Chris Tardy, 2009-2010 Chair, Second Language Writing IS, ctardy<AT>depaul.edu

It has now been 4 years since the TESOL board approved the addition of the Second Language Writing Interest Section, and it's exciting to see how much the IS has grown in that short time. At TESOL 2009 in Denver, the SLWIS offered 58 sessions, InterSections with Applied Linguistics and NNEST, and an Academic Session on contexts of second language writing. We also continued the traditions of staffing our IS booth with well-known second language writing scholars and hosting our third annual SLWIS social evening, giving members the opportunity to catch up with old friends and to make new ones.

Those of you who were unable to attend the 2009 convention will be able to get a glimpse of these events through the special reports in this newsletter and by visiting the IS’s Web site at http://secondlanguagewriting.com/slwis/. Thanks to Charles Nelson for revamping this webspace and turning it into an excellent resource! I would also like to give a special thanks to Gigi Taylor, chair of the SLWIS in 2008-09, for her outstanding leadership throughout the year and preparation for the convention.  A unique characteristic of the SLWIS is the active participation of and the strong sense of community among members. This year’s business meeting was again well attended and gave opportunities for participants to discuss areas of interest for future conventions. As the IS grows, a small group of SLWIS members is in the process of designing a survey of the TESOL membership to assess how our IS can contribute to TESOL in new ways, speaking to our mission of serving a broad population of the TESOL membership. Erik Johnson, Shawna Shapiro, Todd Ruecker, Gigi Taylor, and I will be working throughout the year on this project and look forward to sharing our findings at the 2010 convention.  The SLWIS now has over 1,800 active members and all signs point to continued growth and activity. Submissions to the SLWIS for the 2010 TESOL convention in Boston numbered just over 200—our greatest number of submissions since the IS was established. I would like to sincerely thank the following members for lending their expertise in reviewing these proposals:   

Kyun-Hee Bae
Tara Bartlett
Bradley Baurain
Sophie Bearen
Annette Bradford
SoYoung Baeks
Cherry Campbell
Pisarn (Bee) Chamcharatsri
Karen C.C. Chang
Cate Crosby
Deborah Crusan
Angela Dadak
Norman Evans
Lilian Faraq Allah
Doug Flahive
Jan Frodesen
Sue Lantz Goldhaber
Lynn Goldstein
Helena Hall
Havry Harris
Andrea Hellman
Alan Hirvela
 Raylene Houck
Suzanne House
Sunny Hyon
Angela Yi-ping Hsu
Atsushi Iida
Erik Johnson
Kyung Min (Kay) Kim
Sharlene Kiuhara
Ditlev Larsenn
Alice Lee
Joan Li
XiaoMing Li
John Liang
Alene Litvinskaya
Kate Mangelsdorf
Paul Kei Matsuda
Sharon McCulloch
Hedy McGarrell
Grazzia Mendoza
Jessie Moore
Mary Muchiri
Amina Nihlawi
 Silva Pessoa
Talinn Phillips
Lisa Ponzetti
Terry Pruett-Said
Margaret Redus
Laurel Reinking
Tanita Saenkhum
Lisya Seloni
Roxanna Senyshyn
Shawna Shapiro
Tony Silva
Sheryl Slocum
LuAnn Sorenson
Ivan Stefano
Emily Thrush
Yi-Ting Tu
Danielle Zawodny Wentzel
Mark Wolfersberger
Achara Wongsothorn
Ana Wu
Saihua Xia
Youngjoo Yi 

As the days of summer draw to a close (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere), I know that many of us are looking forward to beginning new projects, new classes, and new collaborations. I hope that you'll be able to make use of and contribute to the SLWIS community in various ways in these endeavors—through the electronic discussion list, Web site, newsletter, or TESOL's online resource center. If you have ideas of new ways in which the IS can help members connect or reach out to new members, I'd love to hear your thoughts!