SLC EAL Peer Ashley K. returns with more information about using a trauma-informed approach to learning. She shares more information about a trauma-informed workshop co-facilitated by Jennifer-Lee Koble and Jennifer Dehoney. She also offers 8 important self-care tips. 

To read the interview she conducted with Dr. Elise Chenier, click here. 

If you are in need of support, please reach out. A particularly good resource for immediate support is My SSP. 

Graduate Writing Facilitator Kate Elliott and Writing Services Coordinator Julia Lane provide you with some information about how the Student Learning Commons has responded to the COVID-19 outbreak and the subsequent closure of our in-person services. 

In this blog post, you will get information about how you can continue to get support through the SLC, remotely. 

We hope everyone is keeping well - physically, emotionally, and mentally - during this time of increased stress and isolation. 

If you have questions, please reach out to us at learning-commons@sfu.ca 

(content reposted from the Canadian Writing Centre Association Blog) 

How do we take care of ourselves when we are introduced to difficult material in class? This is a question that SLC EAL Peer Ashley K. asked herself as she embarked on . her learning journey in HIST 436, which focuses on a close reading of Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. 

As part of her work to answer this question, she sat down to interview the course's instructor, Dr. Elise Chenier. This two-part blog series begins with a transcript of that interview. Here is a powerful idea that emerged from their discussion, 

"my main goals is not just know the breadth and depth of the problem intellectually, but to know it in their bodies. In my opinion, when you know it in your body, then it changes you, but to know it intellectually, you can still hold that at a distance and you don't necessarily see why you should change anything about the way you do anything" (Dr. Elise Chenier). 

In part two of this series, Ashley K. shares some self-care tips that she learned through a workshop offered by Jennifer-Lee Koble and Jennifer Dehoney during the class. 

Take care of yourselves. If you are in need of support, please reach out. A particularly good resource for accessing immediate support is My SSP. 

Communications major and SLC Writing and Learning Peer,  Ayomide G. is back with a companion piece to her post on having a successful midterm season. 

We at the SLC hope you have all come through the midterm season well, and hope that you enjoy these 5 steps for effective midterm-recovery! 

(and we promise not to mention how close finals are now... okay, maybe we'll mention it once...) 

This is Part 1 of a 3 part series focused on common expression errors that can arise in writing. The focus in this post is on subject/verb agreement, and it highlights some types of sentences that can pose particular challenges for ensuring subject/verb agreement. 

SLC Learning Services Coordinator Ruth Silverman shares notes from the recent session "How I Raised My GPA." The event was wildly popular and invited current students to listen to their peers' stories about raising their GPAs. Stay tuned for the next iteration of this event, coming soon! 

This week, Communications major and SLC Writing and Learning Peer,  Ayomide G., shares 5 tips on making it through midterm season. 

We are looking forward to seeing calendar sales spike at the bookstore after this ;) 

By Dr. Timothy Mossman, SLC EAL Services Coordinator 

In this post, Dr. Timothy Mossman introduces and invites submissions to the new Multilingual Students' Story Hub. The Story Hub is a forum for multilingual students to share their stories about events or critical incidents that occurred while learning or using English. 

By Daniel Chang

PhD candidate and SLC Writing Consultant Daniel Chang welcomes you to the Spring 2020 semester and offers some important reminders for how to get the most out of this term.

Wishing you all safe and happy holidays. See you in the new decade (2020)!