‘The Shannon
Consortium Regional Writing Centre, UL: Where Disciplinary Difference and
Cultural and Socio-Economic Diversity Meet
The Shannon Consortium
Regional Writing Centre has always seen the retention of at-risk students as
part of its remit. Funding for the programme was secured partially on the basis
of the Regional Writing Centre’s commitment to the augmentation of University
and consortium-wide recruitment and retention efforts. Currently assessing its
sustainability, it has become apparent that the Writing Centre must focus on a bi-directional
approach: further expanding its one-to-one peer-tutoring programme, on the one
hand, while on the other hand, collaborating with subject specialists in the
disciplines to improve writing where it has relevance. Such an approach hopes
to increase the discourse on writing. By focusing on issues such as the way
students from a variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds confront new
ways of speaking and writing about both familiar and unfamiliar subjects, being
limited to particular types of evidence for the validation of ideas that may or
may not conflict with the ideas of their home communities, and by reinforcing
that different students learn differently, that they learn better when feedback
is scaffolded and the assessment criteria is transparent and achievable, the
Regional Writing Centre hopes to create a safe, comfortable space where writing
and difference can talk.