University Writing invites faculty to learning community on multilingual writers

University Writing invites faculty and staff to a learning community that will meet online and in-person in June and July, with dates and times determined by participants’ availability.

Multilingual students — specifically, students for whom English is not their first language — often write differently from their monolingual peers. In this FLC, we’ll discuss methods of supporting these students’ academic writing. Participants will explore how multilingual students’ home cultures and prior educational experiences affect their writing in English.

With the goal of more transparent, explicit writing instruction, we will bring to the surface our own cultural assumptions about good writing. We will draw from writing center literature to discuss how instructors can offer individualized support to multilingual writers, as well as how the Miller Writing Center complements such teaching. Throughout our discussions, we will grapple with the question of how to balance assimilation to U.S. academic writing conventions with respect for students’ voices.

Sign up via Qualtrics by May 15.