Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa University of Chicago Press, 2011 This book has much to say that is perceptive about today's undergraduate higher education in the United States. It will be valuable to review the authors' insights. At the same time, it will be as instructive to note the book's weaknesses, and especially what is omitted from the discussion. It is a discussion that is truncated intellectually by the authors' close adherence to the selective awareness that so greatly typifies the mindscape of the contemporary American "establishment" in academia and throughout the commanding heights of American society. That mindscape allows a recognition of many things, but not of others. The authors are both faculty members at major American universities. Richard Arum is a sociology professor at New York University with a tie to the university's school of education. He is the author of several books on education and director of the Education Research Program sponsored by the Social Science Research Council. His co-author, Josipa Roksa, is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. That the book is published by the University of Chicago Press attests to its presumptive merit. Academically Adrift furnishes an example of something that has long been common in social science writing: a rather thin empirical study serving as the work's own contribution, combined with considerable additional material coming out of the literature on whatever subject is being explored. The function of the authors' own research is thus often to serve more or less as scientistic windowdressing. The reason we say the empiricism for this book is "thin" is that the "longitudinal data of 2,322 students," while seemingly ample, involves students spread over "a diverse range of campuses," including "liberal arts colleges and large research institutions, as well as a number of historically black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions," all "dispersed nationally across all four regions of the country." This must necessarily mean that the "sample" from any given institution or program was quite small. We are told that the authors didn't concern themselves with the appropriateness of each sample, but left the recruitment and retention of the sample's students to each of the respective institutions. The authors acknowledge that the study included fewer men than women, and more good students than those of "lower scholastic ability." So far as this book is concerned, however, the thinness doesn't particularly hurt the content, since so much of what is said doesn't especially depend upon anything unique found by the authors' own research. A brief summary is provided when the authors say that "we will highlight four core 'important lessons' from our research." These are that the institutions and students are "academically adrift" (which is the basis for the book's title), that students gain surprisingly little from their college experience, that there is "persistent and growing inequality" in the students' learning, and that "there is notable variation both within and across institutions" so far as "measurable differences in students' educational experiences" is concerned. Following the lead of former president Derek Bok of Harvard and of the Council for Aid to Education, the authors' ideal for higher education is that it will enhance students' "capacity for critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing." These are the three ingredients measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), which the authors value most among the various assessment tools. The CLA results, they say, show that "growing numbers of students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for a large proportion of them the gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and written communication are either exceedingly small or empirically nonexistent. …

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses

El libro analiza los programas institucionales de ensenanza de la escritura en la universidad e iniciativas afines de profesores que se ocupan de la escritura en sus materias, en los 5 continentes. Compila las formas de ensenanza de la escritura academica a traves del curriculo y en las disciplinas, que fueron seleccionadas a partir del International WAC/WID Mapping Project. El primer autor es el coordinador del proyecto de investigacion origen del libro, y le siguen por orden alfabetico los co-editores. La Dra. Carlino, integrante del grupo de investigacion, tuvo a su cargo la traduccion de la encuesta inicial al espanol, la traduccion de las respuestas recibidas al ingles, el analisis preliminar de estas y la seleccion, seguimiento y edicion de los capitulos latinoamericanos y espanol, asi como la redaccion de un capitulo general ("section essay": cap. 41) en el cual se analizan las iniciativas latinoamericanas y espanola. En la p. 13 del libro puede notarse que, despues de Gran Bretana, fue Argentina el pais que aporto mayor numero de encuestados. Tambien se destacan otros paises de habla hispana. Los autores de los 40 capitulos que componen la obra fueron seleccionados segun criterios de representatividad geografica y relevancia, a traves de la encuesta y posteriores entrevistas por correo electronico llevadas a cabo por los co-editores. El libro se publica en version impresa y tambien como e-book y en pdf de acceso libre. Los ISBN son: 978-1-60235-343-5 (Paperback), 978-1-60235-344-2 (Hardcover), 978-1-60235-345-9 (Adobe eBook), 978-1-60235-346-6 (ePub). Veanse: http://wac.colostate.edu/books/wpww/ , http://www.parlorpress.com/wpww y http://mappingproject.ucdavis.edu/homepageEl libro quedo conformado con capitulos de: Arlen Archer (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Susaimanikam Armstrong (U. of Madras, India), Brian Turner & Judith (U. of Winnipeg, Canada), Trudy Zukerman, Bella Rubin, & Hadara C. (Achva Academic College of Education;Tel Aviv University; Bar-Ilan University, Israel), Lynee Ronessi (American University of Sharjah), Emily Golson & Lammert Holdijk (The American University in Cairo), Desiree Motta Roth (U. of Santa Maria, Brazil), Wu Dan (Xi´an International Studies University, China), Roger Graves (U of Alberta, Canada), Magnus Gustafsson (Chalmers University of Technology), Lotte Rienecker & Peter Stray Jorgensen (U. of Copenhagen), Dilek Tokay (Sabanci University), Christopher Thaiss (U. California at Davis), Linda Hirsch (CUNY), de O´Sullivan and Lawrence Cleary (U. of Limerick, Ireland), Karyn Gonano and Peter Nelson (Queensland U. ofTechnology, Australia), Teresa McConlogue, Sally Mitchell, & Kelly Peake (Queen Mary, U. of London), Mary Deane & Lisa Ganobcsik-Williams (Coventry University, England), Lisa Emerson (Massey University, New Zealand), John Bitchener (Auckland University of Technology, NZ), Jonathan Worley (The Writing Centre at St. Mary?s University College, Belfast), Kathleen McMillan & Jonathan Weyers (U. of Dundee, Scotland), Estela Moyano & Lucia Natale (Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Argentina) , Isabel Sole, Ana Teberosky & Montserrat Castello (Universidad de Barcelona & Universidad Ramon LLull, Spain), Ana De Micheli & Patricia Iglesia (U. de Buenos Aires, Argentina), Matilde Garcia-Arroyo & Hilda Quintana (U. Interamericana, Puerto Rico), Helmet Gurber (Vienna University, Austria), Elizabeth Narvaez Cardona (Universidad Autonoma de Occidente, Santiago de Cali, Colombia), Helmet Gurber (Vienna University, Austria), Daniel Perrin (Zurich University, Switzerland), Vera Niederau & Eva-Maria Jacobs (RWTH Aachen University), Otto Kruse (Zurich University, Switzerland), Ursula Doleschal (U. Klagenfurt, Austria), Stefanie Haacke (U. of Bielefeld, Germany ), Katrin Girgensohn (Viadrina U., Frankfurt/O., Germany), Gerd Brauer (U. of Freiburg, Germany), Gabi Ruhmann, (U. Bochum), Emily Purser & Celeste Rossetto (U. ofWollongong, Wollongong, Australia), Francoise Boch & Catherine Frier (Universite Stendhal, Grenoble 3, France), Luuk van Waes (U. Antwerp), Ingrid Stassen (Radboud University).

pdf/writing-programs-worldwide-profiles-of-academic-writing-in-2jenzlztjd.pdf

Writing programs worldwide : profiles of academic writing in many places

Everyday Writing Center: A Community of Practice

any book that tries to define academic writing bites off more than most can chew. Chris Thaiss and Terry Myers Zawacki defining academic writing is one part of a larger goal in their book Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines. Not only do they develop a definition of academic writing, they also build a developmental model for stages students move through to enter the academic conversation. I admit to being skeptical when I read the introduction of the book and saw how ambitious Thaiss and Zawacki were. If one has read David Russell’s Writing in Academic Disciplines, one knows the long, slow march academia has taken toward disciplinary specialization. Still, I hear WAC program directors and faculty reify academic writing without ever being able to adequately describe it. Instead, the more concrete their description, the more problematic the definition becomes. Thaiss and Zawacki tackle the challenge of defining academic writing through a large-scale study involving surveys, case studies, assessment workshops, focus groups, department rubrics, and writing samples. There is no suspense in the book; Thaiss and Zawacki define three standards for academic writing on pages five and six. I will spare you the suspense as well. Here are their findings: “1. Clear evidence in writing that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded, and disciplined in study ... 2. The dominance of reason over emotion or sensual perception ... 3. An imagined reader who is coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response.” Of course, these

Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines: Research on the Academic Writing Life

/pdf/facing-the-center-toward-an-identity-politics-of-one-to-one-1czhfdh2nd.pdf

Facing the Center: Toward an Identity Politics of One-to-One Mentoring

The Meaningful Writing Project: Learning, Teaching, and Writing in Higher Education approaches the craft of writing in higher education from a fresh perspective. Through surveys, interviews, and personal experiences of students at three diverse institutions, Michelle Eodice, Anne Ellen Geller, and Neal Lerner studied writing assignments that were deemed to be meaningful. The researchers then synthesized the data, seeking to determine the key factors for such successful writing assignments. For this study, “meaningful writing” was found to “offer students opportunities for agency; for engagement with instructors, peers, and materials; and for learning that connects to previous experiences and passions and to future aspirations and identities” (4).

The Meaningful Writing Project : Learning, Teaching and Writing in Higher Education

/pdf/of-ladybugs-low-status-and-loving-the-job-writing-center-2c8ngo38yb.pdf

Of Ladybugs, Low Status, and Loving the Job: Writing Center ProfessionalsNavigating Their Careers.

Everyday Writing Center

This article draws on a survey of 64 self-identified multilingual faculty from across the disciplines who currently teach with writing in English at the undergraduate and graduate level. The survey asked faculty about their linguistic experiences from childhood through the present and thus offers insights about the complexity of multilingual faculty members' language lives. The author contextualizes her findings in the literature critiquing WAC/WID as a standardizing force in the academy and the literature identifying the English monolingual biases of composition studies. The article concludes with recommendations for working against the common assumption that faculty who teach with writing in English are linguistically homogenous and suggests that changes in faculty development could nurture WAC/WID programs that work against language standardization. Almost everything that I do in my (personal, professional) life is informed by my experiences as a multilingual person/writer. — multilingual faculty survey respondent I teach in the US, so all classes, research, interactions with colleagues, etc. are in English, of course. — multilingual faculty survey respondent Formal education in the US, from bottom to top, identifies multilingual speakers like me as ‘ESL’ based on an outdated understanding of multilinguals on monolingual basis, which is like studying dogs by using chicken science, which at the very least fails to account for four legs, teeth, and tail! That convenience of labeling all ‘others’ also fails to show us the staggering variety of language identities, or rather, language performances. — multilingual faculty survey respondent I am a monolingual English writing teacher and program administrator. And I am not alone. As Christiane Donohue (2009) notes: \"U.S. composition theorists and teachers are often monolingual, unlike much of the rest of the world. Our classrooms may well be multilingual, but our writing faculty and scholars are quite often not\" (p. 227). I speak and write an upper-middle-class, institutionalized, standardized.[2] American White School English. I write and teach in that same English, long dominant in U.S. classrooms. But many of my faculty colleagues move through their professional and personal lives with more than one language, including different varieties of English.

/pdf/teaching-and-learning-with-multilingual-faculty-1p5z946glf.pdf

Teaching and Learning with Multilingual Faculty.

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