EWCA Conference 2022 (July 6 to July 8, 2022)
Post-Conference Round Up
Hosted online by the writing center of the University of Graz (Austria), the theme of the European Writing Centers Association 2022 Conference was ‘Writing Centers as Spaces of Empowerment’. As pointed out by conference host Doris Pany-Habsa (Graz) in the conference Call for Papers, “Higher education is widely perceived as a promise of empowerment”. Certainly, the romance of writing center work is that we foster competency, and thereby participation, in not only academic discourse but in the wider conversations unique to the democratic process that have consequences for how we govern ourselves, are governed by others and the extent to which we have access to those that govern. We strive to help those who come to us to become better writers, and in an academic context, that means more informed, critical thinkers, in short, good scientists: honest, trust-worthy, fair/balanced and respectful, leading by example, responsibly sustaining standards necessary to the maintenance of the integrity of one’s self as a citizen and a scholar and to the maintenance of the integrity of those institutions of which we regard ourselves as members.
The consensus was that the conference was a great success, probably exceeding everyone’s expectations given that events conspired in the eleventh hour to force what had been a long-anticipated live conference to become what may have understandably been perceived by many as another dreaded online conference. Endless thanks go to Doris’s Conference Organizing Committee: Lisa Wurzinger, Franziska Gürtl and Lukas Georg Hartleb, as well as those less visible but none-the-less diligent Sigrid Schneck and Katharina Deman. The conference ran so flawlessly, it was easy to forget that it was totally online. It was a wonderful experience. The idea of utilizing an online networking app at the end of the day was just icing on what was already a rich, satisfyingly flavourful cake.
The flawlessness of the delivery only made the quality of the content more apparent. For three days, 3 keynote presentations, 38 presentations, 5 workshops, 6 roundtables, 3 networking sessions and a number of Pecha Kuchas and posters addressed the empowerment of students, tutors, subject specialists, writing center directors, writing centers themselves and even the empowerment realized by retired writing center directors. All these sessions were attended and carried by 165 international participants including 48 students. The many approaches and strategies for the achievement of empowerment presented in these various forms of engagement are testament to the accuracy of Brad Hughes’ categorical breakdown, in his keynote presentation, of the writing center expertise and commitment on which writing centers are built. Approaches and strategies for empowerment included academic literacies approaches, other linguistic approaches, genre analysis, social strategies such as writers’ groups and retreats, collaborative writing, contrastive language strategies, translingual approaches, “small-teaching” and “working alliance” approaches and the use of actor-network theory and “writing as liberation”.
Equally impressive and edifying were the number of marginalized groups treated: international students, other language learners, at-risk students, first-year/transitioning students, multilingual students and neuro-diverse students. Empowerment through the engagement with the emotional labor of writing, an often-neglected area, was addressed as was tutor-led writing centers, Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Peer Assisted Learning programs as agents for empowerment of both subject specialists and students. Finally, the issue of sustaining pedagogical integrity, particularly in the face of the corporatization of higher education, and Brad Hughes’ talk on “connectivism” spoke to the empowerment of writing centers themselves. Beside this variety of perspectives on empowerment, the conference also engaged with the very future of the EWCA itself. In the general assembly the EWCA members discussed their goals for the upcoming years and elected a new Executive Board for the period 2022-2024.
It is our hope that as we move away from our experience of the EWCA 2022 Conference toward the next biennial conference in 2024, those who heard Brad’s presentation will reflect on his ethical stance on writing centers, that they should be pedagogical workshops, continually experimenting, challenging unexamined assumptions, adapting to new contexts for writing and for teaching writing, engaging in plenty of “epistemic trespassing”.
Written by Lawrence Cleary, Franziska Gürtl, and Lukas Georg Hartleb on behalf of the Conference Organizing Committee
Abstract
Although a growing body of literature claims benefits of writing retreats, such as increased motivation, enhanced writer’s self-efficacy, and increased publication output, the individual effects for participants have not yet been comprehensively researched. Since writing retreats at universities have been primarily deployed at the PhD level, the research to date has tended to focus on expert writers as opposed to novice writers. Moreover, the theoretical framework of previous studies on the effects of writing retreats is still rather vague or solely competence-oriented. This study set out to investigate the perceived benefits of regularly offered writing retreats at the University of Klagenfurt to students of all study levels within the multilevel concept of psychological empowerment of Zimmerman (1995). We consider writing retreats as places of empowerment where students are given the opportunity to shape their writing process and gain greater access to and control over their individual writing strategies. In order to ask about individual empowerment outcomes, this study is based on a quantitative online survey (n=60) and on qualitative semi-structured interviews (n=12) with students who participated in at least one structured writing retreat at the University of Klagenfurt (on-campus or online). The most striking result from the data is that all students except one noticeably advanced their writing project during the writing retreat. Moreover, the participants felt that both the motivation experienced in a group setting as well as the change from a previously known unstructured “writing time” into dedicated working time and breaks was highly supportive. The institutional setting of time and space especially empowered the students to commit to their writing project, reflect on their time management and planning strategies, and improve their self-care strategies. Overall, this study strengthens the idea that writing retreats can empower students of all study levels by experiencing writing as a manageable task.
Abstract
Writing texts collaboratively is a widely assigned task in higher education. When students deal with collaborative writing tasks, they encounter specific challenges that go beyond the pitfalls of individual writing. These difficulties are discussed in interdisciplinary and heterogeneous fields of research. Looking at this body of research from an empowerment perspective, recent contributions quantitatively analyzed how collaborative writing may help students to improve their writing skills and the quality of their written work. However, how students subjectively perceive collaborative writing processes has not been analyzed systematically so far if one disregards literature on English as a second language. In a research project currently underway, we analyze what challenges students face in collaborative writing settings, what working practices they use in these processes, and what possible solutions may be deduced from their experiences. To address these research questions, we conducted a qualitative empirical study which places the students’ perspectives at the center.
In our presentation, we will focus on the students‘ experiences of collaborative writing processes and the perceived challenges associated with collaborative writing. We will discuss some of these challenges in detail and outline how they are related to the students‘ working practices, the class requirements, and the professors‘ role as facilitators. Particular emphasis will be placed on the complex coordinating processes which students navigate during the course of their writing projects: For example, students must allocate specific writing and research tasks within the group; additionally, they need to consolidate their individual ideas about the writing product and the organization of the writing process. In extensive discussions, students verbalize individual writing practices and preferences that usually remain implicit. We argue that these negotiation processes enable students to grow as academic writers. To conclude, we will discuss how didactic scenarios employing collaborative writing tasks may empower students to further develop the quality of their written work as well as refine their writing skills.