From Brandon Hardy, an instructor in the English Department of Middle Tennessee State University and a Peer Mentor in the University Writing Center:
My writing center colleagues and I would like to invite you to participate in our first Academic Text Talk (#actexttalk) at the end of January 2015, a monthly online event in which we will read and discuss important academic texts related to peer tutoring and the teaching of writing. Below you’ll find the link to the text we would like to discuss starting January 28th, within our Google+ Community called “International Peer Tutoring.” The link to the community is also provided below. For more information, please read the official announcement below the links for details. We look forward to chatting with you about scholarship that continues to revitalize the writing center field! Quick links:
“International Peer Tutoring,” a Google+ Community
Annett, Nancy: “Collaboration and the Peer Tutor: Characteristics, Constraints, and Ethical Considerations”
Here is how it works:
Announcement of the first Academic Text Talk (#actexttalk) We are really glad to announce to you the start of the Academic Text Talk, which promotes the reading of academic texts, discussing them together, and benefiting from this process with new experiences and knowledge. This project also advocates connecting across borders and developing an international community of people who are interested in writing theory and especially peer tutoring (everyone interested in or working with this concept is welcome).
How: The Academic Text Talk will be a monthly event. At the start of each month a text is introduced and made accessible for everyone interested through a link posted in the Google+ community International Peer Tutoring. The discussions take place at the end of the month. A host will create and share a prompt for the discussion - this could be a text, a mindmap, a thesis, an audio recording or a video; any prompt is welcome. For three days, there will be an asynchronous discussion facilitated and summarized by the host. When the time for discussion has concluded, suggestions for the next text will be requested, and these suggestions will be compiled for a community vote. Each discussion will be documented and archived via Storify and/or Google-Docs.
What: In the Academic Text Talk, we will read texts from the fields of teaching of writing, writing research, and peer tutoring. Proposed texts must be either written in English or provided in an English translation, and they should be freely accessible as an electronic resource — this is the only way to include everyone who wants to join in. There is a limitation of roughly 15 pages length of the text — if the text is longer than this, it can be split into several parts and be discussed in following events.
When: The first Academic Text Talk will start in January. The discussion will be held January 28 - 30, 2015. In the weeks prior to the discussion, you have the chance to read the text. For our first event, we have decided to read the text “Collaboration and the Peer Tutor: Characteristics, Constraints, and Ethical Considerations,” which you can find via this link: http://writing2.richmond.edu/training/fall97/nanne/peer.html
Where: We will initiate the Academic Text Talk in the Google+ community International Peer Tutoring. This community functions as a social network, discussion platform, and media embedding tool. Whichever channel and media you use for the discussion is completely your choice, as long as you embed it in the Google+ community. If you write your own texts, start a video chat, or begin a discussion on Twitter, this is perfectly fine, you just have to show the rest of the community how to find your posts.
Who: For this event to work and generate a benefit for everyone, we need you as an active participant! We warmly invite you to our Academic Text Talk and encourage you to contribute your voice to our ongoing discussions. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to post them either directly into the International Peer Tutoring community, or write a mail to [email protected]- you can also use this address to ask in case of technical difficulties or problems joining the Google+ community. We are happy to help you.
The Academic Text Talk team:
Sascha Dieter/ Dennis Fassing / Brandon Hardy / Anja Poloubotko / Birte Stark