Abstract
In the US, writing centers have a long history at institutions of higher learning. Often housed in individual colleges, writing centers function to help both undergraduate and graduate students develop their writing skills and become more confident, independent writers. Assistance, which is typically offered by students who are themselves seasoned writers, takes form in both face-to-face and online tutoring sessions, and can focus on tenets of writing ranging from general skills (e.g., outlining, drafting, organization) to discipline- or genre-specific assignments (e.g., theses, reports, presentations). In recent years, efforts have been made to transfer the writing center culture across the pond; success stories have popped up in a wide range of European countries. Yet several contexts have yet to be investigated. The purpose of this study was to examine the challenges of establishing a writing center at the Department of Teacher Education (Institutt for lærerutdanning) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). In autumn 2019, 43 pre-service second-year students taking a course on Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) were obligated to make one appointment with the writing center to discuss drafts of a paper for a required assignment. Afterwards, they completed a survey detailing the experience of their visit. Results revealed that while students on the whole benefited from the sessions to discuss their writing, the students hinted at several cultural deviations that have the potential to hobble efforts of establishing a writing center. Instructional implications are discussed.
Highlights
IntroductionUS institutions of higher education have seen an upsurge in the number of writing centers (Murphy & Law, 1994)
For nearly a century, US institutions of higher education have seen an upsurge in the number of writing centers (Murphy & Law, 1994)
The second, namely what students found challenging or would like to change about their writing center visits, lends insight into the critical role that the perceptions of visitors to a writing center can play in its establishment
Summary
US institutions of higher education have seen an upsurge in the number of writing centers (Murphy & Law, 1994). Several related dilemmas – institutional and otherwise – have been chronicled in writing center scholarship; yet because of the new context, these dilemmas often differ from those present in US institutions (Girgensohn, 2012) One such example is the need to adopt to local writing practices when a writing center is founded (Turner, 2006). The participants in this study were 43 pre-service teachers in the second year of a fiveyear program, who in autumn 2019 were taking a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) course I was teaching For their final assignment, students designed a CLIL lesson plan and wrote a one-page summary that summarized the core principles of CLIL and their connection to the lesson plan
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