Paula Patch, senior lecturer in English and College Writing Coordinator, presented on a crosscultural approach to teaching first-year writing at the 5th annual Southern Regional Composition Conference in Memphis.
Paula Patch, senior lecturer in English and college writing coordinator, presented “Cultural Competency as Core Experience: A Successful Model for Crosscultural Composition” at the 5th Annual Southern Regional Composition Conference hosted by the University of Memphis, March 29-30.
The conference coincided with events marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis. Keynotes by actor, teacher, and Elon alumnus Daniel J. Watts and feminist composition scholar Jacqueline Jones Royster, as well as a talk by photography critic and writer Teju Cole connected these events to the conference theme of Rights and Responsibilities.
Patch represented a group of five Elon English faculty who were part of a Multilingual First-Year Writing Pedagogy Working Group. The working group was led by Assistant Professor Jennifer Zinchuk, who is trained in teaching English as a second language and has been researching the international student experience at Elon for more than a year, and included Patch, Professor Janet Warman, and Lecturers Margaret Chapman and Greg Hlavaty. A grant from the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning supported the work of the group.
In Fall 2017, the College Writing Program piloted “multilingual (MLL) student pods” in five sections of first-year writing (English 110 Writing: Argument and Inquiry), one of the First-Year Foundation courses in the Core Curriculum. The working group met monthly from August to December 2017, and the workshops included discussions and pedagogical activities such as identifying multilingual students, curriculum design for language diversity, addressing plagiarism with multilingual students, designing effective assignments and assessing writing, and engaging linguistic diversity in classroom activities.
The “pods” model with both international and domestic students intentionally creates crosscultural writing courses that not only support MLLs’ writing needs, but also cultivate a community of intercultural understanding that benefits both international and domestic students For students, this model gives international students a support network of students similar to them, as well as a space to create connections with domestic students. For faculty, the working group provides intentional training to cultivate a cross-cultural classroom where (linguistic) diversity is welcomed.
The College Writing Program includes ENG 110 Writing: Argument & Inquiry; ENG 100 Supplemental Writing Workshop, a co-requisite for ENG 110 for students who are identified as needing extra writing support or who request additional writing support; and the College Writing Seminar for High School Juniors, a non-credit writing seminar designed by Elon English 110 faculty to provide a critical writing and inquiry experience for high-achieving high school juniors in the Elon community. The seminar is an outreach partnership with Collegiate Start@Elon in the Center for Access and Success.