to make informed decisions about best practices for formulating plagiarism policies and for teaching rhetorically effective and ethically responsible methods of writing from sources. Preventing plagiarism is a desired outcome of our research, as the subtitle above indicates, but the Citation Project research suggests that students' knowing how to understand and synthesize complex, lengthy sources is essential to effective plagiarism prevention. If instructors know how shallowly students are engaging with their research source-and that is what the Citation Project research reveals-then they know what responsible pedagogy needs to address."

From ABSTRACT: "For teaching practices in the Writing Center, the findings raise questions about how writing center pedagogy can empower L2 writers on their language control when the writing consultants have the ultimate control in language and the L2 learners have the inherent uncertainty. While writing center work draws on the advantages of collaborative dialogues and effects better language control for ESL writers based on a sociocultural learning perspective, writing center pedagogy needs to continue reconsidering the needs and beliefs of ESL writers (Blau & Hall, 2002; Powers, 1993). The language issue in ESL writing is not a lower order concern in the writing, but more likely a primary concern for the writer. As also found in this study, when the broader contextual factors such as the focus of writing and writers' beliefs are taken into account, language knowledge and control are not just about linguistic correctness to ESL writer development. In striving to create better writers but not just better writing for any writers, it is crucial for writing centers to continue rethinking their staff training on the topic of language issues with their diverse multilingual clientele who speaks English as a second language."

An annotated bibliography covering relatively recent books and journal articles; topics include philosophy, theory/practice, pedagogy, evaluation, assessment, and graduate writing support

Looks at collaborative learning and collaborative pedagogy in the writing center and how to overcome the challenges of both.

Links to all of the WAC Bibliographies on the following topics: Writing in the Disciplines Writing to Learn Program Design Faculty Concerns WAC in Two-Year Colleges WAC in the Schools WAC in the Disciplines WAC Assessment Pedagogy Writing Processes Writing Conventions Genre Research WAC and Writing Centers/Learning Centers Writing Fellows Programs WAC and Second-Language Writing Service and Experiential Learning Literacy Community Inquiry Technology Discourse Analysis Graduate Students

The Cult of Pedagogy website with suggestions for discussion strategies that might be useful for tutor training classes, by Jennifer Gonzalez. Also available to listen to as a podcast

discussing what we say we do (better writers) and what we might end up doing (better papers)

Dissertation on online writing center website design

from abstract: "in keeping with theory and practice of tutor training in inquiry-based pedagogy, ELL students and peer tutors vacillate between the linguistic dominant position, indicating that participants establish a collaborative and egalitarian environment. However, L1 tutors may experience dissonance because the agenda set by ELL students often focuses on surface features such as grammar and diction rather than on global revisions" (36).

"More and more ESL students are seeking writing help at U.S. college and university writing centers. This trend emphasizes the complementary role of the writing center and ESL writing instruction in improving ESL writing skills. Writing center and ESL writing pedagogy share the process and collaborative approaches, which emphasize the writing process using revision and reader feedback. Often difficult to implement in a classroom setting, these approaches can be used successfully with ESL students in the writing center. However, many writing center instructors, unfamiliar with the needs of ESL students, are often ill-equipped to work successfully with this special population. This has caused writing center faculties to turn to the ESL profession for help in establishing suitable strategies. The growing need for ESL expertise in the writing center has created a variety of capacities to which ESL instructors can contribute."

"The Journal of Writing Research (JoWR) is an international peer reviewed journal that publishes high quality theoretical, empirical, and review papers covering the broad spectrum of writing research. The mandate of the Journal of Writing Research is: to publish excellent and innovative writing research drawn from a range of academic disciplines (e.g. psychology, linguistics, pedagogy, design studies, communication studies, information and communication technology, learning and teaching) to stimulate interdisciplinary writing research to be fully international to apply high academic standards, including double blind peer review to share knowledge through open access "

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] "

a discussion of text selection for rhet/comp courses