CWCR/RCCR

Vol. 3, No. 3 (Fall 2021) An interview with Sarah-Jean Watt, Athabasca University Write Site Coordinator, and AWCA contact Liv Marken, Contributing Editor, CWCR/RCCR Liv: Could you please explain for our readers what the Alberta Writing Centres Association is and what it does? How is it different from the Campus Alberta Writing Network (CAWS)? Sarah-Jean: The AWCA began as an informal connection between institutions that participated in eTutor Alberta, an online tutoring service modelled on BC’s WriteAway. eTutor Alberta was formed in 2014 as a consortium of institutions, each of which lent a certain number of tutor hours per week … Continue reading Regional Writing Centre Associations in Canada: Spotlight on the Alberta Writing Centres Association

Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall 2021) Stephanie Bell, Associate Professor, York University Writing Centre; co-founder, CWCR/RCCR A clear-cut strategy for undermining the writing centre’s relationship with student writers is to become reporters, adjudicators, or punishers of plagiarism and cheating (Bell, 2018). In its heavy-handed discourse around academic dishonesty, the institution draws a divide between itself and students. Students arrive on campuses to find themselves positioned as likely criminals, and their work is policed by AI that scans it for infractions. Ironically, the institution’s academic dishonesty rhetoric can so undermine the institution-student relationship that it fosters academically dishonest student behaviour (see … Continue reading If you could say anything to faculty about academic integrity…

Vol. 3, No. 1 (Fall 2021) Brian Hotson, CWCR/RCCR Editor Introduction Although writing centres in Canada date to the mid-1960s (See Table 1) (Proctor, 2011, p. 418; Bromley, 2017, p. 35), writing tutoring and writing instruction, of course, didn’t begin with the first writing centres. Writing instruction has a progenitor dating to the first European colonizers in what is now called Canada (Halifax Gazette, 1752). Because the Canadian writing centre field is young, many of the key founders and figures in its development continue to add to its literature and practice. These writing centre practitioners in the past thirty years … Continue reading A Short History of CWCA/ACCR: Fifteen years on

Volume 2, No. 1 Summer 2021 by Emma Sylvester Emma Sylvester is Coordinator, Writing Centre and Academic Communications, Saint Mary’s University. Introduction As Writing Centre (WC) practitioners, how do we know that students are actually benefitting from our work? Plenty of research has shown that WC use improves students’ grades (e.g., Driscoll, 2015; Thompson, 2006; Trosset et al., 2019, Dansereau, et al., 2020), but how do I know that translates to my own unique institution or to the session I had with a tutee this morning? As a tutor, the immediate feedback of seeing a student’s “lightbulb moment” or hearing … Continue reading Trying to capture the full story: Making a post-tutoring session survey

Vol. 2, No.8 (Spring 2021)Liv Marken, Contributing Editor, CWCR/RCCR Link to Part II PART III: Looking Ahead In last week’s instalment, Jill McMillan, a Learning Specialist at the University of Saskatchewan, and Nadine Fladd, a Writing and Multimodal Communication Specialist at the University of Waterloo, shared their thoughts about accessibility, transition, and international student support. In part three, our final instalment, Jill and Nadine look ahead to what they envision keeping and what will be changed in the slow transition back to campus.