Special Issue: Teaching Assistants and Writing Across the Curriculum

  • faculty development, Teaching strategies, writing in the disciplines, WAC

Published September 30, 2016

Guest editors: Andrea Williams, University of Toronto, and Tanya Rodrigue, Salem State University

Although TAs have played an important role in WAC, published accounts have almost exclusively focused on the involvement and impact of faculty and undergraduate student writers. Much scholarship has examined TAs housed in English departments, composition programs, or writing programs where TAs primarily teach general education composition courses (Dobrin, 2005; Roen, Goggin, & Clary-Lemon, 2008; Bishop, 1990). However, there has been little scholarship on TAs who work with student writers in other disciplines, whether in writing-intensive or linked courses, and in different capacities such as graders, autonomous instructors or writing fellows who support faculty or other TAs. This special issue examines the role of TAs in the WAC movement. Although the authors report findings from their local contexts, they also provide readers with valuable takeaways, offering questions, methods, and insights that are potentially applicable to other contexts. The first article reports on TAs' understanding of their role as writing ambassadors within the CUNY WAC program that gives TAs a much richer professional experience than traditional TA appointments. The second article reports on a study of TA training that uses the citation study protocol to not only improve TAs' writing but also prepare them to teach research writing to undergraduates. The third article examines the different ways that TAs construct their own disciplinary identity and how this influences their pedagogical practices. In addition to exploring the role of TAs in WAC, this issue aims to contribute to the emerging field of writing pedagogy education and to secure a place for TAs in this field.

Contents:

TAs and the Teaching of Writing Across the Curriculum: Introduction
Andrea Williams and Tanya Rodrigue
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2016.13.3.08

"A Way to Talk about the Institution as Opposed to Just my Field": WAC Fellowships and Graduate Student Professional Development
Michael J. Cripps, University of New England, Jonathan Hall, York College, The City University of New York, and Heather Robinson, York College, The City University of New York
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2016.13.3.09

Using Citation Analysis Heuristics to Prepare TAs Across the Disciplines as Teachers and Writers
Tricia Serviss
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2016.13.4.10

Brokering Disciplinary Writing: TAs and the Teaching of Writing Across the Disciplines
Misty Anne Winzenried
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2016.13.3.11