Friday Fragments, Dec. 4th
Working with international students, more on distraction, and a book wish list.
What I’m reading/watching…
Writing Across Borders is a documentary project by Oregon State University’s Center for Writing and Learning (watch the film in two parts here: Part 1, Part 2).
The documentary's purpose is to help faculty, writing assistants, and other professionals work more productively with international students in writing environments. The film’s goal is to address some of the most significant challenges international students face when writing for American colleges and universities.
As someone who teaches writing to non-native English speakers, this is of particular interest to me - but I think that anyone who has non-native English speaking students could benefit. In fact, it might be even more helpful to instructors who do not have any specific training or expertise in working with non-native English speaking students.
James Lang has a series of articles on distraction and attention, drawn from his new book, Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It. I’ve found all of them to be interesting, with implications both both online and in-person teaching.
In case you’re celebrating a gift-giving holiday coming up and need some inspiration, I thought I’d share my wish list for education-related reading…
Happy reading!