Writing at the Summer Institute
The NCWP Summer Institute focused heavily on informal writing but we worked collaboratively on different writings as well. Each underlined title is a link taking you to more information about that particular type of writing.
Informal Writing
The Writing Marathon was a special day dedicated to free writing, about whatever we wanted, all day long. We stopped in shops, restaurants, and museums, looking for inspiration and sharing our work with our colleagues. A releasing experience for me.
Quick Writes were done every morning and sometimes in the afternoons. They were a useful tool to get us, more than anything, comfortable writing. At first I was reluctant, and even a few times I resorted to using my computer, but I appreciated the consistency of the quick writes, their variety, and how fun they became.
Google+ served as an excellent professional community where we were able to share what were writing, doing, reading, thinking.
Professional Writing
I believe that the conversations we have had and the reading we have done has further reinforced the ideas brewing in my head. I am working towards a clearer understanding of: Communities of Practice, Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Tutoring Spaces (examining the Student Learning Center), and Distributed Cognition; and how all of the above affect the way we teach second language writing. It is worthwhile to examine how we (students, instructors, tutors) think about a classroom versus how we think about tutoring. While providing a basic introduction, I hope to continue this work and address the need for supplemental writing instruction in a foreign language classroom.
Distributed Cognition plays a significant role in the work and research I am doing. During the French Writing Workshops I conducted in the spring 2014 semester, I saw elements of Distributed Cognition in and out of the space that had been created through those workshops. I will first lay out my central understanding of the ideas of Communities of Practice (CoP), and then provide a background to the development of these ideas, before closing with my interpretation of Distributed Cognition and how I have seen it in the Student Learning Center.
Paper 3 serves as a letter to the NCWP Summer Institute directors Amanda Von Kleist and Lindsey Nemec. A wonderful conclusion to an enlightening program!
Amanda Abrahams 