Group items tagged

Publication Information: Harris, Muriel. (2015). Teaching One-to-One: The Writing Conference. WAC Clearinghouse Landmark Publications in Writing Studies: http://wac.colostate.edu/books/harris/. Originally Published in Print, 1986, by National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Illinois. This groundbreaking book offers advice for teachers new to conferencing, experienced teachers seeking to refine or expand their approaches to conferencing, and tutors working in writing centers. Since it was published in 1986, it has become one of the most widely cited books on conferencing. Harris offers a theoretical framework for conference teaching, descriptions of activities typical of and central to writing conferences, advice on diagnostic strategies for individualized instruction, and instructional strategies. Discussions in the book borrow from a wide range of fields, including counseling and therapy, cognitive science, anthropology, and education. In appendices, she includes a set of teaching materials that can be useful in tutor and teacher training.

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

"Promotional and educational video about the Georgia Southern University Writing Center, written and produced by Xavier Best and Efadul Huq for Dr. Michael Pemberton's "Tutoring Writing" class, Spring 2010. Part I."

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

Article by Rebecca Babcock and Terese Thonus (with videos) discussing state of current WC research and how to get involved.

"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. "

discussing the challenges posed by Quality Enhancement Plans, and how to meet them

Tutors: A Multiliteracy Journal about Tutoring. Open access to issues; articles by and for tutors.

Compiled by St. Cloud State U

This video promotes the Writing Center at the University of New Hampshire by describing its purpose and resources, the function of its assistants, and the process of making an appointment.

"College readiness has several dimensions, but of particular import is readiness to produce scholarly work that meets the expectations of college instructors. Differences from high school and college are well documented in the literature, and this study adds to that body of work by delineating the characteristics of first-year college assignments through a qualitative analysis of college faculty assignment instructions. Three themes emerge from the analysis: information literacy, especially initiating inquiry; academic writing, especially citing evidence in support of a thesis; learner dispositions, especially curiosity, open-mindedness, self-reliance, and perseverance. Findings have implications for high school library programs and high school teachers as well as librarians working with first-year college students."

Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society is a peer-reviewed, blind-refereed, online journal dedicated to exploring contemporary social, cultural, political and economic issues through a rhetorical lens. In addition to examining these subjects as found in written, oral and visual texts, we wish to provide a forum for calls to action in academia, education and national policy. Seeking to address current or presently unfolding issues, we publish short articles ranging from 2,000 to 2,500 words, the length of a conference paper. For sample topics please see our submission guidelines. Conference presentations on topics related to the journal's focus lend themselves particularly well to this publishing format. Authors who address the most current issues may find a lengthy submission and application process disadvantageous. We seek to overcome this issue through our shortened response time and by publishing individual articles as they are accepted. We also encourage conference-length multimedia submissions such as short documentaries, flash videos, slidecasts and podcasts. In order to foster dialogue, our journal features a Reader Response section in which both contributors and readers are welcome to discuss the publications' content in a public, digital space.

This article presents three case studies that closely examine various types of inter-actions taking place in writing center tutorials involving newly arrived pre-ma-triculated ESL writers. By learning what strategies tutors commonly use and how successfully the ESL writers negotiate their goals for the visit and the form and meaning of their text through this sample, this study aims to help identify what characterizes successful tutorials and what unique challenges English language learners might face when interacting with tutors. Results from these case studies show that it is not how many corrections tutors make or suggest for the students' papers, but how much the tutors engage their tutees in a meaningful dialogue that brings satisfaction to the ESL students. Findings also suggest that deliber-ate efforts should be made to equip ESL writers with necessary metalanguage to communicate their goals for their visit.

On the International Writing Centers Association website, a SLATE statment, "The Concept of a Writing Center," by Muriel Harris, 1988.

A resource bibliography of published materials on ESL (or non-native speakers of English) for use by staff in writing centers. Bibliography is available both in MLA and APA format.

a discussion of distinctions between writing center tutoring and tutoring (English, writing, reading) that is offered by Learning Centers, Academic Skills Centers, etc.

"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: "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).

a discussion on how to cope with students who make consultants uncomfortable by scheduling multiple appointments, attempting to see consultants outside of hours, etc.