The Teaching of Writing in Arabic: Process, Product, and Assessment

This workshop aims to examine writing as a communicative act and a multi-layered process in which writers seek strategies to help them achieve better communication with their audience. More specifically, the workshop will address the following themes:

- How to design writing tasks that reflect students’ needs and “real world” tasks
- How to make writing an integral part of the Arabic curriculum
- Writing between “process” and “product”: outlines, drafts, editing, and final product
- Writing as an individual pursuit and a collaborative learning activity
- Writing as a means to develop critical thinking skills and overall language proficiency
- How to assess writing: Portfolios and rubrics 

This workshop will be conducted in Arabic and is open to teachers of Arabic both as a first and second/foreign language.

Dr. Mahmoud Al-Batal

Dr. Mahmoud Al-Batal is Professor of Arabic at the University of Texas, Austin. He holds a B.A. in Arabic Language and Literature from the Lebanese University in Beirut, M.A. and Ph.D. in Arabic Linguistics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His PhD dissertation focused on the cohesive role of connectives in Arabic writing and he has authored a number of articles and conducted training workshops on different aspects of Arabic writing. In addition, he has published articles on teaching Arabic as a foreign language and presented numerous workshops in this area.

Between 2000 and 2014 Dr. Al-Batal served as director of the Center for Arabic study Abroad (CASA), a consortium of 32 universities in the US that provides advanced language training to American students of Arabic. He was the founding father of the Emory University Language Center (2000-2004), and the Arthur Blank Distinguished Teaching Professor at Emory.  Between 1991 and 1998, he served as Director of the School of Arabic at Middlebury College.  He is coauthor of al-Kitaab Arabic textbook series (with Kristen Brustad and Abbas Al-Tonsi) published by Georgetown University Press.