CWCR/RCCR editorial team
Liv Marken, Stephanie Bell, & Brian Hotson
Vol. 1, No. 8 (Winter 2020)
Now that we’re all a week into this new reality of writing centre work, and university life in general, here are two final submissions from our colleagues at UBC and UOttawa, and their responses to COVID-19.
We continue to want to hear from you. If you have related stories, please contact us at cwcr.rccr@gmail.com. Continue reading “Canadian writing centres respond to COVID-19 – final instalment”
CWCR/RCCR editorial team
Liv Marken, Stephanie Bell, & Brian Hotson
Over the previous two posts, our colleagues spoke to the adaptation and changes they’ve made due to COVID-19. In this third instalment, writing centres from northern Manitoba, Québec, Ontario, and Alberta speak to their experiences.
If you have a story you want to tell about your experience responding to COIVD-19, please send 2-3 paragraphs to cwcr.rccr@gmail.com. Enter “COVID-19 response” in the subject line. Thanks.
Continue reading “Canadian writing centres respond to COVID-19 – March 19, 2020”
CWCR/RCCR editorial team
Liv Marken, Stephanie Bell, & Brian Hotson
Vol. 1, No. 7 (Winter 2020)
From the previous post, there are common themes and processes centres are following. What is apparent is the ability to adapt and pull together programming quickly. With so much uncertainty, we’re all planning for the best while looking at all the unknowns.
We asked twenty writing centres from coast to coast to coast to provide a short description of their centre’s response to COVID-19. We will publish these responses in parts by the day they were received, from March 17th to March 19th.
Below is a snapshot of our colleagues’ writing centres from March 18, 2020. Continue reading “Canadian writing centres respond to COVID-19 – March 18, 2020”
CWCR/RCCR editorial team
Liv Marken, Stephanie Bell, & Brian Hotson
Vol. 1, No. 6 (Winter 2020)
As Heraclitus continually reminds us, everything changes, constantly, but the tempo and severity of change from COVID-19 has overwhelmed and challenged us all in our writing centres. We wondered how other institutions around the country are coping with the fallout from COVID-19.
We asked twenty writing centres from coast to coast to coast to provide a short description of their centre’s response to COVID-19. We will publish these responses in parts by the day they were received, from March 17th to March 19th.
Below is a snapshot of our colleagues’ writing centres from March 17, 2020. Continue reading “Canadian writing centres respond to COVID-19 – March 17, 2020”
Vol. 1, No. 5 (Winter 2020)
By Stephanie Bell, Co-editor, CWCR/RCCR
With guest editor,
Holly Salmon, CWCA/ACCR board member, Coordinator and Instructor, Learning Centre Instructor, English Department, Douglas College
How do you describe the role of writing centres in higher education? I find that my efforts to articulate a narrative that moves beyond descriptions of programming and pedagogy are centred on advocacy and education about the nature of writing. What is good writing? This question has high stakes for higher education, and writing specialists located in writing centres have the expertise required to shape the answer. Continue reading “A deeper understanding of writing: A reflection on advocacy”
By Stephanie Bell & Brian Hotson
Vol. 1, No. 4 (Winter 2020)
An interview with John Hannah and Tesni Ellis from Ryerson University’s Student Affairs Special Projects & Storytelling team
Despite a dramatic rise of plug-and-play applications for producing and publishing multimodal web content, their migration into higher education classrooms has been slow. Likewise, support from Canada’s writing centres has remained fixed on traditional genres of writing, such as the research paper, lab report, and literature review. While researching for our forthcoming book on the future of multimodal digital writing support for students by Canadian writing centres/programs, we’ve been unable to find many programs of tutoring multimodal writing and production in university writing centre contexts. A noteworthy outlier is the Multiliteracy Support Appointments program listed on Ryerson’s Writing Support website.
We contacted John Hannah and Tesni Ellis at Ryerson to chat about their multimedia supports. John is Director, Special Projects in Student Affairs and former director of the Writing Centre, English Language support, and Graduate Student Support. Tesni is Coordinator, Student Affairs Storytelling within Student Affairs, and a former Writing Consultant at Ryerson’s Writing Centre herself.
Stephanie: Hi John and Tesni – thanks for agreeing to talk with us. Given that there seems to be slow uptake on this front, we’re interested in how your program got started. Can you tell us that story? Continue reading “How Ryerson is leading Canadian universities in multimodal writing support”
By Dr. Joel Benabu
Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 2020)
Dr. Joel Benabu’s research interests include English Renaissance drama (Shakespeare’s writing practices for the stage, specifically), theory of drama and performance, and Ancient and early modern rhetorical theory. At the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre (University of Toronto Mississauga), he has helped hundreds of students to hone their critical thinking and writing skills: “My writing pedagogy is less about imparting information and more about giving students the tools they need to excel in their academic writing. This can be achieved most effectively by building a diverse and robust skill set and confidence over time.”
Introduction
This in-class exercise asks students to identify and then categorize a range of actions a presenter might take at different stages in the development of an oral presentation (OP). I believe that the exercise facilitates good learning because it translates a complex, and, for many students, an opaque task into a set of practical, goal-oriented activities. Furthermore, the exercise helps to instill the notion in students that composition of any kind is a process (a distillation of sorts), over which greater control can be exercised through careful research, revision, and practice. Continue reading “Resource | A Presenter Prepares: Preliminary Research, Editing, and Practice”
By Kristin Welbourn
Vol. 1, No. 2 (Winter 2020)
Kristin Welbourn is the Millwood High School Librarian in Middle Sackville, Nova Scotia. Millwood High School has 800 students.
Millwood High School is a fairly typical school for the area, an area of mostly working-class families. It might seem an odd place for what appears to be the only high school writing centre in Atlantic Canada to originate.
About two years ago, I was invited to a high school staff meeting where teachers were reviewing the Grade 10 provincial exam results from the previous three years. As the school Librarian, I don’t usually attend that type of meeting, but the head of the English Department was kind enough to include me in this one. Even to my non-English teacher eyes, it quickly became apparent that when it came to writing, our students’ scores were slipping. Continue reading “Some free pizza sealed the deal: Founding the Millwood High School Writing Centre”
Writing is at once two steps away from conversation and a return to conversation. We converse; we internalize conversation as thought; and then by writing, we re-immerse conversation in its external, social medium.” (Bruffee, p. 641)
The Pilcrow Studio Writing Retreat offers writing studies’ scholars the opportunity to write in community with colleagues from across the country. Proposals should involve research projects intended for publication in the fields of writing centres or writing studies, with a view towards writing pedagogy.
May 24th – May 27th, 2020
Bluewater, Ontario
Call for proposals closes Monday, Feb. 3, 2020
The idea for this came from a deep desire to create small scholarly writing retreat. As writers and scholars, we have little time to write. And when we write we often write alone, in between classes, or on Saturday afternoons between children’s swimming lessons and play-dates. There’s not enough time at conferences to share in writing. At a retreat we can have a practice together that can result in strengthened thinking, shared ideas, and important contributions to the literature of writing centres and writing studies.
A retreat provides space for tutors, program administrators, instructors, and researchers to write, discuss, enjoy, and share in developing and moving writing projects forward. We know, as scholars of composing process and writing pedagogy, conversation is central to writing and the construction of knowledge.Being together in a space for three or four days, this conversation happens on paper and screens, and around tables and evening fires. Continue reading “Announcement || The Pilcrow Studio Writing Retreat”
Vol. 1, No. 1 (Winter 2020)
Sarah King, Director, University of Toronto, Scarborough Campus Writing Centre
It is my great pleasure, as President of the Canadian Writing Centres Association/L’Association des centres canadiennes de rédaction (CWCA/ACCR), to welcome the arrival of the CWCR/RCCR blog onto the Canadian writing centre scene. Continue reading “Writing centre is spelled -re: CWCA/ACCR President’s message”
