Multilingual Writing Support

This chapter will provide a research-based protocol for one-to-one writing conferencing that helps tutors and teachers to navigate the tension between standardizing multilingual students' language practices and honoring their rhetorically rich linguistic backgrounds through a series of activities in a ten-week writing center pedagogy course. This series of activities was specifically developed in an effort to respond to writing tutors who are always seeking strategies that effectively apply theoretical principles in practice. While this work focuses specifically on one-to-one writing tutoring, the topic of multilingual writing support is applicable to any English language learning context. By the end of this chapter, readers will have gained a practical strategy centered on using declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge to help preservice tutors and teachers develop metalinguistic awareness and foster critical consciousness through one-to-one conferencing.

Re:Learn

Librarians and writing tutors in higher education are working intensely to teach information literacy to students. But the extent to which this work is done collaborative or separately differs greatly between the universities. •How can we facilitate collaborative learning on questions regarding the teaching of academic information literacy? •How do we relate this teaching to various national and international frameworks and guidelines? •How do we find new ways and methods for writing tutors and librarians to work together? •Is it possible to create a platform to facilitate the exchange of ideas and tools? These are some of the questions that led us to start this project: to develop an open web course on student learning of information literacy in higher education. But instead of targeting students in higher education the target group for this course is librarians and writing tutors at Swedish universities. The project is funded by the Swedish library Association.The purpose of the course is to: •Place information literacy in an academic context, where academic writing is included together with information seeking, referencing, plagiarism etc. •Develop national cooperation on issues related to the teaching of information literacy and academic writing •To facilitate online peer learning between collegues on issues related to teaching information literacy and academic writing •Develop a platform for sharing experiences regarding tools and methods The participants will get the opportunity to participate in workshops and PBL-inspired group work on themes regarding the teaching of information literacy in higher education. In this way we hope to facilitate a creative and collaborative learning environment. The first iteration of the course will take place April-May 2021. This presentation will be about the development of the course and what we have learned so far.

Disciplinary Writing Tutors at Work: A study of the Character of the Feedback Provided on Academic Writing at the BA Programmes at the Humanities Department

New students struggle to develop academic writing skills during transition to university. To meet this challenge, the Humanities department at the University of Southern Denmark implemented a research and development project to increase feedback to student writers. In the project, graduate students were trained as disciplinary writing tutors, and subsequently provided feedback on undergraduates’ assignments. The study presented in this article examines the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors. As researchers, we ask, “What characterises the feedback offered by the disciplinary writing tutors?” The study is positioned in a sociocultural framework that draws on theories of disciplinary and academic literacy. Data was collected in four bachelor’s degree programmes and consists of the feedback given by the tutors and interviews with the tutors conducted at the end of the tutoring. Principal results indicate that the feedback on the students’ texts is distributed at the text layer of content and structure and the text layer of formalities. Feedback at the text layer of sentences is almost absent. Feedback on the writing and learning processes is limited. The discipline-specific feedback occurs as indications in the feedback to the BA students and is made clearer when comparing feedback in different programmes. The feedback the writing tutors provide demonstrates an understanding of academic writing as academic socialisation.

The Tutor Development Needs of Writing Centre Consultants Working with Undergraduate Students Using English as an Additional Language

Growing numbers of international students and newcomers attending post-secondary studies means that there are more students using English as an additional language (EAL) at Canadian universities. Consequently, writing centres have recognized the need for specialized training for their tutors as they support these students. However, it is difficult to find research on tutor perspectives about these training programs in a Canadian context. The current project aimed to gather insight regarding tutors’ perceived knowledge and needs in helping students using EAL with their writing. The findings point to a need for tutor development which specifically contributes to supporting EAL writers in the form of ongoing interactive workshops on language awareness, instructional strategies, and communication skills. Twelve writing tutors completed a questionnaire in which they were asked about their previous EAL experiences, their current understanding of tutoring students using EAL, and their training needs in this area. A qualitative analysis revealed that tutors hoped to develop their ability in explaining grammatical rules, as well as improve their communication skills and developing pedagogical skills. These identified areas of development suggest a need to establish formal training in additional language acquisition theory, language awareness, and intercultural communication strategies.

‘Tutoring Is Not Proofreading’. Exploring the Perceptions of Writing Tutors at University Writing Centres, Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory Study

Academic discourse is highly complex and requires writers to follow specific writing conventions. Many Saudi university students have underdeveloped writing skills (Al-Khairy, 2013). One way to assist second language (L2) learners and develop their academic writing skills is through academic language support offered by writing centres. The challenge for writing centre tutors lies in the predominant belief among many L2 students that tutors’ only role is to fix students’ mistakes. Although there has been significant growth in writing centres in Saudi universities, the perceptions of writing tutors concerning tutoring non-native students are still under-researched. This study uses thematic analysis to explore the role of writing tutorials as perceived by writing centre tutors in Saudi settings. Data were obtained using an interpretive inquiry through individual interviews of two tutors. The main findings of the interviews were that tutors perceived proofreading requests, low writing proficiency of tutees and tutees’ understanding of tutors’ role as influencing their tutorial practices. The implementation of this study may help regulate the role of tutors in writing centres in Saudi universities by highlighting new avenues that can improve writing tutorials, especially in Saudi Arabia.

Universities

In the UK, Creative Writing programmes have been established in higher education for over thirty years, and for much longer than that in the US. Yet an independent quality assurance benchmark recognizing the unique teaching methodologies of Creative Writing in the UK was established only in 2016. Meanwhile, writers outside academia have attacked its teaching methods, assessment criteria, and outcomes as inauthentic and invalid since the subject’s inception. Originally conceived as practice-based and student-centred within the values of a socially inclusive education system, Creative Writing’s foundational values are now being repositioned as transactional expectations through a neoliberal focus on fees generation, marketization, and privatization of higher education. This chapter explores the consequences of these changes for writing tutors and student writers and for the discipline itself.

Re:Learn

Today many librarians and writing tutors are teaching information literacy in higher education. How can we facilitate collaboration on questions regarding this teaching? How do we relate our teaching to various national and international frameworks and guidelines? Is it possible to create a platform for the exchange of ideas and tools? How do we develop new methods for writing tutors and librarians to collaborate? These are some of the questions that led us to start this project: to develop an open web course on student learning and information literacy in higher education. But instead of targeting students in higher education the target group for this course is teaching librarians and writing tutors at Swedish universities. The project is funded by the Swedish Library Association. The purpose of the course is to: Place information literacy (where academic writing and information seeking both are natural components) in an academic context Develop national collaborationon issues related to the teaching of information literacy and academic writing To facilitate online peer learning between colleagues on issues related to teaching information literacy and academic writing Develop a platform for sharing experiences and best of practices regarding tools and working methods Strengthen the digital competence in the professions The participants in the course will get the opportunity to engage in inspirational workshops and PBL-inspired group work on for example flipped teaching, active learning, digitization issues and open networked learning with a focus on information literacy. In this way we hope to facilitate a creative and collaborative learning environment regarding the teaching of information literacy in higher education. The first iteration of the course will take place in October-December 2020 and will be held in Swedish. This presentation will be about the planning and development of the course. We will present the work done so far and look forward to feedback and input to the ongoing work.