Volume 34, 2024

EN:

Reading and writing are core components of what it means to be a doctoral student. Although reading and writing are known to be discursive, socialized practices, doctoral programs often focus on the output of these practices and position reading and writing as generic, universal skills. Through collaborative self-study, we sought to examine our reading and writing processes and see what we could learn as doctoral students by making these processes visible. From our analysis, we discovered that understanding our reading and writing processes enabled us to use effective reading and writing strategies; revealed the benefits of blurring personal-professional boundaries; and contributed to shaping our identity as emerging scholars. We conclude that supporting doctoral students to examine their personalized reading and writing processes, opposed to solely focusing on output, can support them to look inward, locate meaning within themselves, and recognize the multiplicity in what it means to read and write at the doctoral level.

EN:

With an increasingly multilingual population made up of domestic and international students at Canadian universities, there is more to learn about the writing practices of multilingual students and the needs of multilingual postsecondary writers in a Canadian context. The purpose of this study was to learn in detail about the individual writing process of multilingual postsecondary students in a mid-sized university in eastern Canada. A qualitative methodology consisting of semi-structured interviews was followed. A small sample size of seven participants consisted of young adults enrolled at the postsecondary level who were recruited through posters on campus. The interviews were transcribed, coded holistically, and thematically analyzed using software. Findings reveal the individual writing process, use of strategies, and translingual practices in writing. Secondary findings highlight the impact of instructor feedback on learner attitudes and English language learners’ need for extra time to develop their academic English. These findings offer insights into the translingual writing process of multilingual postsecondary students.

EN:

Two recently published books present perspectives on the impact of generative Artificial Intelligence on writing. Baron’s book attempts to discuss the question of how we might maintain distinctions between the writing done by humans versus that done by genAI, while Tenen’s book takes a historical view of the use of technologies in writing and what that implies for writers currently.

EN:

This article introduces a Special Issue of Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie: Teaching Academic Writing in Canada. It contextualizes the research and pedagogical discussions contained herein, and it underlines how these contributions emphasize two major trends on the Canadian landscape of academic writing: the movement toward decolonizing academic writing and diverse approaches to writing in the disciplines and writing centre practices.

EN:

We explore relationality and decolonization within the context of our shared attempts to blend Indigenist (Wilson & Hughes, 2019) and Western approaches to information sharing on a redesigned writing centre website. To reflect and honour the importance of story-telling in Indigenous ways of knowing and being, our core discussion is framed as a conversation that is experiential, reflective, and relational. We explain how the redesigned website supports students’ learning about themselves as academic storytellers through invitational, meaningful, personal online experiences. By telling the story of where the project started and our motivations, choices, emotional experiences, and lessons learned, we articulate an actionable, broadly adaptable pedagogical approach to decolonizing academic writing support.

EN:

In the post-pandemic era, Canadian writing centres are ideally positioned to organise and support graduate writing groups. At the University of Toronto’s Health Sciences Writing Centre, we have begun offering a weekly, multidisciplinary graduate writing group for students in the health sciences. Inked: the Health Sciences Writing Collective aims to bridge the gap between high-commitment co-working groups and low-commitment accountability groups. We outline how the group emerged, how it addresses graduate challenges, and how it builds self-efficacy and community among members. We argue that this move to group-centred, indirect instruction presents an exciting direction for writing centre pedagogy in Canada.

EN:

Academic integrity is a crucial aspect of higher education that fosters intellectual honesty and upholds the principles of fairness and trustworthiness (Stoez & Eaton, 2020; Kang, 2022; Eaton, 2022). As the introduction and integration of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies becomes increasingly prevalent in educational settings, it is imperative to examine how Canadian universities are addressing the implications of AI on academic integrity (Eaton, 2022; UNESCO, 2023). This study aimed to examine the existing AI guidelines and policies developed and implemented by Canadian universities and analyze their alignments and gaps in relation to their academic integrity policies, particularly in the domain of academic writing in Canadian higher education contexts. In this research study, sixteen Canadian universities were selected for document analysis, and through an examination of their existing polices and guidelines on AI, results revealed insights into both challenges and opportunities for faculty, students and stakeholders around teaching academic writing while upholding academic integrity in higher education.

EN:

Background: Teacher self-efficacy can be defined as the confidence teachers hold about their individual and collective capacity to influence student learning. While many faculty assign and assess student writing as part of their course activities, they often perceive the act of writing as separate from rather than complementary to their teaching of subject matter content. This paper will report on the combined findings of two large survey studies of 385 faculty at Canadian universities, polytechnics and colleges. The purpose of the study was to assess faculty individual and collective self-efficacy for teaching writing.

Methods: Data was collected from faculty via an electronic survey distributed by email or social media (Twitter). Faculty responded to the Individual and Collective Self-Efficacy for Teaching Writing Scales. They also responded to open-ended questions asking them to relate how they felt about their abilities to guide student writing.

Results: Participants’ average age was 49.9 years with 14.5 years of teaching experience. Participants reported their individual self-efficacy for teaching writing at 77.2% while feeling that their departments as a whole were only 60% confident at teaching writing. Higher individual self-efficacy for teaching writing were found in faculty who were in combined research and teaching positions, PhD prepared, with prior formal education in teaching writing, and with 20 or more years of teaching experience. No statistically significant findings were observed with the Collective Self-Efficacy scale. From the qualitative survey data three themes were identified: 1) Blaming and lamenting; 2) Is teaching writing our responsibility? 3) Hopeful efforts and recognitions.

Conclusion: Overall, the data is rife with narratives of blaming students and institutions for student inability to write and faculty questioning their role as writing instructor. These narratives drown out the narratives of faculty who have a passion for teaching writing. Future research should focus on the development of formalized workshops to support faculty teaching writing and changing their attitudes toward the developmental and disciplinary shared responsibility of writing instruction in higher education.

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Many of the celebrated and generative tropes that defined the work and self-image of American writing centres—tropes like Stephen North’s “fix-it shop in the basement,” Andrea Lunsford’s “Burkean Parlour,”and Kenneth Bruffee’s “conversation of mankind”—also helped create and affirm an apparent scholarly and pedagogic consensus about writing centre praxis in the Canadian context. I examine the way such tropes imagine our practices—dialogical guidance, collaborative learning, scaffolding, and relationship-building—and the bodies and minds that are enacting them. Using sonnets, narrative, and reflection to propose alternative tropes, I explore how the entry of othered bodies and minds, new perspectives, and marginalized cultures into the writing centre world might change the way we relate to each other and the way we re-imagine our collectivity.

EN:

Since fall of 2021, UVic has offered a section of the foundational writing course, ATWP 135: Intro to Academic Writing that is dedicated for Indigenous students. This course provides a space for first-year Indigenous students to find a sense of belonging with each other and in the university more broadly, experience anti-oppressive grading practices (Gaudet 2022), develop the confidence to access Indigenous student supports, and navigate the broader institution. In this article, the authors (an Indigenous staff working as the Tri-Faculty Indigenous Resurgence Coordinator and a non-Indigenous faculty serving as the course instructor) discuss the development, delivery, and impact of this initiative. We share an example of promising practice for institutions to consider in the interest of supporting Indigenous student success and retention. In doing so, we also offer a model for collaboration across disciplines and across cultures based on shared values of vulnerability, openness, and honesty.

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When Seneca Polytechnic replaced EAC150, an essay-based English course, with COM101, a first-semester writing course based on writing skills transfer, we saw the opportunity to investigate both professors’ and students’ experiences of the new approach. Specifically, we wanted to know how professors conceptualized and taught COM101 and also how students connected their writing for COM101 with other writing they did at Seneca, their workplaces, and in their personal lives. From 2018–2020 we conducted qualitative surveys with professors and mixed-method surveys with students and applied inductive, thematic coding to all qualitative data. The data results were encouraging: student responses indicated that COM101 positively affected their writing and reported transferring writing skills to other areas of their lives. In addition, professor responses indicated that they actively engaged with skills transfer pedagogy, despite the fact that COM101 demanded a significant change in approach. In professor responses that indicated resistance to the new approach we found valuable lessons about the core ideas of transfer, including negative transfer, and the difficulties that anyone – professors and students alike – face in new learning situations.

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In 1961, the CCCC released a report titled “The Freshman Whose Native Language is Not English.” In this report, the chair argued for separate courses dedicated to teaching language-diverse students and staffed by “a linguistic expert, or experts, so that the student may be prepared for and oriented to some of the vagaries of the English language before the Freshman English teacher meets him” (Matsuda, 1999, p. 711). Paul Kei Matsuda (1999) argues that this moment marks the institutional divide between U.S. composition and applied linguistics that would go on to create a vacuum of knowledgeable peers. This vacuum meant that new composition theories interested in language topics in writing were not held accountable by peers trained in applied linguistics. If Matsuda’s assessment of this division of labour in the U.S. is correct, it inspires the question: does the samedivision of labour exist in a Canadian context? How have these two fields related historically, andwhat implications does this relationship (or lack thereof) have on the future of writing instruction inCanada’s increasingly language-diverse classrooms? The purpose of this paper is to construct ahistory of the relationship between these two fields as it pertains to one of Canada’s primary writingorganizations: the Canadian Association for Studies in Language and Learning, also known as Inkshed.

This paper first defines the Canadian term for composition, building on Wetherbee Phelps’ (2014) Canadian term “discourse and writing” to create “discourse and writing studies” (DW studies). Next, this paper excavates the Inkshed newsletters and conference programs from 1980 onward for evidence of cross-pollination between DW studies and second language (L2) writing. To further explore the relationship between these two areas in Inkshed’s past, this research builds on the work of Miriam E. Horne who composes a rich picture of Inkshed’s development in her book, Writing in a Community of Practice: Composing Membership in Inkshed.

The findings from this paper reveal that during the tenure of Inkshed, DW studies and L2 Writing scholarship comingled and remained closely linked through the decades until the organization dispersed. In other words, in the life of Inkshed, there does not appear to have been the same institutional division of labour between DW studies and L2 Writing as there was between composition and applied linguistics in the US.

Ultimately, these findings contribute to the broader narrative of how discourse and writing has professionalized in a Canadian context. They also contribute to the ongoing conversation regarding how writing instructors, writing program administrators, and writing centre professionals can best support culturally and linguistically diverse writers in Canadian classrooms. By drawing on this longstanding relationship with L2 Writing, DW studies scholars and practitioners are uniquely situated to greet the future of higher education equipped with language-based writing theories that are rooted in a community of knowledgeable L2 Writing peers.

EN:

Despite the best efforts of their instructors, first-year students often misinterpret or even ignore assignment sheets, leading to unmet learning outcomes and demoralising marks. Like academic writing as a whole, assignment sheets often contain conventions, terminology, and expectations that are unfamiliar to incoming undergraduates. In this paper, I propose an activity which calls students’ attention to assignment sheets as a genre, helping them meet the practical requirements of their assignment as well as develop their genre awareness. Students work in groups to rank the major goals of their current assignment as specified in the assignment sheet and use previous student responses to consider the diverse ways in which these goals can be fulfilled. Using this exercise, students can discover the close generic and rhetorical connection between the assignment sheet and the written responses it generates, as well as the variety of successful uptakes that are possible within the assigned genre.