March 04, 2015

Hello, Goodbye: Axis Welcomes A New Blog Editor

March 04, 2015/ Praxis Admin

Today is a sad occasion for us, the Managing Editors of Praxis, because we are losing a friend and colleague, Hannah Alpert-Abrams, to the exigencies of academic life. Hannah is leaving Axis to pursue research in the digital humanities. While we are excited for her and will follow her progress carefully as she explores new areas both physical and intellectual, we are sorry to lose the first blog editor of Axis and the woman whose editorial direction and professional ability has been a fundamental aspect of Praxis’ migration from our previous platform. In many ways, Hannah has been the public face of Praxis on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Axis itself, and she has represented us extremely well.

February 13, 2015

Axis @ South Central Writing Center Association

February 13, 2015/ Praxis Admin

We're so excited to be hosting the SCWCA conference this weekend here in Austin, which is guaranteed to start a whole lot of exciting conversations. We'd like to keep those conversations going online at Axis. Send us an e-mail (praxisuwc@gmail.com) if you're interested in writing short post-conference reflections, reactions, questions, or ideas.

See you all today!

January 19, 2015

Axis Returns: Spring 2015

January 19, 2015/ Hannah Alpert-Abrams

Today in the academy we are writing lesson plans and finalizing syllabi, writing e-mails to students and finishing novels and bracing ourselves for the start of the spring semester, which at UT Austin begins tomorrow.

Today in the United States, we honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, and we think seriously about their legacy. In what ways is the current moment a continuation of slavery and colonialism, of civil war and civil rights? In what ways have we broken with that history, and to what ends

December 19, 2014

Writing Consultant/Fellow Expertise: Particle, Wave, and Field

December 19, 2014/ Guest Post

I am just finishing the semester with ENG 408B: Tutoring Student Writers. In that class, I try to not only provide students with sound theoretical footing and practical experience but also engagement with real discussions within the field. Early on, when we were working to get a handle on the broad-stroke roles and practices of writing center consultants, I asked them to read Trimbur’s “Peer Tutoring: A Contradiction in Terms?” paired with Brooks’ “Minimalist Tutoring: Making the Student Do All the Work” because, together, these pieces provoke questions about writing consultant authority, which I played against nondirectivity and Socratic dialogue. These have been consistently provocative and engaging conversations with these concepts and sources because there is no simple or single right answer.

December 18, 2014

Disrupting Authority: Reflections on co-authoring

December 18, 2014/ Guest Post

Our work in “Disrupting Authority: Writing Mentors and Code-Meshing Pedagogy” describes the idea behind—and the plans for—combining a course-embedded writing tutors program and code-meshing pedagogy at our small, private Historically Black College (HBCU) in order to challenge language hegemony in the writing classroom. The article was the first time either of us had attempted co-authoring. Writing in the plural “we” felt a little strange, especially at first. We wrote most of the paper side-by-side in Cecilia’s office, alternately talking or typing. Because identity (and identity in language) is such an important part of our topic, we wanted to discuss our experiences in co-authoring in a way that let our individual voices be heard. We thought a chat might do the trick.

December 17, 2014

Guest Post: After Writing Fellows Become Reading Fellows

December 17, 2014/ Guest Post

In our article, “When Writing Fellows Become Reading Fellows: Creative Strategies for Critical Reading and Writing in a Course-Based Tutoring Program,” we discuss methods for engaging First Year Writing students in critical reading and writing practices through a series of small group session plans we called pivot points. Reflecting upon this work pushed us to develop new ways to engage students, led to two regional conference presentations, and ultimately, the writing of this piece.

As we were writing, we found ourselves thinking about ways to sustain the collaborative and reflective aspects of our fellows' work. For Melissa, this meant continuing to use the momentum from the five fellows (all graduating seniors) from the fall 2013 semester into the summer and fall 2014 semesters. For Ricky, this meant applying fellows' practices during his own transition to a graduate program in information management and systems.

November 10, 2014

The Heart of our Meaning

November 10, 2014/ Hannah Alpert-Abrams

I've always had a theory that the rhetorics of science and religion have more in common than they let on. Call it confirmation bias, but Courtney Bailey Parker's article on "spiritualized language" in the most recent issue of Praxis highlights some of these parallels.

Parker's article describes spiritualized language as a kind of jargon with unstable meaning that is frequently used by students in religious communities: phrases like "house of god"; "biblical attitude"; or the "spirit of god" appear as examples.

Parker identifies two problems with this discourse. First, it may provoke unintended responses from "readers who are not familiar or not complicit with [religious] language." Second, it may lack the nuance of a more sophisticated engagement with faith.

October 31, 2014

Welcome to Axis: the Praxis Blog!

October 31, 2014/ Praxis Admin

Every good website needs a blog, we thought. And then we were sad, because the idea of a blog felt like a burden. Every good website needs to constantly churn out content into an overloaded digital space.

Axis: the Praxis blog