Meet our team series
Welcome to the Writing Centre’s Specialists blog series: Meet YorkU’s Writing Centre Team. Over the next few months, we will be highlighting some of the writing experts and specialists at the Writing Centre so you can get to know them better and see how they support students at the Writing Centre!
As part of the Writing Centre's Specialists blog series, today's blog post will be highlighting the Writing Centre’s multilingual specialist, Professor Dunja Baus.
Professor Baus teaches both in the Writing Department and the Writing Centre. She specializes in composition and rhetoric, and for the past 10 years, has been conducting research on translingualism and the teaching of writing in multilingual learning contexts.
Professor Baus says,
Students are here to learn and to change, but they also bring so much with them: Their multiple languages, their various experiences. So, it’s about creating a bridge between what they already know and what they are trying to know, to quote one of my favourite philosophers, Jacques Rancière.
At the Writing Centre, Professor Baus develops and implements the curriculum for the Multilingual Studio and the Grammar On! workshop series.
Essential to her pedagogical orientation is the demystification of academic writing through collaborative activities in which students practice academic rhetorical moves and deconstruct writing conventions, some of which are specific to particular disciplines.
Multilingual speakers and international students tend to feel at a disadvantage when encountering for the first time the exigencies of university-level writing. In fact, most monolingual English speakers also struggle to appropriate the conventions of academic writing. Part of my job in the Studio and in the Grammar On! series is to level the playing field
— says, Professor Baus.
Agency —the realization that students have choices when composing their own texts— and the ability to identify academic conventions and genres empower students and increase their joy in learning through writing
— says, Professor Baus.
The Studio takes place every Friday from 2 – 5 p.m. EST during the Winter term.
Professor Baus describes the Multilingual Studio as, “supportive, interactive, experimental.” [The Multilingual Studio] “is a space of linguistic hospitality where we collaborate and build community.”
Her Grammar On! series is open to all students who want to learn to construct effective and more sophisticated sentences that say what you want them to say. Grammar On! takes place every Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EST during the Winter term.
Grammar is all about choices.
— Professor Baus
English is so flexible. There’s a lot of anxiety around English grammar and writing essays. So, my first move is always about relieving anxiety in students
— Professor Baus
Professor Baus continues to show great commitment to the York community. As a professor, she goes out of her way to meet students’ aspirations in higher learning and to ignite their passion for writing as an essential form of critical thinking.
At the beginning of every year, at every September, I stand in front of the Murray Ross quotation to remember why ‘we at York’ are committed to teaching. And to remember why teaching matters. Why learning matters. And why my students matter.
— Professor Baus
Learn More
To learn more about one-to-one appointments, please visit our registration page. The Writing Centre's online resources will continue to grow all year! You can also visit the Writing Centre’s blog!
Connect with the Writing Centre on social media! You can follow us on Facebook @writyork, Twitter @yorkuwritcentre, and Instagram @yorkuwritcentre.