Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

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

"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

This open-access book, available on the WAC Clearninghouse, can be downloaded. Authors are Brock Haussamen with Amy Benjamin, Martha Kolln, Rebecca S. Wheeler, and members of NCTE's Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar. The book is described as follows: NCTE's Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar provides this much-needed resource for Kâ€"college teachers who wonder what to do about grammar-how to teach it, how to apply it, how to learn what they themselves were never taught. Grammar Alive! offers teachers ways to negotiate the often conflicting goals of testing, confident writing, the culturally inclusive classroom, and the teaching of Standard English while also honoring other varieties of English. This hands-on approach to grammar in the classroom includes numerous examples and practical vignettes describing real teachers' real classroom experiences with specific grammar lessons-including ESL issues-as well as a review of grammar basics.

From Praxis: "Susan Mueller - A corporate assessment model offers a fresh approach to evaluating consultant training programs and consultations themselves. How many times have you watched struggling students leave your writing center and wondered how much they got out of the conference you just had with them? It is hard to know."

"What can peer writing tutors do when they work with writers whose nervousness seems to get in the way of writing?"

Michigan State U. Writing Center's "Quick Guide" podcasts on preparing for your appt.; how to have the best writing center appt.; how to write a paper; what you can do in 30 minutes

Do directors also spend time offering one-on-one writing assistance?

discussing what to do when a faculty member "escorts" a student to the WC

"Evaluation/Accountability for the Writing Lab" (on assessment, usage data, student grades, faculty response); "Do We Need Materials for ESL and Engineering Students?" (self-instruction materials); "A Note on Lab Layout" (space design); mailing list

This open-access book is a collection of twenty-two articles provides practical information on establishing a writing center and monitoring its daily operation. Born of the practical experiences and theoretical insights of editor Pam (Farrell) Childers, it addresses "problems and frustrations, shares successes and failures, and offers suggestions. In general, it addresses the issue of establishing and maintaining a successful high school writing lab/center. It also provides college and university writing lab/center directors with insight into what the high schools are doing." The Table of Contents is listed on this page, and the whole book is free to download through the WAC Clearninghouse link provided here.

"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."

how do you encourage students to "reflect on their own tutoring/consulting practices"?

website for the Salt Lake Community College Writing Center. Lists resources, explanation of who they are, what they do, their workshops, etc.

This spreadsheet presents the years that over 1,000 writing center were founded. It may be of interest to those doing historical research. You'll note that the spreadsheet lists about 3,000 centers in total, many of which don't have founding years listed. If you know of a founding date that's missing, please submit it here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1CAMEiTQaiAUCDG5s7ImJVtfbHpvuPtVvS0tjq7rmRA4/viewform. And if you'd like to see some data visualizations of these dates, visit https://suemendelsohn.wordpress.com/.

From Praxis: "Former university writing consultant Michael Erard has made a living as a writer and writing consultant outside the university. He shares his wisdom about the challenges and advantages of consulting in the wild. You don't need to be in a university-based writing center to do the writer-centered, process-positive, and culture-sensitive work of a writing consultant."

From Praxis: "Is online consulting for me? Advice for consultants facing this question."

responding to tutor concerns regarding faculty competence

a discussion of the difficulty of assessing the effect of writing center intervention when considered among other variables (instructor, class dynamics, student health, etc.)

a discussion