Provost DeCiccio Presents at NEWCA on Genealogy Class

April 3, 2010

Provost Albert DeCiccio presented at Boston University in April for the annual Northeast Writing Centers Association’s Conference. His talk centered on the class DeCiccio taught for this year’s Quest for Success: “Exploring Faces of Diversity: Building the ‘I am…I am from…’ Exhibit.” A summary from the Conference’s brochure is below.  

Family Trees from Writing Center Pedagogy
Summary
Exploring Faces of Diversity: Building the “I am. . .I am from” Exhibit was a first-in-the- nation college-level course that employed the research methodology (including DNA testing) of Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  It also employed writing center pedagogy to nudge first-year students, their course apprentice, and me into a collaboration of work that resulted in a museum exhibit. The course’s pedagogical philosophy (collaborative learning) helped us to write our family histories and to compose a family tree, showing us all that we have a place in history.  I seek to engage participants by advocating that, in employing writing center pedagogy, they may help students to engage in a subject they are always interested in, themselves, putting in the forefront the image of a family tree.