This post explains the genre of reflective writing, which is often what you are expected to do if you have a (critical) journal or analytical response assignment in your class. 

This explanation of reflective writing starts from Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein's (2012) statement that such assignments "require that you demonstrate that you have thought about what it is you think" (p. 222). Graff and Birkenstein are focused on writing in the social sciences, but the idea that you have to think about what you think is broadly applicable to any reflective writing task. 

It's that time of semester when assignment deadlines can start to feel like they are piling up on you. And, it can be especially hard to get down to work when the sun is shining! 

Let the assignment calculator help you to break down your assignments into manageable steps. That's just good project management! 

The six word story initiative invites members of the SFU community to celebrate their "excellent mistakes." 

In these six word stories, SFU students share their procrastination-related mistakes and words of wisdom to help you get your summer semester off to a productive and healthy start. 

I know you’ve been waiting with bated breath for this … Volume 2 of the SLC Undergraduate Writing Contest Open Journal is finally available! But why should you read them, really?

Read on and Learning Services Coordinator Ruth Silverman will give you plenty of reasons why!

Get your summer semester off on the right foot by learning how to read smarter, not harder (or longer)!

Graduate Writing Facilitator Jennesia Pedri has generously shared with us a guide that she created to support her own reading during her comprehensive exams for her doctoral studies in the School of Communications. As Jennesia explains, the guide aims to help you read more efficiently and effectively. It also aims to make itself obsolete: eventually you won’t need it because you’ll begin to automatically ask yourself these kinds of questions as you read.

The Student Learning Commons is scouting out new talent for our Writing and Learning Peer and English as Additional Language Peer programs. 

Both positions will allow you to develop transferable skills in the areas of client service, interpersonal skills, giving effective feedback, and cross-cultural communication, and will give you access to a professional reference as well as a private study/social space in the library.

We hope you will join our team! Apply now through http://myinvolvement.sfu.ca

I'm sure I don't have to mention that it is exam time! In this blog post, Donya Samadi --  PhD student in Educational Psychology and former Graduate Facilitator with the SLC -- shares how the concept of self-explanation can be applied to studying. 

Self-explanation, Donya explains, may be beneficial because information previously learned is recalled and integrated with new information to generate a self-explanation. In this way, self-explanation is a connection and elaboration to prior knowledge. When engaged in self-explanations, learners can develop new meaningful associations, and further understand the content they are studying. 

Welcome back to the wonderful world of commas!

SLC Writing Coordinator Amanda Goldrick-Jones, PhD, helps us understand the "unwanted comma," or when NOT to use commas in our writing. 

Missed Part 1? Check it out here. 

Looking for an icebreaker for your next event? Interested in promoting self-reflection opportunities? Curious about the relationship between mistakes or failure and resiliency?

This is the toolkit for you! 

[Note: Excellent mistakes not included!]

Perhaps you are starting to gear up for term paper writing? If so, you might be wondering when you are REALLY supposed to be using commas...

SLC Writing Coordinator Amanda Goldrick-Jones, PhD, returns to help us understand that common piece of punctuation, the comma... and maybe, just maybe, how to save our relationships?