SLC Blog: In Common. A stylized image of a diverse group of students in a lecture hall

The Student Learning Commons blog is your online writing and learning community


Maintaining social cohesion in a time of social distancing

""
Published by Julia Lane

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

Grammar Camp: Common expression errors Part 1: Subject-verb agreement

Published by Julia Lane

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. 

 

The SLC Multilingual Students’ Story Hub: A place to share your stories

Published by Julia Lane

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. 

Reflecting on English as Additional Language Peer Educator Training

Published by Julia Lane

Guest blogger and English as Additional Language Peer Educator, Ashley K. writes this week about her experiences with EAL Peer training. In particular, she reflects on a lecture presented by Dr. Ena Lee, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education. Dr. Lee's talk focused on the "commonsense discourses" of English language learning, and how these "commonsense" ideas are often actually wrong. 

Ashley connects this talk with her experiences doing a "Pluriligual Identity" exercise and reflecting on her own connections with language learning, identity, and culture. 

 

The parts of speech: The last 4

Published by Julia Lane

Welcome to second installment of our Grammar Camp series on the Parts of Speech. 

If you didn't catch it or want to review, check out last week's post, which covered nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and verbs.

This week's post covers adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections

Thanks for Dr. Amanda Goldrick-Jones, SLC Writing Coordinator, for developing and sharing this content. 

The parts of speech: The first 4

Published by Julia Lane

In this Grammar Camp post, Dr. Amanda Goldrick-Jones, SLC Writing Coordinator, provides an overview of 4 basic parts of speech. There are 8 basic parts of speech, so stay tuned for next week's post about the last 4, and for two self-test quizzes for you to test out your newly acquired grammar know-how!

You can also jump to Part 2

Writing anxiety

Published by Julia Lane

Feeling anxious about writing your term papers this semester? You aren't alone! In fact, writing anxiety is experienced by writers across all genres and all stages of writing experience. This blog post explores the topic of writing anxiety and provides some practical suggestions for how to address the anxiety you may be experiencing. 

Note: this post focuses on "every day" writing anxiety and not clinical anxiety. If your anxiety is unmanageable, please get support from SFU Health and Counselling or from another health care professional. Your well-being matters! 

Got Assignments? Get the Assignment Calculator!

Published by Julia Lane

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!