Today was the due date for an administrative document I took care of before attending to filling in some gaps (definitions, examples of studies, citation information) in the review of the lit.  I will need another couple of sessions to get it where I want it.  I have not done a good job of arguing the importance of students' own perceptions of their learning and writing development, maybe because I haven't found enough research yet that also argues this. 

Today, I tinkered with my first-grade tutoring story, but my main task was to write a travel essay about my first sola trip--to the Galapagos--and I did.  I'll look at it again tomorrow and then send it to people to read.

I made all of the requested changes and explained why I didn't make a couple of them. I still need to read the article aloud to see if the changes they recommended sound good and make sense, which I will do tomorrow.  Then I can send it back to the editor.


Tomorrow I'd also like to start working on my essay about traveling sola in the Galapagos, based on a travel journal I kept.  That was my third goal for camp.


Today I fulfilled my second goal of the camp--to write a story about tutoring writing in the first grade with some comparisons to tutoring college writing.  I sent it to a couple of friends, who will hopefully send me some feedback. For now I'm planning to send it for the Tutor's Column of Writing Lab Newsletter so I kept it to 1500 words.


The Intro/Review of Lit/Methodology I sent to Deirdre who started adding to the Methodology.

I finished what I could of the Methodology and in the process ran into another L1 article, which I read and incorporated.  I also edited some more and added to the References.  Then I did probably 80% of the copy-edits of my article for fall publication.  Tomorrow I will try to complete the rest.

Today I'll work on the Methodology and if time, switch to copyreading my article for publication in the fall.  I can't write a complete draft of Methodology, especially on subjects, because we are still collecting data,

I revised and edited the Intro (I decided not to include sources on emergent or K-12 writing development) and assembled  1 2/3 pages of references (most info on most of the sources), but tomorrow I'll have to work on the Methodology.  The categories with be: Incorporating Non-Linearity, Subjects, Survey Development, Survey Implementation.

My goals for today are to read over and smooth out, revise, and edit the Intro, try to do as many of the references as I can and start the Methodology.

I worked until 3:30 and actually finished a rough draft of the Intro (1300 words) except for the References, which I can do on Monday, along with writing up the Methods, which should not be that hard.  To reward myself, I will work on the copy edits the editor sent me for my Composition Studies article, which I might be able to start this Sunday (?).

My goal is to finish reading the life span article, look over my notes and maybe write a paragraph of the Intro. 

I could only find part of the text of Applebee's article and only one review of the Chiseri-Strater book, but I found an excellent survey based article on ESL students' perceptions of their writing progress from EAP/ESL courses to their regular university courses.  I started reading the life-span article and can finish it tomorrow and possibly start on the Intro.  I also found many related articles that I perused and can include in the lit review.

Today, I want to peruse more carefully the first language development scholarship--by looking at Applebee's article, the Chiseri-Slater reviews, and by rereading the first language/second language team's writing development across the lifespan article.  If there's time, I will try to find lit that argues for asking students about their writing progress. 

I fulfilled all of my goals and am getting a good handle on first language writing development research.  I was amazed that Richard Haswell had done some really complex quantitative studies since I had thought that most recent first language writing development research was qualitative.  I read about one such qualitative study and found some others.  Tomorrow I will look for reviews of Chiseri-Strater's study and read the life span articles (not really empirical research) of the first-language second language team of authors. I'm enjoying this process because it's enabling me to catch up in my field.

Today, I'll finish reading the article I was reading correlating first language writing development with personal development and read summaries or reviews of two books mentioned in the article.  If time, I'll try to find articles on any articles about writing development from a writing center perspective, the next topic in the outline.

Outcomes: Goals accomplished, but I learned I'll need to do more reading than I thought at first, which is OK since I'm not in a hurry.  I made an outline of topics for the intro, reread 2 articles and took notes. Then I found some good sources on the first topic in the outline--first language writing development.  Tomorrow I'll finish reading the first article I found on that first topic. 

Goals for Tuesday, May 30:


Re-familiarize myself with articles on issues in second language writing development and make an outline of topics for the Intro/Lit review for our project: International Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of their Second Language Writing Development and the Role of the University's Writing Resources in It.

Welcome to Summer 2017 Dissertation Camp! I'm looking forward to working with you.   I've been a prof. in the Rhetoric Dept and a Writing Center director for 27 (!) years.  In my recent research I've been using writing center data, as well as my own second language learning experiences to illustrate and explore concepts in second language writing and more recently second language acquisiion.  I also write creatively, especially about travel, and teach a travel writing course every fall as a first-year seminar.


In this Dissertation Camp, I'll be working on a combination of academic and creative projects.


1) A draft of the Intro and Review of the Literature for our writing center survey study of international undergraduate students' perceptions of their second language writing development.  The survey stays up until November, so we don't have the final results yet.


2) A draft of a semi-academic, semi-creative article about what I learned this semester from helping out in my granddaughter's first grade class about helping college students with their learning and writing in the writing center.


3) A draft of a travel essay about my first solo travel experience in the Galapagos.