Dear SLWIS Colleagues,

TESOL 2019 in Atlanta is just around the corner! I hope this message finds you well.

For this year’s Convention, our SLWIS is organizing and co-organizing several sessions featuring issues related to teaching and researching second language writing. Some of the highlights include our academic session on Response to Writing: Enduring Issues and New Frontiers, which will feature speakers Carol Severino, Kate Mangelsdorf, Todd Ruecker, Estela Ene, Thomas Upton, Qandi Liu, and Dan Brown (March 14th, 2019, 1:00 PM - 2:45 PM).

If you are interested in hearing more about five-paragraph essays, you will not want to miss our intersection session with the Applied Linguistics Interest Section (ALIS) on Beyond Five-Paragraph Essays: Why don’t Writing Textbooks Reflect Current Research? presented by Alan Hirvela, Diane Schmitt, Ann Johns, and Kelly Sippell (March 13th, 2019, 11:00 AM - 12:45 PM).

We also collaborate with the Refugee Concerns Interest Section (RCIS) on a panel titled Refugee Writing Across the Lifespan (March 14th, 2019, 1:00 PM - 2:45 PM). Our collaboration with the Bilingual Education Interest Section (BEIS) is on Academic writing Instruction for Bilingual/Multilingual Students (March 15th, 2019, 11:30 AM - 1:15 PM). This is a nice lineup of sessions, and I hope you are able to attend one of them, if not all.

I would also like to invite everyone to attend the SLWIS Open Meeting in Atlanta, which will take place on Wednesday, March 13th, 2019, from 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM in the Hickory Room at Omni Hotel at the CNN Center. We will share with you some IS updates and brainstorm topics and ideas for future conventions. If you have some idea, please share them with us, too. As a tradition, we get together right after the meeting at a Friends of Second Language Writing social. A venue will be announced soon. Please stay tuned!

As my term as Chair of the SLWIS comes to an end, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members and the Steering Committee for keeping our IS an active and vibrant venue for us to share the teaching and research of second language writing in a wide variety of contexts. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve our community and to work with everyone. I would like to especially thank Nigel Caplan, current past Chair, and Betsy Gilliland, current Chair-Elect. Thank you also to our secretary, Veronika Maliborska and to our Members-at-Large, Soo Hyon Kim, Sandra Zappa-Hollman, and Aylin Baris Atilgan whose terms end soon. Thank you for all you do! I would also like to thank our newsletter coeditors, Ilka Kostka and Elena Shvidko, and the editorial team for their excellent work.

Lastly, thank you all for continuing to support our community. I hope you enjoy the newsletter.

I look forward to seeing everyone in Atlanta!

Best wishes,
Tanita Saenkhum, Chair (2018-2019)
Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Writing, and Linguistics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville