Happy fall, PWPAers! We hope you are settling into the semester and that you’re ready for a new academic year of PWPA events. We’re certainly ready for you. Please mark your calendars for the fall PWPA meeting, hosted this October 25, 2013, at Philadelphia University. We are looking forward to your proposals for this meeting!
In a recent issue of Writing Program Administration, Paul Kei Matsuda calls on WPAs to create more explicit policies surrounding second language students in composition classrooms, as well as increase the professionalization surrounding second language writing. This call comes at a prescient time for many of us, as our campuses experience a rapid increase in the number of international students, often as a way to globalize the curriculum and raise tuition funds in a down economy. As these students with varying experience with English and American cultural practices show up in our composition classrooms, how can WPAs create and re-envision policies, procedures, and curricula that challenge boundaries and stigma? As WPAs, how do we create a culture of inclusion, rather than one of policing? How do the current theoretical conversations about ESL influence our teaching and administrative practice?
We invite your proposals for traditional presentations, roundtables, and workshops.
Additionally, you may consider presenting policies and procedures surrounding second language writing at your institution including
- Placement: issues of standardized testing, directed self placement, essay scoring
- Faculty development to support ESL students: organization of support (e.g. in or out of shared governance structure, use of incentives, teaching circles), ideas for workshops
- WAC and WID structures and courses: guidelines, course policies
- Program and course assessment: portfolio review, rater preparation
- Relationships with other campus units (admissions, advising, student life)
Please submit proposals to [email protected] with the subject heading “Fall 2013 Meeting Proposal.” We look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
Katie Gindlesparger and Justin Everett, co-chairs