Challenges As A Community Of Writer Essay

Besides the fact that the writing center is understaffed, there are some challenges faced every day by all writing centers, not just the writing center at NOVA Alexandria. Some of these challenges were mentioned in a paper by Rachel Cooke and Carol Blesdoe, “(1) guiding students through the sequence of the writing process; (2) assisting students who may be uncertain about assignment guidelines; (3) operating under time constraints; (4) empowering students to take charge of their learning; and (5)evaluation of sources for quality and preventing plagiarism.”

Writing is a powerful tool for communication and connection. As an extension and expression of the mind, writing is as much about the mental processes of the author as it is about the final marks laid to paper. As we write, we hold in mind our own thoughts on the work, anticipate the reader’s thoughts, and think both in concrete and abstract ways in order to accomplish the task at hand. Whether an academic research paper, a novel, or text message to friends, writing seeks to engage, persuade, or impress concepts upon an audience. Like language and other art forms in general, the practice of writing is ever-evolving and is subject to cultural and contextual influence, expectations, and conventions. Each writer holds a theory

“Additionally, issues of identity and values are important factors in neophytes ' abilities and willingness to learn to write in and for new workplaces, as they must choose between ways of thinking and writing with which they are comfortable and new ways that seem foreign or at odds with their identities and values” (Wardle 285) When I was first accepted into The University of Arkansas, the first thing that came to my mind was to put effort into my grades and into building my resume. Those would be my top priories. Before I knew it I had been accepted into a discourse community of members that were striving for the same ideals that I was-The Greek fraternity Lambda Chi Alpha. Through the proses of being an initiate, I learned life long core values of community between other members. Interviewing the president of Lambda Chi Alpha, Luke Crenshaw, I uncovered the rigorous involvement of academic writing skills and how that plays a giant roll in this discourse community. These benefits are included in the values and beliefs of a discourse community.

Murray is insightful not only to instructors but also to learners. Murray argues that the challenge facing writing is the fact that teachers have treated it as a product rather than a process and the same concept passed on to students. The author holds that the main problem with this view is that students get to receive irrelevant criticisms that are not related to their learning goals. While I tend to agree with the author based on the arguments presented, it is notable that Murray has paid little attention to the idea of education in the contemporary world. In most learning institutions, the outcome of the writing is considered more than the process. As a teacher paying attention to the process of writing but not be consistent with the students, who are mostly driven by

To many people, writing is either considered a task, or an activity. There are also different types of writing for people to enjoy. In Josh Keller’s “Studies Explore Wether the Internet Makes Students Better Writer”, Keller describes how the internet has made students far better writers. He also describes how many students have described their dislike for academic writing but prefer their own personal blogging and/or journaling. This essay describes why struggling students often fail to write effectively because they find academic writing hard because they are not able to put their own thoughts and experiences into their essay. The idea of this essay was to describe the problems with students writing and the possible solutions for the problem. Keller mentions that the solution, that is not being pursued, is to combine academic writing with personal writing. He describes how many students write far better in their own personal writing and that these student’s personal writing

In their book They Say I Say, Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst outline strategies writers can use to avoid common mistakes often seen in academic writing. The book thoroughly outlines the different components that make up academic writing, such as initially summarizing what others have said before, responding with original ideas, proving a purpose to the writing, and connecting the writing in a logical and eloquent manner.

How might Porter, Rose, and, Swales think about an individual’s identity within a larger community, when entering new writing contexts, who has authority in a discourse community, and, how might negotiation with authority affect an outsider? When we write an individual piece before we are aware of discourse communities, we as writers have no rules because we are the writers and readers of our own works. However, once we as individuals communicate within a community we share concepts that we understand while learning what a communities’ limitations and rules are. Rose introduces the concepts of identity and authority with individual limitations that we develop over the course of our writing careers explained in Ridged Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the stifling of language: A Writer's Block. Rose talks in grave detail on how we as writers have problems that inhibit us that are habitual to our writing styles.

Students need this same type of determination when they are writing. This is especially true for EL students. Based on research there are three main principles for effectively teaching EL students: “(1) generally, effective practices are likely to be effective with ELs. (2) ELs require additional instructional supports. (3) The home language can be used to promote academic development” (Goldenberg, 2013, p. 5). In this paper, I am going to highlight a few writing best practices that are research based to use within a classroom setting that are particular successful for EL students.

When she says that comp instructors are often criticized for neglecting their role in teaching students how to produce “clear and correct prose” (242), I immediately want to scream. This is my biggest struggle. I feel that the majority of my students' writing falls into what she says “do not read as signs of newly developing critical literacy but simply as riddled with error and confusing sentences” (243). It is what I often describe as “just not that good”. Their thoughts are coherent and they make valid, sometimes even impressive, points, but their writing is a jumbled mess. This, for me, is far more difficult to respond to than someone who cannot organize their ideas or needs to maintain focus. It is frustrating for me and for them when I try to verbalize that their ideas are good but their writing is

This is why it is so important for writers to change their mindsets from negative to positive ones. In what follows, I outline four steps to

In writing it’s important to have an understanding of what you’re trying to convey for your audience in addition to how you you will present your ideas. Effective communication extends beyond having well organized writing expressed in complete and coherent sentences. The style, tone and clarity of writing must also be considered, as they are constantly changing relative to the audience. Again, analyzing one’s audience and purpose is essential to successful writing. Appropriately, when choosing the most effective language, it is important to consider the document objective as well as the reader. In essence, this idea of effective use of language has been the overarching theme of this online English course. Each writing assignment

At times the plethora of professional journals and the myriad subjects treated therein seems like little more than a dizzying exercise in redundancy and a forum for education professionals to justify their worth in a competitive job market; however, I would like to think that there is a hidden value for those of us whose brains seem to operate in what some might call a “spiral” rhetorical pattern, that as we work our way around and around certain issues related to composition instruction, we are moving gradually upward toward broader understanding and better practice. Some studies seem to do little more than show the need for more studies, their authors falling back on such standard phrases as,

According to Hossein (2013), teaching EFL students to write whole texts is often faced some difficulties. The student writer has to create a text which should be both rhetorically and linguistically appropriate. According to Richard and Renandya (2002), the difficulties of teaching writing to students include those in (1) generating and organizing ideas using an appropriate choice of vocabulary, sentence and paragraph

Therefore the researcher decided to apply the writing centre model in the teaching of report-writing so that students and their tutors and the researcher as their lecturer could work collaboratively on the production of a report.Lai (2011: 6)explains that collaboration involves participants working together on the same task

As a student who graduated from U-Link CIC Shanghai, I feel grateful for my four-year CIC careers, which brought me academic success – my English level was improved to a proficient level, which satisfied the requirements of American colleges. However, after studying in UC Davis for over a year accompanying with ESL writing courses taken every quarter, I found that ESL exams provided by CIC seem to have some imperfections: the writing section of the exams are not extensive enough to let students practice writing different styles of essays. In this letter I would like to analyze in details about how this form of exam would affect students, and some possible solutions I have come up with.