Thirdspace explorations in online writing studios: Writing centers, writing in the disiplines and first year compsition in the corporate university.

摘要

This study explores the use of online writing studios housed in the University Writing Center and attached to a Writing in the Disciplines course in the College of Technology and a First Year Composition program. The original goal of the online writing studio, modified from Grego and Thompson's (2009) writing studio approach, was to create an active environment for writing within large lecture courses. Viewed through the lens of theorists Lev Vygotsky and Edward Soja, however, the studio partnerships also make visible the thirdspaces in the teaching and learning of writing. The opening of these thirdspaces magnifies the influence and effects of disciplinary identities, the corporate university, and neoliberalism on the teaching and learning of writing. Using the online studios as a mediating lens, I examine what online writing studios make visible about academic writing in a large urban research university. I ground the study in teacher research, drawing from archived conversations, interviews, personal communications, and narratives. Specifically, I explore the following: (1) What do studios make visible about the disciplinary and institutional influences on students' writing processes and the ways in which they "learn" writing?, and (2) What do studios reveal about the disciplinary and institutional influences on our teaching and how those affect the learning environments we create?