A film written and directed by Wayne Robertson
Writing Across Borders is a 3-year documentary project funded by Oregon State University’s Center for Writing and Learning (now simply known as the Writing Center) and its Writing Intensive Curriculum Program. The documentary's purpose is to help faculty, writing assistants, and other professionals work more productively with international students in writing environments. The film’s goal is to address some of the most significant challenges international students face when writing for American colleges and universities. In addressing these challenges, it asks the following questions:
Watch the film in parts on You Tube, courtesy of Towson Writing Center, Towson University. Part 1, Part 2
For those of you who are interested in the DVD, there are clips to preview and a link to the OSU bookstore, where the DVD is on sale. For those of you using the DVD in faculty or staff development, you can find questions and discussion suggestions for the film on in the menu below.
Most people who use the film in writing/tutoring centers are using it as a training opportunity. The following questions are meant to help tutors think specifically about issues that matter most in their work with international students.
Facilitation Questions:
For those of you presenting the film to faculty at your school, you may be presenting to ESL faculty, composition instructors, first-year writing graduate teaching assistants, Writing Across the Curriculum faculty, or any number of different audiences.
The questions below are meant to help you facilitate conversations after viewing the film. They draw on faculty's own classroom experiences and encourage faculty to think through the issues in terms of their own teaching.
Transcript of the film: WABTranscript.pdf