SLWIS Newsletter - March 2020 (Plain Text Version)
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LEADERSHIP UPDATES LETTER FROM THE CHAIR Betsy Gilliland, University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, USA
Dear SLWIS Colleagues, Welcome to the first SLW News for 2020. In this letter, I will review what the Second Language Writing Interest Section (SLWIS) has accomplished since the last issue of the News and preview some of the activities we will be doing in the coming year as well. SLWIS continues to be one of TESOL’s largest communities of practice, with 1,058 members as of this writing. Our MyTESOL group fosters lively discussions of issues related to second language writing, and members regularly send out calls for proposals to special issues, book projects, and other conferences connected to teaching and researching writing. In September, SLWIS hosted another webinar, “Supporting English Learners with Disabilities in Writing,” presented by Caroline Torres of Kap‘iolani Community College (Hawai‘i). Dr. Torres described various disabilities students might have and then provided concrete examples of how teachers can work with their students to build on their strengths and support their writing development. Approximately 20 people participated in the live webinar, and more than 250 have accessed the free recording on the TESOL YouTube channel. The SLWIS Steering Committee is still discussing possible topics for a spring webinar. Join our MyTESOL group or follow our Facebook page (@TESOLSLWIS) for announcements about upcoming activities, including webinars. SLWIS’s book club is back in action, too, with a new format. Our new book is University of Michigan Press’s volume Changing Practices in L2 Writing: Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay, edited by SLWIS former chair Nigel Caplan and SLWIS member Ann M. Johns. As I write this letter, we are preparing for our second live discussion with the authors of the first three chapters, to be held 19 March. Our first discussion in January gave club members the opportunity to chat with the book’s editors about their vision for the book and general ideas about academic writing. Over the next few months, we will host additional discussions with other chapter authors, allowing book club members to interact with them and with each other. We intend these sessions to be less formal than a webinar and to allow book club members to connect the reading to their own lives. We also have a new host for the book club discussion list. If you’d like to participate in online discussions, sign up here or on the book club Facebook group. We were looking forward to seeing SLWIS members at the TESOL International Convention in Denver (31 March–3 April). With the conference canceled, however, the SLWIS steering committee will be thinking about ways to bring our planned sessions to our membership in alternative formats. Building on the topic of our Fall 2019 webinar, we organized an academic session panel on the topic “Diversity in L2 Writing: Creating Inclusive Pedagogical and Administrative Approaches” that brings together scholars whose work addresses different forms of diversity present in writing classrooms. In this session, panelists discuss research and practical applications for creating equitable spaces for English learners with disabilities, refugee students, and international students in writing classes and institutions. We may coordinate a webinar in the near future so the presenters can share their ideas with you. Our interest section (IS) leaders and the leaders of other ISs also coordinated engaging InterSection panels that we hope to bring to members during the coming year or at the 2021 convention. Stay tuned for announcements, and when possible, join us for live webinars so you can interact with the presenters, share your ideas, and extend the discussion. All sessions will be recorded for those who are not able to join at the time of the live presentation. My term as chair of the SLWIS ends with the scheduled Convention. I would like to thank the steering committee members, who have contributed so much to the success of our activities, especially Past Chair Tanita Saenkhum and Chair-Elect Aylin Relyea; Secretary Özge Yol; and Steering Committee Members Sarah Henderson Lee, Estela Ene, Megan Siczek, Veronika Maliborska, Julie Riddlebarger, M. Sidury Christiansen, and Henry Caballero. In addition, I am grateful for the outstanding, professional work accomplished by our newsletter editor Lena Shvidko (and former editor Ilka Kostka). Stay tuned for the results of our elections for chair-elect and steering committee. I hope you enjoy the newsletter! All the best, Betsy Gilliland (Chair, 2019–2020) |
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