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This paper aims to explore how collaborative research assignment design consultations between instruction librarians and new graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have the potential to improve the design of research assignments for first-year writing courses.

The author conducted a small number of questionnaires and structured interviews with first-time GTAs who serve as first-year composition instructors to explore their conceptions about teaching researched writing. Thematic analysis of the results of these qualitative instruments led to the design of a new framework for working with incoming cohorts of GTAs at her institution prior to the start of each fall semester.

New GTAs often emphasize strict source type parameters in research assignment design and expect their students to engage in expert research behaviors. Emphasizing the assignment design expertise of instruction librarians during new GTA orientation may lead to more assignment design consultations with first-time college writing instructors. Collaborative assignment design consultations between librarians and GTAs can improve the alignment of research assignment parameters with their shared goals for students' research and writing skills and habits of mind, including seeing research and writing as iterative and inquiry-based processes.

While not every instruction librarian works with GTAs, working with instructors to collaboratively design research assignments that shift focus away from using specific search tools and locating particular types of sources opens possibilities for what librarians are able to achieve in one-shot instruction sessions, in terms of both lesson content and pedagogical strategies used.

The existing literature on first-year writing addressing faculty and librarian assignment design collaborations, and research assignments more generally, does not often explicitly examine the experiences of librarians who primarily work with GTAs. This paper adds to this literature by highlighting specific obstacles and unique opportunities in librarian–GTA teaching partnerships in first-year writing courses.

Using Margaret Price's concept of kairotic space, this chapter asserts that the first-year writing classroom is a particularly fitting place to explore topics like consent and sexual assault. However, I caution the importance of using a trauma-informed approach to these topics. I provide an overview of the distinctions between related fields: trauma-informed pedagogy, trauma theory, and disability studies in order to argue for a pedagogical approach that takes each into account. First-year writing instructors, as well as other instructors in the university, should strive to live in the discomfort that often emerges from difficult material not only because it is necessary for building a better society but also because it is pedagogically sound. Furthermore, I argue that in order to have a truly trauma-informed approach, we need to change the very foundations of the university.

This paper aims to provide an introductory overview and selected annotated bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy across all library types.

It introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2014.

It provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

According to Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, whose best-known contribution to critical thought is his theory regarding hegemony, education “serves a directly important function in maintaining hegemony…[for] [i]t is a vehicle by which consensus is maintained and the knowledge of the ruling bloc (the majority ruling class) is legitimated” (Gross, 2011, p. 66). Although Gramsci's theoretical work was initially situated within the Fascist-dominated Italian legislature in which he aimed to understand how the ruling class maintained power over the proletariat (oppressed groups), his concept offers a lens through which social critics have been able to understand the prevailing superstructures of power in Western capitalist societies. This chapter, therefore, relies on Gramsci's theories to develop an argument (and writing pedagogy) regarding the democratic ability of the historically Black college and university (HBCU), for I contend the HBCU, particularly its first-year composition classroom, is a space where students can practice and propel democracy, thus countering the hegemony that insists on oppressing Black and Brown people.

While the HBCU, as defined by the 1965 Higher Education Act, is a by-product of the superstructure and is thusly grounded upon and legitimated by what bell hooks terms “the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy,” therefore functioning as institutionalized spaces for constructing and maintaining hegemony, HBCUs, explains Eddie S. Glaude Jr. in his 2016 Democracy in Black, are “institutions that both cultivated their (Black folks') civic capacities and served as a space to transmit values that opposed the value gap” (p. 125). In other words, Black folks have had to create “safe spaces” like the HBCU, to exist in their full humanity within an oppressive America whose white citizens devalued their being, and therefore, their American citizenship. Although the HBCU is legitimated by the hegemony, the HBCU, I argue, remains a space where the democracy America has yet to realize can be learned and practiced, especially if teachers, particularly within first-year composition programs, employ counterhegemonic curriculums and practices like the AfriWomanist approach to teaching I offer here.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the development and assessment of learning support environments for academic writing that utilize ICT, such as e-learning and online tutoring, in Japanese higher education. First, the authors introduce the design of an e-learning writing program for the Japanese language and assess whether the program is an effective learning support tool for undergraduates. Second, the authors analyze and assess online tutoring support for academic writing and clarify the merits and disadvantages of online and offline tutoring at writing centers, then suggest instructional strategies by analyzing the writing tutoring process.

The authors adopted e-learning goals to assess its effectiveness. The authors asked the participants questions they could answer from five-point scales, conducted a paired t-test, and included a free description-type questionnaire. Then, to assess online tutoring, the 12 students took pre- and post-test questionnaires, after which the authors conducted a Wilcoxon signed rank test. In addition, the authors carried out a Kruskal–Wallis rank sum test in order to confirm differences in satisfaction level and the effectiveness of face-to-face tutoring and online tutoring.

By analyzing the pre- and post-test results, the t-test confirmed that the students found the e-learning system to be effective for nurturing academic literacy. This means the system is appropriate as a support tool for nurturing academic writing, especially writing knowledge and rules, and university must provide a comprehensive learning support environment including e-learning. Next, the authors found no statistically significant difference between face-to-face and online tutoring, although some problems with the writing process remained. So online tutoring has opportunity to promote autonomous learning. The research results make it clear that because of writing centers’ potential and their effectiveness in utilizing ICT tools.

Research findings about academic writing are to improve the tutoring process and writing strategies, such as the use of ICT for academic writing support like e-learning, online tutoring, do not exist. To provide learning opportunity to learners and promote autonomous learning, e-learning and online tutoring are important. For the reasons noted above, it is necessary to provide an alternative writing support environment to students in Japan. Therefore, the authors report on and assess the development of learning support environments for e-learning programs and online tutoring for academic writing at the undergraduate level in Japan.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

The findings provide information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

With large numbers of overseas students enrolled in university accounting courses in Australia, there is a growing trend in the postgraduate accounting courses to approach the problem of language and communication difficulties by offering discipline‐specific language training through an embedded curriculum approach in collaboration with English language specialists. This raises a general question about the nature of evidence required to demonstrate that students' professional language skills have been enhanced by these interdisciplinary programs. The paper aims to address the basic question: what evidence is available about the effectiveness of programs that align English language with disciplinary teaching?

The purpose of the paper is to review existing research to discover the nature of evidence that is available to address the effectiveness of programs that align English language with disciplinary teaching.

In the area of accounting research, it is very difficult to unbundle the effects of improvement in communication skills from improved understanding of discipline content.

At a subject level, language interventions could pay more attention to the attributes of “good” evidence, while at a program level a suite of data sources may support a persuasive argument for improvement in students' communication skills.

If associations between integration and language improvement can be established through quantitative and qualitative research methods and reliable evidence for this can be presented to educational policy makers, then interdisciplinary approaches may be seen as valid alternatives to the more readily available (and cheaper) “bolt‐on programs” at university‐wide levels, where language support is given separately from discipline content.

The research addressed the question of whether there is evidence of the effectiveness of initiatives that align English language with disciplinary teaching in accounting. The answer is “yes”. It was gathered from a variety of research methods including experimentation, use of available data, diagnostic tests and self reporting by students and staff. What is apparent from the collected evidence is the effectiveness of interdisciplinary approaches that integrate language support and accounting content.

The system of study in Glasgow University is that every student undergoes two years reading in general subjects at a relatively elementary level, something akin to sixth‐form work in England. At the end of that period, the student can go on to specialise in one or two particular subjects for two more years to take an Honours degree. The alternative is to complete the course as a general student in one more year, and take what is called an Ordinary degree.