Review of Re/Writing the Center: Approaches to Supporting Graduate Students in the Writing Center, by Susan Lawrence and Terry Myers Zawacki (original) (raw)
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Writing Center Journal, 2021
Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers takes us from narratives to research. I was interested in and looked forward to reading this book, as, over the summer, some graduate students and I read Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School (McKee & Delgado, 2020), and I wanted to see how the books complemented each other. While Degrees of Difference was more personal, more narrative-based, and more interdisciplinary, both books stressed the importance of mentoring. But I am especially excited to bring some of the ideas from Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers to my Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) campus. Our graduate population at The University of Texas Permian Basin is growing, and we need to offer it more support. The book is divided into three parts with a total of 14 chapters, plus an introduction and an afterword. Part 1: Voices, considers graduate student experiences in five chapters; Part 2: Bridges and Borders consists of two chapters; Rebecca Day Babcock is the William and Ordelle Watts Professor at the University of Texas Permian Basin, where she teaches writing and linguistics and serves as the Freshman English Coordinator and Director of Undergraduate Research. She has authored, co-authored, or edited books and award-winning articles on tutoring, writing centers, disability, and meta-research, as well as recently published her first book not about tutoring, Boom or Bust: Narrative, Life, and Culture from the West Texas Oil Patch, co-edited with Sheena Stief and Kristen Figgins. Theories and Methods of Writing Center Research, edited with Jo Mackiewicz, won last year's AWAC best edited collection award.
Introduction: Graduate Writing Across the Disciplines
2020
This project has been part of our lives for a long time. It began in 2011 when all the editors were working at the Michigan State University (MSU) Writing Center, Trixie Smith as the director and the rest of us as graduate students. Every day we found ourselves grappling with issues and ideas connected to graduate writers through our work at the writing center: working one-to-one with graduate writers, facilitating graduate writing groups, and offering workshops for graduate students, such as our Navigating the Ph.D. workshop series. The work was also personally relevant to most of us since we were graduate students at the time, frequently finding ourselves experiencing imposter syndrome and letting our identities as graduate students consume our lives. Little did we-excepting Trixie, perhaps-know then that our interest in graduate writing would intensify when we became junior faculty and found that we still faced many of the same writing-related concerns that we did as graduate students. Our motivations for developing this edited collection on graduate writing across the disciplines began when we turned from interacting with graduate writers to researching graduate writers and graduate writing. When the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures department at MSU began an initiative to create research clusters that bring faculty, staff, and students together to engage in conducting academic research and developing publications, we decided that a research cluster focusing on graduate writing would be ideal. We participated in this Graduate Writing Research Cluster for the two years that we were all still at MSU and continued to collaborate when we began moving into faculty positions outside of MSU. Our collaboration culminated in a special issue of Across the Disciplines and this edited collection. What
2019
According to the Council of Graduate Schools, the attrition rate for graduate students is high and becomes higher when looking at underrepresented populations inside the academy. One particular need that has been identified is that of writing support for doctoral students (Kamler and Thomson xi; Mullen 117; Paltridge and Starfield 53). This article builds on this call by giving attention to writing support for graduate students in the form of doctoral writing groups, specifically facilitated by writing centers. These graduate student-writing groups are comprised of graduate students, who share their writing and give feedback on writing inperson during regular group meetings. As such, these graduate writing groups function as a community of practice through which we trace the struggles, benefits, and implications of writing groups for ameliorating access and equity issues in graduate writing support. This article focuses on experiences of the authors' own writing group, in which they have participated throughout their doctoral education. We employ an inductive, multi-narrative approach to examine the underlying needs of graduate student writers and we suggest facilitating a writing group as a way to meet those needs. As such, this project sheds new light on the successes and struggles of a graduate student writing group and how writing centers can provide support for these groups. As a type of "third space," operating apart from faculty purview, the writing center is an ideal place to formalize, organize, and invigorate graduate writing communities by initiating and hosting graduate writing groups.
A survey of graduate writing courses
Journal of Advanced Composition, 1985
The present survey was undertaken to discover the extent and range of graduate writing courses nationwide and the rationale for offering them, as described by deans and faculty of our population schools. The survey was modeled on two previously conducted studies of writing courses and programs, one of medical writing courses, the other of undergraduate writing programs. Our population consisted of 213universities from the 228included in the National Research Council Commission on Human Resources' 1982 assessment of research and doctoral programs in the United States.
Creating Support for Graduate Students' Writing and Publication Endeavors
Advances in library and information science (ALIS) book series, 2018
Although research and writing for publication are seen as important responsibilities for most graduate students and faculty, many struggle to understand the process and to succeed. Unfortunately, writing centers at most universities do not cater to these kinds of needs, but rather to course-specific needs of undergraduate students. This chapter describes a writing center, The Office of Academic Writing and Publication Support, at Florida International University, USA that was specifically designed to aid the scholarly writing endeavors of graduate students. First, the authors review literature on how individual instructors and programs assist graduate students in improving their writing skills. Then they provide a history of university writing centers and examine the evolution of their purpose. In the second half of the chapter, the authors share their experiences envisioning and building this writing center and creating, implementing, and improving its services. In doing so, they also reflect on successes and missteps along the way. The authors hope this chapter may be especially helpful to educators who seek to create similar centers or services at their own institutions.
Teaching writing in graduate school
2011
Graduate students are typically expected to know how to write. Those who write poorly are occasionally penalized, but little in-class attention is given to help students continue to develop and refine their writing skills. More often than not, writing courses at the graduate level are remedial programs designed for international students and others with significant challenges to writing. In this article,we describe theways in whichwe introduced writing into the curriculum of a master’s-level qualitative methods course. We structured the course around a semester-long research project that called for students to work in a team with others to improve both their research and writing. We share the strategies we used to demystify the writing process and encourage improvement, both in the course and beyond.
"From Design to Delivery: The Graduate Writing Consultant Course”
The Writing Lab Newsletter Vol. 32, No. 8 ., 2008
A writing center's mission is to assist student writers. Our mantra is "make better writers not better papers." No matter how small the lesson, we pride ourselves in assisting students to generate ideas, improve basic skills, organize effectively, develop sophistication in style and thoughtfulness in content. In short, we aim to foster a writer's confidence.