Presents interrelated, cross-referenced essays illustrating writing studio methodologies.

2014 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice "What’s going on in this picture?" With this one question and a carefully chosen work of art, teachers can start their students down a path toward deeper learning and other skills now encouraged by the Common Core State Standards. The Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) teaching method has been successfully implemented in schools, districts, and cultural institutions nationwide, including bilingual schools in California, West Orange Public Schools in New Jersey, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It provides for open-ended yet highly structured discussions of visual art, and significantly increases students’ critical thinking, language, and literacy skills along the way. Philip Yenawine, former education director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art and cocreator of the VTS curriculum, writes engagingly about his years of experience with elementary school students in the classroom. He reveals how VTS was developed and demonstrates how teachers are using art—as well as poems, primary documents, and other visual artifacts—to increase a variety of skills, including writing, listening, and speaking, across a range of subjects. The book shows how VTS can be easily and effectively integrated into elementary classroom lessons in just ten hours of a school year to create learner-centered environments where students at all levels are involved in rich, absorbing discussions.

The Writing Center Director's Resource Book has been developed to serve as a guide to writing center professionals in carrying out their various roles, duties, and responsibilities. It is a resource for those whose jobs not only encompass a wide range of tasks but also require a broad knowledge of multiple issues. The volume provides information on the most significant areas of writing center work that writing center professionals--both new and seasoned--are likely to encounter. It is structured for use in diverse institutional settings, providing both current knowledge as well as case studies of specific settings that represent the types of challenges and possible outcomes writing center professionals may experience. This blend of theory with actual practice provides a multi-dimensional view of writing center work. In the end, this book serves not only as a resource but also as a guide to future directions for the writing center, which will continue to evolve in response to a myriad of new challenges that will lie ahead.

Strategies for Writing Center Research is a how-to guide for conducting writing center research introducing newcomers to the field to the methods for data collection, analysis, and reporting appropriate for writing center studies.

"Rhonda C. Grego and Nancy S. Thompson argue that because the studio is physically and institutionally "outside but alongside" both students' other coursework and the hierarchy of the institution, it represents a "thirdspace," a unique position in which to effect institutional change. Teaching/Writing in Thirdspaces provides an alternative approach to traditional basic writing courses that can be adopted in educational institutions of all types and at all levels."--BOOK JACKET.

Around the Texts of Writing Center Work reveals the conceptual frameworks found in and created by ordinary writing center documents. The values and beliefs underlying course syllabi, policy statements, website copy and comments, assessment plans, promotional flyers, and annual reports critically inform writing center practices, including the vital undertaking of tutor education. In each chapter, author R. Mark Hall focuses on a particular document. He examines its origins, its use by writing center instructors and tutors, and its engagement with enduring disciplinary challenges in the field of composition, such as tutoring and program assessment. He then analyzes each document in the contexts of the conceptual framework at the heart of its creation and everyday application: activity theory, communities of practice, discourse analysis, reflective practice, and inquiry-based learning. Around the Texts of Writing Center Work approaches the analysis of writing center documents with an inquiry stance—a call for curiosity and skepticism toward existing and proposed conceptual frameworks—in the hope that the theoretically conscious evaluation and revision of commonplace documents will lead to greater efficacy and more abundant research by writing center administrators and students.

This collection helps students and researchers understand the foundations of writing center studies in order to make sound decisions about the types of methods and theoretical lenses that will help them formulate and answer their research questions. In the collection, accomplished writing center researchers discuss the theories and methods that have enabled their work, providing readers with a useful and accessible guide to developing research projects that interest them and make a positive contribution. It introduces an array of theories, including genre theory, second-language acquisition theory, transfer theory, and disability theory, and guides novice and experienced researchers through the finer points of methods such as ethnography, corpus analysis, and mixed-methods research. Ideal for courses on writing center studies and pedagogy, it is essential reading for researchers and administrators in writing centers and writing across the curriculum or writing in the disciplines programs.

Studio-Based Approaches for Multimodal Projects examines a cross-section of strategies for studio approaches and models that enable process-oriented multimodal projects and promote student learning. This collection features seven chapters authored or coauthored by leaders and innovators in studio-based approaches. These scholars explore studio models and provide vivid examples of ways in which they are realized as students pursue, design, and create multimodal projects, including ePortfolios, research posters, websites, and other engaging artifacts that integrate oral, written, visual, and electronic communication. Studio-based approaches enhance creativity, interaction, and learning among students. The models designed and employed to support these activities would benefit from a more focused look. This collection assembles perspectives from scholar-practitioners who know and use studio-based models. They are experts in this area and have helped to shape current understandings of approaches that work well to enhance learning through multimodal projects--those that integrate oral, visual, written, or electronic modes of communication.

Revised edition of: Researching the writing center, 2012.