Creative Approaches to Writing Center Work


Book Description

From the Back Cover: Creative Approaches to Writing Center Work is the first book-length attempt to address the role creativity plays in writing centers. Beginning with the premise that creativity has the potential to make work and learning environments more productive-and possibly more dangerous-the ideas in this collection will complicate visions of what writing centers can and should be. Striking a balance between theory and practice, readers will learn about creative tutor training and staff meeting activities, how to use toys to tutor and how to tutor creative writers, and, finally, how to implement creative outreach programs such as Stanford's poetry slams and fiction readings, Sonoma State's writing playshops, Iowa's invitations and Voices, and Lansing Community College's Portfolio Pandemonium Midnight Madness. Those who are in search of ways to infuse their centers with creativity and fun will find Creative Approaches to Writing Center Work to be an invaluable, inspirational resource.




Creative Approaches to Writing Center Work


Book Description

From the Back Cover: Creative Approaches to Writing Center Work is the first book-length attempt to address the role creativity plays in writing centers. Beginning with the premise that creativity has the potential to make work and learning environments more productive-and possibly more dangerous-the ideas in this collection will complicate visions of what writing centers can and should be. Striking a balance between theory and practice, readers will learn about creative tutor training and staff meeting activities, how to use toys to tutor and how to tutor creative writers, and, finally, how to implement creative outreach programs such as Stanford's poetry slams and fiction readings, Sonoma State's writing playshops, Iowa's invitations and Voices, and Lansing Community College's Portfolio Pandemonium Midnight Madness. Those who are in search of ways to infuse their centers with creativity and fun will find Creative Approaches to Writing Center Work to be an invaluable, inspirational resource.




Tutoring Second Language Writers


Book Description

"Tutoring Second Language Writers, a complete update of Bruce and Rafoth’s 2009 ESL Writers, is a guide for writing center tutors that addresses the growing need for tutors who are better prepared to work with the increasingly international population of students seeking guidance at the writing center.Drawing upon philosopher John Dewey’s belief in reflective thinking as a way to help build new knowledge, the book is divided into four parts. Part 1: Actions and Identities is about creating a proactive stance toward language difference, thinking critically about labels, and the mixed feelings students may have about learning English. Part 2: Research Opportunities demonstrates writing center research projects and illustrates methods tutors can use to investigate their questions about writing center work. Part 3: Words and Passages offers four personal stories of inquiry and discovery, and Part 4: Academic Expectations describes some of the challenges tutors face when they try to help writers meet readers’ specific expectations.Advancing the conversations tutors have with one another and their directors about tutoring second language writers and writing, Tutoring Second Language Writers engages readers with current ideas and issues that highlight the excitement and challenge of working with those who speak English as a second or additional language."




Everyday Writing Center


Book Description

In a landmark collaboration, five co-authors develop a theme of ordinary disruptions ("the everyday") as a source of provocative learning moments that can liberate both student writers and writing center staff. At the same time, the authors parlay Etienne Wenger’s concept of "community of practice" into an ethos of a dynamic, learner-centered pedagogy that is especially well-suited to the peculiar teaching situation of the writing center. They push themselves and their field toward deeper, more significant research, more self-conscious teaching.




ESL Writers


Book Description

This book's focus on the different types of ESL learners, such as students from different countries, students of various academic levels, and Generation 1.5 Learners, is remarkable. It is a very useful book, and we frequently refer to it in our Writing Center. -Franziska Liebetanz Writing Center Director, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) Do you have second language students in your writing center? Do you have peer writing tutors? If so, here is the very book you and your tutors have been hoping for! -Harvey Kail Writing Center Coordinator, University of Maine The second edition of ESL Writers continues to be the single most useful resource for tutor education on ESL matters....Writing center professionals will find the text to be an invaluable addition to their staff education program. Writing center tutors and consultants will benefit from the comprehensive review of L2 tutoring practice. -Clint Gardner Former president, International Writing Centers Association Writing centers are seeing more and more kinds of ESL students. That's why the much-loved ESL Writers (winner of the International Writing Centers Association's Outstanding Scholarship Award for Best Book) has changed with the times to reflect the expanding diversity of writing center students. The Second Edition features five totally new essays and has been thoroughly revised to be more useful than ever. ESL Writers, Second Edition: expands the definition of students and tutors with respect to their linguistic backgrounds, describing specifically the characteristics of a variety of English learners, including bilingual writers, Generation 1.5ers, recent immigrants, and foreign students who need support with academic English in a new first chapter focuses greater attention on the diversity of cultural and literacy identities among students and tutors addresses tutors' most frequently asked questions about helping ESL writers with English grammar outlines methods for succeeding with tutoring ESL writers online as well as tips for common pitfalls. Filled with suggestions and strategies based on a rigorous combination of experience, research, and theory, ESL Writers, Second Edition, remains a tutor's top resource for working with English learners.




Theories and Methods of Writing Center Studies


Book Description

This collection helps students and researchers understand the foundations of writing center studies in order to make sound decisions about the types of methods and theoretical lenses that will help them formulate and answer their research questions. In the collection, accomplished writing center researchers discuss the theories and methods that have enabled their work, providing readers with a useful and accessible guide to developing research projects that interest them and make a positive contribution. It introduces an array of theories, including genre theory, second-language acquisition theory, transfer theory, and disability theory, and guides novice and experienced researchers through the finer points of methods such as ethnography, corpus analysis, and mixed-methods research. Ideal for courses on writing center studies and pedagogy, it is essential reading for researchers and administrators in writing centers and writing across the curriculum or writing in the disciplines programs.




Writing Center Research


Book Description

There are writing centers at almost every college and university in the United States, and there is an emerging body of professional discourse, research, and writing about them. The goal of this book is to open, formalize, and further the dialogue about research in and about writing centers. The original essays in this volume, all written by writing center researchers, directly address current concerns in several ways: they encourage studies, data collection, and publication by offering detailed, reflective accounts of research; they encourage a diversity of approaches by demonstrating a range of methodologies (e.g., ethnography, longitudinal case study; rhetorical analysis, teacher research) available to both veteran and novice writing center professionals; they advance an ongoing conversation about writing center research by explicitly addressing epistemological and ethical issues. The book aims to encourage and guide other researchers, while at the same time offering new knowledge that has resulted from the studies it analyzes.




The Embodied Playbook


Book Description

The Embodied Playbook discovers a new approach to understanding student literacy in a surprising place: the university athletics department. Through analysis of a yearlong case study of the men’s basketball team at the University of North Georgia, J. Michael Rifenburg shows that a deeper and more refined understanding of how humans learn through physical action can help writing instructors reach a greater range of students. Drawing from research on embodiment theory, the nature and function of background knowledge, jazz improvisation, and other unexpected domains, The Embodied Playbook examines a valuable but unexplored form of literacy: the form used by student-athletes when learning and using scripted plays. All students’ extracurricular prior knowledge is vital for the work they undertake in the classroom, and student-athletes understand the strengths and constraints of written text much as they understand the text of game plays: through embodying text and performing it in a competitive space. The book focuses on three questions: What are plays and what do they do? How do student-athletes learn plays? How can teachers of composition and rhetoric better connect with student-athletes? The Embodied Playbook reveals the literacy of the body as a rich and untapped resource for writing instruction. Given the numbers of students who are involved in athletics, whether intramural, community-related, or extracurricular, Rifenburg’s conclusions hold important implications not only for how we define literacy but also for how writing programs can serve all of their students most effectively.




Strategies for Writing Center Research


Book Description

Strategies for Writing Center Research is a how-to guide for conducting writing center research introducing newcomers to the field to the methods for data collection, analysis, and reporting appropriate for writing center studies.




Upsetting Composition Commonplaces


Book Description

In Upsetting Composition Commonplaces, Ian Barnard argues that composition still retains the bulk of instructional practices that were used in the decades before poststructuralist theory discredited them. While acknowledging that some of the foundational insights of poststructuralist theory can be difficult to translate to the classroom, Barnard upends several especially intransigent tenets that continue to influence the teaching of writing and how students are encouraged to understand writing. Using six major principles of writing classrooms and textbooks—clarity, intent, voice, ethnography, audience, and objectivity—Barnard looks at the implications of poststructuralist theory for pedagogy. While suggesting some evocative poststructuralist pedagogical practices, the author focuses on diagnosing the fault lines of composition's refusal of poststructuralism rather than on providing "solutions” in the form of teaching templates. Upsetting Composition Commonplaces addresses the need to more effectively engage in poststructuralist concepts in composition in an accessible and engaging voice that will advance the conversation about relations between the theory and teaching of writing.