English graduate students Erik Kornkven and Kristina Caton will present “Collaborations in Composition: An NDSU-Benson High School Writing Partnership” on Friday, Feb. 13, at 3:30 p.m. in Minard 135. Refreshments will be served. The event is part of the English department’s Cosgrove Seminar series.

Kornkven and Caton will share their experiences of initiating and carrying out collaborative exercises between first-year composition students and English language learner students at Fargo Public Schools. They will explain the rationale behind the assignments from both college and high school perspectives. They also will emphasize the pedagogical decision-making that went into planning and designing the assignments including what worked and tips for future collaborative efforts.

In the spring of 2007, Caton and Cindy Benson, English language learner teacher at Fargo South High School, formed a writing partnership with Caton’s first-year composition students and Benson’s high school English language learner students. Students exchanged letters throughout the semester and the partnership culminated in a collaborative writing workshop. The students met one another, wrote together, had lunch and bowled together at the Memorial Union.

In the fall of 2007, Caton received a grant from NDSU Extension to continue and expand the collaboration between first-year composition students and high school English language learner students in the Fargo Public Schools. Working again with Benson and English language learner teacher Teri Smith, Caton developed a plan of study that included pen pal assignments, short essays and the production of a small book of student writing. The unit culminated in campus visits by the English language learner students to both NDSU and Valley City State University. Later, Kornkven continued the partnership with a collaborative fable exercise between his first-year composition students and the English language learner students.

For more information, contact Cindy Nichols at cindy.nichols@ndsu.edu.