What's New?

Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing, an edited collection based on the 2006 Symposium, will soon be available from Parlor Press.

Photos from past Symposia are available at flickr.com.

In 2010, Symposium on Second Language Writing will be held on May 20-22 at the University of Murcia, Spain. For more information, visit: http://sslw.asu.edu/2010/.

The 2009 Symposium on Second Language Writing was held at Arizona State University on November 5-7, 2009. For more information, visit: http://sslw.asu.edu/2009/.

The Symposium website has been migrated to an Arizona State University server. To access the Symposium on Second Language Writing website, pleaes use the new URL, http://sslw.asu.edu/.

Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing, an edited collection based on the 2006 Symposium, is forthcoming from Parlor Press. More information will be available here soon. Stay tuned!

SSLWList Mailing List

The SSLWLIST Mailing List is a distribution list which will bring you updates on the Symposium on Second Language Writing. To subscribe, unscribe, view previous posts, or update your information, please follow this link.

About the Symposium

The Symposium on Second Language Writing (SSLW) is an annual international conference that brings together teachers and researchers who work with second- and foreign-language writers to discuss important issues in the field of second language writing.

The SSLW began in 1998 at Purdue University as a way of facilitating the advancement of knowledge in the field of L2 writing and to build a sense of community among those who are involved in L2 writing research and instruction. The first Symposium featured sixteen internationally recognized experts in the field, who addressed issues in theory, research, instruction, assessment, politics, and articulation with other disciplines. 

In response to the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the participants and many requests from people who were not able to attend the first gathering, the Symposium became a regular event. Purdue University has continued to serve as the institutional home, but due to a large number of requests from other countries, the Symposium began to reach out to the world by holding its first meeting outside the United States in 2007.

Past Themes:

1998: Symposium on Second Language Writing

2000: Contexts of Second Language Writing

2002: Constructing Knowledge: Approaches to Inquiry in Second Language Writing

2004: Second Language Writing Instruction in Context(s): The Effects of Institutional Policies and Politics

2006: Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing

2007: Second Language Writing in the Pacific Rim

2008: Foreign Language Writing Instruction: Principles and Practices

2009: The Future of Second Language Writing

2010: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries

Publications

On Second Language Writing (2001).
Edited by Tony Silva and Paul Kei Matsuda.

This edited collection of papers written by internationally-known L2 writing scholars who participated in the 1998 Symposium, was published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., now part of Taylor & Francis. Contributors include: Barbara Kroll, Ilona Leki, Pat Currie, William Grabe, Diane Belcher, Lynn Goldstein, Charlene Polio, Liz Hamp-Lyons, Trudy Smoke, Joy Reid, Sarah Benesch, Terry Santos, Joan Carson, Carol Severino, and Alister Cumming.

Journal of Second Language Writing 11.4 (2002):
Special Issue on Early Second Language Writing.
Edited by Paul Kei Matsuda and Kevin Eric De Pew.

Inspired by the 2000 Symposium, this special issue explores an aspect of L2 writing that have been underrepresnted in the field--L2 writing development from birth through high school graduation. Contributors include: Jan Buckwalter and Yi-Hsan Gloria Lo, Linda Blanton, Dudley Reynolds, and Linda Harklau.

Second Language Writing Research:
Perspectives on the Process of Knowledge Construction (2005).
Edited by Paul Kei Matsuda and Tony Silva.

In this book, established second language writing researchers who participated in the 2002 Symposium discuss issues in conceptualizing, designing, and conducting second language writing research by reflecting on their own processes of negotiating the complex act of knowledge construction in the field.

Contributors include: Tony Silva, Christine Pearson Casanave, Paul Kei Matsuda, Dwight Atkinson, John Flowerdew, Miyuki Sasaki, Robert Weissberg, Richard Haswell, Xiaoming Li, Susan Parks, Linda Lonon Blanton, Colleen Brice, Ken Hyland, Rosa Manchon, Liz Murphy, Julio Roca de Larios, Sarah Hudelson, and Dana Ferris.

The Politics of Second Language Writing:
In Search of the Promised Land (2006).
Edited by Paul Kei Matsuda, Christina Ortmeier-Hooper and Xiaoye You.

This volume is the first edited collection to present a sustained discussion of classroom practices in larger contexts of institutional politics and policies. Contributors focus on the policies on assessment, placement, credit, class size, course content, instructional practices, teacher prepara-tion, and teacher support. They examine politics in terms of the relationships and interaction between second language writing professionals and colleagues at the program, department, school, college, and university levels and beyond. Contributors also explore—through critical reflections and situated descriptions of their teaching practices in larger institutional con-texts—how these policies and politics affect pedagogical practices. Readers will learn why classroom practices are not neutral, pragmatic space but ideologically saturated sites of negotiation.

Contributors include Danling Fu, Marylou Matoush, Kerry Enright Villalva, Ilona Leki, Ryuko Kubota, Kimberly Abels, Angela M. Dadak, Jessica Williams, Wei Zhu, Guillaume Gentil, Kevin Eric DePew, Xiaoye You, Deborah Crusan, Sara Cushing Weigle, Jessie Moore Kapper, Christine Norris, Christine Tardy, Stephanie Vandrick, and Barbara Kroll.

Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing (2010).
Edited by Tony Silva and Paul Kei Matsuda.

Theory has been used widely in the field of second language writing. Second language writing specialists—teachers, researchers, and administrators—have yet to have an open and sustained conversation about what theory is, how it works, and, more important, how to practice theory. Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing features fourteen essays by distinguished scholars in second language writing who explore various aspects of theoretical work that goes on in the field.

The key issues addressed in Practicing Theory in Second Language Writing include the nature of theory in second language writing and the role theory plays in second language writing research, instruction, and administration; the possibility and desirability of developing a comprehensive theory or theories of second language writing; applications of theory, including the advantages, disadvantages, and limitations of adapting theories from other areas of inquiry to second language writing research, instruction, and assessment; theorizing and building theory, including the ways in which second language writing teachers, researchers, and administrators develop theories of second language writing, what a theory of second language writing might look like; the relationship between the conceptual work of theorizing and data-driven theory building; practicing theory, including how second language writing teachers, researchers, and administrators might address theory; the practical issues of learning to work with theory; and the ways that theory informs instruction and administration as well as materials development.

Contributors include: Dwight Atkinson, Diane Belcher, A. Suresh Canagarajah, Joan Carson, Deborah Crusan, Alister Cumming, Doug Flahive, Lynn M. Goldstein, Linda Harklau, John Hedgcock, Alan Hirvela, Ryuko Kubota, Paul Kei Matsuda, Lourdes Ortega, Dudley W. Reynolds, Tony Silva, Christine Tardy, Gwendolyn Williams, and Wei Zhu.