Artifact Thirteen
Facilitating Academic writing for graduate students at Mount saint vincent university
Writing grows strongest when one treats it as a process. The flyer below supports this argument in that it enlists some of the fundamental elements of academic writing as weekly activities to be undertaken by the participants in our workshop. Based on my and my co-facilitator`s experience, our work addresses the importance of developing an Academic Writing Group for Graduate Students for the Department of Education at our University. The idea finds its origin in the web of relationships and conversations that include people with whom we work —professors who have directly and productively influenced our approach—and students we interact with and teach. It also draws from our understanding that sharing ideas is a mark of intellectual generosity, and the willingness to revise both thinking and writing when a new idea occurs is the mark of a confident member of the academic community.
Key to our approach was to develop a unique perspective that is to situate our association between students and faculty. We use fundamental concepts of academic writing as a narrative of inquiry whereby we analyze texts and question sources, reason with evidence, and organize persuasive and well-structured arguments that are communicated by clear and effective ideas. We use writing in the service of thinking, and the attached flyer is one very recent example of that. We ensure that students’ work meets the expectations of the professional discourse community, and help students achieve the standards expected of them.
While there are no guidelines to govern the operation of the Writing Group, we have found that a level of structure, exhibited by the current flyer, is needed to entice students to become join the group and remain part of it. Wenger (1998) and Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder (2002) point out that when a group of people share a concern or a passion about a topic, and interact on a regular basis in order to deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area of interest, a community of practice emerges.
Reference
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R. & Snyder, W.M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.