Tutoring Second Language Writers

Shanti Bruce, Ben Rafoth, Shanti Bruce, Ben Rafoth

• Publisher: Utah State University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781607324065
• eBook ISBN: 9781607324140
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Creative Writing
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

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.

Contributors include Jocelyn Amevuvor, Rebecca Day Babcock, Valerie M. Balester, Shanti Bruce, Frankie Condon, Michelle Cox, Jennifer Craig, Kevin Dvorak, Paula Gillespie, Glenn Hutchinson, Pei-Hsun Emma Liu, Bobbi Olson, Pimyupa W. Praphan, Ben Rafoth, Jose L. Reyes Medina, Guiboke Seong, and Elizabeth (Adelay) Witherite.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword: Beyond How-To’s: Connecting the Word and the World
• Introduction
• Part One—Actions and Identities
• 1 Second Language Writers, Writing Centers, and Reflection
• 2 Building a House for Linguistic Diversity: Writing Centers, English-Language Teaching and Learning, and Social Justice
• 3 Identity Construction, Second Language Writers, and the Writing Center
• 4 El Centro de Competencias de la Comunicación and the Fraught Status of English
• Part Two—Research Opportunities
• 5 Multilingual Writers, Multilingual Tutors: Code-Switching/Mixing/Meshing in the Writing Center
• 6 The Digital Video Project: Self-Assessment in a Multilingual Writing Center
• 7 Examining Practice: Designing a Research Study
• Part Three—Words and Passages
• 8 Investigating Social Justice in the Writing Center
• 9 Building a Cultural Bridge between Ghana and the United States in the Writing Center
• 10 “These Sentences Sounded Like Me”: Transformative Accommodation in L2 Writing
• 11 Some Things I Did to Help Myself Learn to Write
• Part Four—Academic Expectations
• 12 Tutoring against Othering: Reading and Writing Critically
• 13 Unfamiliar Territory: Tutors Working with Second Language Writers on Disciplinary Writing
• 14 Helping Second Language Writers Become Self-Editors
• About the Authors
• Subject Index
• Author Index