“Now that I’m in Canada… you gotta write properly “: Beliefs about good writing and a writer’s voice in an after-school tutoring program
Date: Monday February 5th, 2018
Time: 3 to 3:45 p.m.
Note: The presentation will be in English
On site: LMX 240
Online: https://connect.uottawa.ca/p29bsa2afimq/
Speaker
Robert Kohls is an Assistant Professor of TESOL at San Francisco State University.
His research interests include socio-cultural theory in L1 and L2 writing pedagogy, teacher written feedback and student revision, and adolescent and adult literacy.
Description
While recent scholarly contributions have improved our understanding of a writer’s voice among graduate students (Hyland & Sancho Guinda, 2012), little is known about voice among adolescent L2 writers.
Drawing on language socialization theory (Duff & Talmy, 2013; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986), I analyzed what adolescent writers and their adult tutors volunteering at an after-school literacy program believe about good writing and a writer’s voice and how their beliefs about writing and voice both reflect particular linguistic and cultural values and shape attitudes towards language use, the writer, and writing development.
My presentation highlights a single case between a 15-year-old newcomer and her writing tutor. I describe not only how the student and her tutor conceptualized good writing and a writer’s voice, but also highlight how the tutor saw her role to socialize her student into adopting Standard English to empower her and help her survive in her new country.
This paper is based on findings from my PhD dissertation and makes a unique contribution to the growing discussion on adolescent L2 writing by documenting how academic writing practices between tutor and tutee are understood and practiced in out-of-school contexts such as an inner city tutoring program.