By Tricia Fissette
Writing Center Director
The fall semester brought new challenges to GWA. While we found ourselves socially distancing from one another, the students remained dedicated to achieving new levels of inquiry, regardless of the challenges before them. Our Dual Enrollment Composition students were no exception.
Last Wednesday, students from Dual Enrollment Composition and the Tutoring/Composition courses presented at GWA’s Second Annual Writing Conference. Welcoming faculty, students, and administrators, these student scholars showcased research centered on in-field problems and solutions.
The Tutoring/Composition students shared the unique problems they encountered when tutoring in the Writing Center while providing research-based solutions. Gracie Wood’s presentation illustrated the importance of creating a student-friendly environment in the Writing Center by sharing olfactory recommendations that could reduce stress. Alicia Shaw interviewed Science faculty as a means to develop bridges of collaboration between Science courses and writing. Finally, Isaiah Strong made recommendations to improve the attendance rates for students.
Meanwhile, the DE Composition students built a unique qualitative study on a wide array of topics. After a semester spent studying the writing process, composition genres, and the deeply integrated relationship between reading and writing, the students designed a case study based on a research question they wanted to explore more deeply. Sarah Kirk spent time observing classroom discussions to find out more about the differences between student and teacher discourse. While Sarah noticed that students tend to perform for teachers in classroom discussions, Madison Smith evaluated students’ various drafts to get a sense of students’ writing processes. With a greater emphasis on revision this year in DE Comp, she hoped to track learning expectations about the writing process throughout George Walton Academy’s program. Jalen Presha' interviewed students about their preferences for free or constrained writing assignments. Many of our discussions in class this year focused on authentic writing situations. His interviews examined student preferences for concrete guidelines in writing assignments. While just a small sample of the research was on display, all of the projects showcased a deep engagement with research. Finally, all of the students’ work culminated into a poster board style presentation during our conference.
As the students presented their research to administrators and faculty, they hoped to share recommendations that would improve learning in our ongoing project at GWA towards student excellence.
