Disabilities in the Writing Center

Since writing centers serve communities of teachers and learners, they will inevitably serve people with disabilities. Ever since the 1980s, writing center workers have explored the issue of tutoring students with disabilities, people who may require different learning environments and may have learning needs that interact in complex ways with standard tutoring practices. In order to make accessing this scholarship easier, I have read and analyzed as many of the available articles in the literature as I could find. This article presents summaries in tabular form of both the research methods and tutoring suggestions contained in these sources. I also discuss and analyze these methods and go into detail on those studies that use empirical methods. My goal is not to rank the usefulness of studies based on methods used but simply to point out that studies based on empirical methods may assist tutors and practitioners in achieving Evidence-Based Practice (Babcock and Thonus). Another analysis that emerges from this research are the types of disabilities portrayed in the literature, and I make suggestions based on a comparison with the disabilities actually disclosed by college students.University Writing Cente

An Interview with Ben Rafoth on Writing Center Research, Dissertations, and Job Opportunities

Ben Rafoth has directed the writing center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for the past 20 years, and he currently directs the graduate program in Composition and TESOL there. He has edited A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One and ESL Writers: A Guide for Writing Center Tutors, with Shanti Bruce. Rafoth served as the Treasurer of the International Writing Centers Association, and in 2002 he was awarded the Ron Maxwell Award from the National Conference of Peer Tutoring in Writing, one of the highest honors in the writing center world. Rafoth is one of the original founders of the writing center movement, and a mentor of writing center researchers, theorists and practitioners. I wanted to speak more in depth about current issues in writing center scholarship, so I interviewed him in his office adjacent to the writing center on IUP’s campusUniversity Writing Cente

The Unmet Need for Care: Vulnerability Among Older Adults

In this brief, authors Rebecca Glauber and Melissa Day explore factors that exacerbate the unmet need for care among the noninstitutionalized older population and seek to deter­mine who is likely to need care but go without. They find that unmarried individuals and those who live alone are more likely than others to need care but not receive it. These older adults are frail, have difficulty meet­ing their daily needs, and do not have family members or friends to whom to turn in times of need. This group of vulnerable older adults requires an array of social supports

The response of tropospheric circulation to perturbations in lower-stratospheric temperature

A multiple regression analysis of the NCEP-NCAR reanalysis dataset shows a response to increased solar activity of a weakening and poleward shift of the subtropical jets. This signal is separable from other influences, such as those of El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and is very similar to that seen in previous studies using global circulation models (GCMs) of the effects of an increase in solar spectral irradiance. The response to increased stratospheric (volcanic) aerosol is found in the data to be a weakening and equatorward shift of the jets. The GCM studies of the solar influence also showed an impact on tropospheric mean meridional circulation with a weakening and expansion of the tropical Hadley cells and a poleward shift of the Ferrel cells. To understand the mechanisms whereby the changes in solar irradiance affect tropospheric winds and circulation, experiments have been carried out with a simplified global circulation model. The results show that generic heating of the lower stratosphere tends to weaken the subtropical jets and the tropospheric mean meridional circulations. The positions of the jets, and the extent of the Hadley cells, respond to the distribution of the stratospheric heating, with low-latitude heating forcing them to move poleward, and high-latitude or latitudinally uniform heating forcing them equatorward. The patterns of response are similar to those that are found to be a result of the solar or volcanic influences, respectively, in the data analysis. This demonstrates that perturbations to the heat balance of the lower stratosphere, such as those brought about by solar or volcanic activity, can produce changes in the mean tropospheric circulation, even without any direct forcing below the tropopause

Writing Centers and Disability: Enabling Writers Through an Inclusive Philosophy

In its Position Statement on Disability and Writing Centers, the International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) recognizes and emphasizes the relationship between writing centers and disability and “encourages scholarship that explores the ways disability intersects with writing center work.” The IWCA further encourages writing centers to be inclusive to all writers by adopting “communication that takes into account various learning styles or ways of processing language.” We too, argue that writing centers should be welcoming environments for all writers and that they should engage with their writers as unique beings, making accessible to them the individuation of instruction and support. Writing centers should be spaces where the multiple barriers that students experience in their writing are addressed and a variety of options are provided.University Writing Cente

How to conduct research in an independent hospice: practical tips and advice

Independent hospices can – and should aim to – participate in palliative care research, say Paul Perkins, Rebecca Day, Julie Hapeshi, Lorraine Dixon and Rudo Nyakuhwa, who give tips and advice based on their experience at Sue Ryder

How to conduct research in an independent hospice: practical tips and advice

Independent hospices can – and should aim to – participate in palliative care research, say Paul Perkins, Rebecca Day, Julie Hapeshi, Lorraine Dixon and Rudo Nyakuhwa, who give tips and advice based on their experience at Sue Ryder

An analysis and comparison of the make-up of third-grade textbooks with particular emphasis upon illustrations.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Review: Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers edited by Shannon Madden, Michele Eodice, Kirsten T. Edwards, and Alexandria Lockett

Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers takes us from narratives to research. I was interested in and looked forward to reading this book, as, over the summer, some graduate students and I read Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School (McKee & Delgado, 2020), and I wanted to see how the books complemented each other. While Degrees of Difference was more personal, more narrative-based, and more interdisciplinary, both books stressed the importance of mentoring. But I am especially excited to bring some of the ideas from Learning from the Lived Experiences of Graduate Student Writers to my Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) campus. Our graduate population at The University of Texas Permian Basin is growing, and we need to offer it more support