Writing Center Workshops: Sharpening Student Writing Skills > Diane Martinez

APA getting your students down? Even though you keep marking sentence fragments on their projects and referring them to the Writing Center, do they seem to reappear each week? You wonder, do they even go to the Writing Center and use the resources available to them? Well, sometimes learning on your own is tough and some students do better in interactive live sessions. Here’s where the Writing Center workshop series each month can help!

The Kaplan University Writing Center offers live workshops each month to help your students through these writing quandaries and many more. You might be wondering how a workshop can help with writing issues, but they really can make a difference.Workshops are live audio seminars accompanied by a presentation and synchronous chat. The main advantage of attending these live presentations is that they are solely dedicated to writing. In class seminars, you have to cover content along with giving some writing advice once in a while, but our workshops are 100 percent writing-oriented.  That’s all we talk about, and we answer student questions right on the spot.  Some of the workshops are even interactive where they can practice the very skills we are presenting on and they get immediate feedback. Besides, we’re a cool and lively bunch in the Writing Center and we know how to make writing fun and interesting!

New student workshops are offered every month. We continually present popular ones like APA and Major Writing Errors and How to Avoid Them, but the topics we cover are as varied as a bag of Skittles…we’ve got something for everyone. To date, we have given workshops on:

• All About APA

•  Hallmarks of Effective Writing

• Major Writing Errors and How to Avoid Them
  

• Integrating Research Sources

• What Writing Across the Curriculum Means for KU Students
  

• Research Strategies

• Thesis and Essay Development

• Microsoft Word 2007 Workshops

• Citing Web 2.0 Sources

• Writing Concisely

• A Cure for Writer’s Block

• Avoiding Plagiarism

• Pronoun Workshop

• English as a Second Language and English Language Learners Workshops

As you can see, we cover a wide range of writing topics and this is only the beginning! But what if students have to work and miss a workshop?  We’ve got this covered. We record all of our workshops for that very reason. We understand our students are busy, yet dedicated students, so we archive recordings of all the latest workshops and they are readily available to students right from the Writing Center home page.

No registration is required for the workshops. The schedule contains links that students simply click on to attend the workshops of their choice on the day and time indicated.

We welcome your input on topics for workshops for both students and faculty. Please contact Diane Martinez with your suggestions.

Diane Martinez is a Writing Specialist at the Kaplan University Writing Center.

[This article was originally published in the July, 2009 newsletter.]

What Makes A Good Writing Assignment? > Diane Martinez

What in the world would you do if you were to receive the following message in an email from your supervisor?

Write a paper on what your plans are for this year and how you’re going to accomplish those goals. It is important that this be well written as your promotion potential and salary depend on how well you do on this assignment.

Aside from panic, a million questions would swirl around your head. So much rests on this assignment…and yet…do you really know what is expected of you? After all, you are a professional. Shouldn’t you know what to do?

Expectations vary from one individual to the next. When students encounter generalized writing assignments like the one above, they have a similar reaction to it as you probably had. As instructors, we often fall back on the thought that our students are in college and they should know how to write a paper. But oftentimes, students fail at assignments because they simply are not given enough direction; it has nothing to do with the level of their education, but rather they may just not know what each individual instructor’s expectations may be or the directions of the assignment are vague, quite general, or they are highly interpretive. Maybe instructors understand the assignments, but our students do not have the same knowledge base or experience as instructors and so how can they be expected to have this same understanding? Furthermore, since courses at Kaplan University are standardized, spelling out expectations in writing assignments becomes even more important because it leaves less room for interpretation by individual instructors as well as each student.

So what does a good writing assignment include? A good writing assignment:

Defines the situation, subject, and purpose of the assignment. Students have to know why they are writing a certain assignment, what they are supposed to get from it, and its purpose. Purpose also lends itself to form, so it’s important that students are told what form to write in and that it matches the purpose. There is a definite difference between writing an essay, which is more demonstrative of what a student knows, and writing a business letter, which is based on what an audience needs to know.

Identifies an audience. It may seem obvious that students are writing to instructors because that is who ultimately grades the assignments, but if you want students to step outside of this traditional relationship and consider real-world applications, you have to give them enough information about the audience you want them to write to. Audience determines content, tone, diction, structure, form, and so much more. But to simply say, write this letter to a potential client is not enough. Set up a scenario so that students can understand the situation and the audience they are writing to. This is actually practical experience for them that they can use later on.

Tells students what to do. To say write a “paper” or “essay” is generic and really of no use to students. In fact, there are about eight different types of essays, such as expository, compare and contrast, persuasive, process, etc. Tell students exactly what you want: Write a compare and contrast essay where you are analyzing the similarities and differences in how each person’s case was handled between the Big and Little cases in units 7 and 8. Or if you want them to compose something that is geared toward a specific audience, tell them what form would be best to fit the purpose and audience, such as a proposal, letter, or memo. Letting them practice various forms also helps students understand that “writing” is not generic. It is a specialized task that requires constant practice and proficient skill in order to be effective.

Gives students help with structure and organization. When I tutor students in the Writing Center, one of the main issues they have is with organization. They are not sure how to begin an assignment or structure paragraphs. To help them with this, include wording like this: Your essay should have an opening paragraph that introduces the topic, provides brief background information, and includes a thesis. Body paragraphs should support your thesis statement and must include a), b), and c). Finally, write an overall conclusion to wrap up the paper.

Includes evaluation criteria. Every assignment should have a rubric and refer students to that rubric. A generic rubric oftentimes does not work because a rubric should actually reflect the individual criteria by which that particular assignment is going to be evaluated. Make mention of things we often take for granted like writing formally, not using second person, and using Standard American English with a short note of what this actually means.

Gives a process to follow. Most people have the mistaken idea that we write on demand. Well, we do, but that is often not our best writing. Advise students about when to begin the assignment and what steps they should take to make this assignment an example of their best work. For instance, all writing assignments should start with brainstorming or some type of exploratory writing. This can include brainstorming for topics to write about or brainstorming about what they know about a topic and what they need to know, such as writing out research questions. They can also brainstorm ideas for how to approach the assignment, especially if individual questions are already provided to them to answer. They should be told to draft their assignment and then revise. It’s not too elementary to mention the difference between revision and editing either. Reviewing the writing process with students and how it relates to a particular project is actually quite helpful to them and will set them up for success instead of leaving them floundering.

Provides additional resources. It’s always a good idea to remind students about your office hours and that if they have questions they should come to you. Let them also know where they can get additional assistance, such as through the Writing Center Live Tutoring sessions or by looking up items in the Writing Center Reference Library.

Our students are in college, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need specific, precise, and direct writing assignments. Nothing should be taken for granted because our students have such diverse backgrounds and experiences. It is also a good idea to remember that they also need a safe place to experiment with ideas, and if they are grappling with how to structure an essay then it takes their attention away from the content we really want them to explore.

Diane Martinez is a Writing Center Writing Specialist at Kaplan University.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

On the Lighter Side - English for Insane People > Mike Jensen, Professor in Legal Studies

I am an English professor. I say that proudly, but only in private. When I’m in public, I claim to be a garbage man, because garbage men have a better reputation. Being an English professor is not a popular job, as evidenced by the number of bullet holes I regularly find in my home’s all-natural artificial log siding.

I understand this disdain for my profession. I know that English classes are tough. I know that literature can be hard to understand (for example, why is it that NO piece of poetry ever written lets a tree simply be a tree, rather than the poet’s symbolic representation of something incomprehensible like humanity’s hatred of their parents?). I know that writing an A-quality essay is more difficult than saying the words "Al Franken, U.S. Senator" without spitting up your Coors Light.

Knowing all this, let me offer my sincere apology to the population in general by saying: “Get off my back, you jerks! It’s not MY fault the English language sucks!”

I’m kidding, of course. The English language doesn’t suck. The English language, despite all of its quirks and difficulties, despite its crazy spelling and grammar rules, despite its weird pronunciations, REALLY sucks.  And it’s even worse for foreigners. If I were to come to this country and enroll in one of those “English for Insane Foreigners Who Actually Think They Can Ever Learn to Speak English” courses, all the professor would have to do would be to write these three words on the board:

THOUGH

THROUGH

THOUGHT

and then try to explain why each word is pronounced the way it is.

At that point I would turn around, walk out the door, return to my home country, and spend the rest of my life telling my friends and neighbors that it’s no wonder Americans are so weird; their language slowly drives them all insane.

And it does drive us insane. How are we supposed to stay clear-headed when we have to decide whether we went THROUGH a tunnel or THREW the tunnel, whether to rob a bank would be to BRAKE the law or BREAK the law, or whether I can HERE the music or HEAR the music. This especially drives us English professors insane, because we are supposed to be the guardians of the language.

And to be honest, I’ve had it. So I am announcing today, as an English professor, that it no longer matters how you spell or misspell any words. Just get your general point across, okay? So if you want to go brake the law, due it! Want too here some good music? Go ahead! Have ice cream for desert, go buy a knew car and have a peace of pie. Get to no some-body knew by telling them you love there hare. Skip work to right a knew song, then sing it threw your lover’s bedroom window. Where your pants over your underewhere. I don’t care!

But for now I’d better go. I just graded a set of essays, and I’m expecting the gunfire to erupt any minute now.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.] 

Adding Application to Writing Assignments < Erica Ellsworth

In composition, we generally assign a term project in English writing terms: Write a five page college level essay. Adhere to the five paragraph format, use APA, and Standard American English for grammar and mechanics.

Sometimes, we will even place a rhetorical limitation: For your final project, you will use persuasive writing.

Often times, we, as English teachers, lament about the quality of work. Our students don’t seem engaged in the writing process. We get excited to see emerging ideas on the topic, but are often let down when we see the final project. Where did all of those brilliant ideas go?

What if? What if instead of using English terms, we flip the assignment into concepts our students understand? No, we don’t all need to learn text or IM language. We do, however, need to show our students why writing is meaningful and important in their majors and in future careers.

In criminal justice composition, I make a challenge to my students to think like a criminal justice major. At first, my students feel like I am not serious. When I give them the “new” directions for the final project, it starts to make a little more sense. Here’s the same assignment written two different ways:

In English terms:

Write a five page college level essay. Adhere to the five paragraph format, use APA, and Standard American English for grammar and mechanics. For your final project, you will use persuasive writing.

For criminal justice majors:

What is your mission? This asks a more concrete question that you can answer and use as a springboard for prewriting and drafting.

What is your mission – what is the main idea? What do you want the reader to learn? To know? To think? What is the problem? Is there a solution? What is the solution? Why will the solution work? What is needed for the mission? Is there information that needs to be given prior to giving the solution? Are there words or jargon to define so the reader understands your position?

This is not your “normal” research paper. I want you to think out of the box. I want you to step outside English class and think in terms of criminal justice. Then, we will take those criminal justice ideas and convey them in an effective paper. Yes, I want you to think like a police officer, a probation agent, a corrections agent, a DEA, FBI or CIA agent. I want your criminal justice brain going – digging for information and presenting that information.

Each step of the process is then put into terms and concepts that they have used either in their work or previous classes within their major. While the assignment has essentially remained the same, students are now able to see the value of the assignment – how it will help them to be successful in the criminal justice field.

Even though my example is for the composition courses within the School of Criminal Justice, any writing assignment can be reworded to focus on different majors.

Erica Ellsworth is a Composition Professor in Criminal Justice.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

A Unique Opportunity > Tara King, Professor in Legal Studies

We are very fortunate at Kaplan to have many faculty and adminis-trators who understand what the WAC program provides. Our students recently named the KU Writing Center as one of the most useful resources available to them. In addition, the WAC-GEL program will be instrumental in building the writing skills of our students to help them apply appropriate writing skills in their chosen professions. By 2009, all of our courses will contain a writing component that will be approved by the Communications Literacy Committee to more effectively bring written communication to our students in all of their courses, and not merely in the composition courses. This represents a significant shift that fulfills part of the promise we made to potential students in our recent advertisements; however, we have a unique opportunity to make these writing assignments more meaningful for our students.

Most writing instructors would agree that writing skills cannot be effectively learned in one or two courses, which is one of the reasons that WAC and WID programs have become so popular in colleges and universities across the country. However, traditional colleges and universities have a wide variety of instructors and philosophies that can often deter students from building upon their writing skills because of the confusion that these differences bring. At Kaplan, we can use our centralized course development to improve writing instruction. We could also improve retention in our composition courses because students would not be expected to learn everything about writing in one or two courses, so the pressure would be lessened.

Currently, the majority of our writing assignments focus on content and development, which is the generally accepted composition standard. Unfortunately, there is no developmental writing course on the horizon, which leaves many of our students scrambling to learn too many skills all at once. Instead, we could use our WAC GEL program to bring some of those developmental skills to the forefront in earlier writing assignments. For instance, in the first two or three blocks of classes, some of the most common grammar errors (fused sentences, comma splices, fragments, subject-verb agreement) and paragraph development could be the focus. Classes that aren’t necessarily writing intensive could include quizzes to emphasize and build upon these skills. Though other skills, such as introductions, thesis statements, and transitions would still appear in the rubric, students would be scored more rigorously on these basic skills, providing an opportunity to build those skills and to focus on them more within those courses. Assignments, lectures, or discussions could be structured around what it means to build different paragraphs for different situations. Then, of course, in the next two or three blocks of classes, we could build on these skills, adding a few more grammar concepts and other writing elements. Much like their math classes, students would start to see more clearly the differences in the types of writing as well as the building blocks of effective writing overall.

Finally, instructors would have an opportunity to focus on specific skills in specific courses. Knowing that students are being taught a wide variety of skills would allow instructors to be more focused in a 100-level course, and it would also give them a particular set of expected standards for students in a 200-level course or higher. No other school that I know of has been organized in such a way with regard to writing skills. To use our organization and the wide array of talents that exist at Kaplan to create such a program could truly change the way that we teach and the way that students learn.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

Strength in Numbers: Communicating Effectively in Virtual Teams > Carolyn Stevenson, Professor in Communication

Collaboration with others is part of living and working in the social world. Much of our daily communication occurs in groups such as our family, co-workers, friends and classmates. Regardless of career choice, it is likely that you will spend a considerable part of your life and work collaborating with others. Virtual teams are growing in importance as companies become more geographically diverse and more employees are working in off-site locations. The key to successful virtual teams is learning to communicate effectively while working at a distance.

A short overview of business surveys reveals that teams may be one of the most often used communication methods within organizations.

• It is estimated that by 2010 over 75 percent of the U.S. workforce will work in teams of some sort (Shockley-Zalabak, 2006, p. 202).

• A global, cross-functional team successfully designed the website for GE Global eX-change Services “so it would have the same simple, intuitive-looking feel in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian (Williams, 2007, p. 317). Today the website (gxs.com) is used successfully in 58 countries.

• Team suggestions at a Cleveland Maytag plant caused production to double, yearly production costs to drop by $7 million, and required on-hand inventory to drop by $10 million (Williams, 2003).

• Rubbermaid created 20 cross-functional teams of five to seven people to develop new products. In one year the teams developed over 365 new products. The problem now is not finding innovative products ideas, but deciding which new product ideas to select (Jones, 2007).

• At Honeywell’s Industrial Automation and Control plant in Phoenix, Arizona, quality control decision by employee teams lowered defect rates by 70 percent (Daft & Marcic, 2006).

• Florida Power & Light Company used teams to guild a nuclear power plant in an unbelievably fast six years. For example, because of the work teams, “a slip-forming technique was developed for pouring concrete around the clock, allowing the 3-foot thick, 190-foot-tall concrete shell to be finished in just 17 days, compared with a year for other power companies” (Daft, 1995, pp. 199-200).

Strategies for Communication

Effective and appropriate communication is vital to working in virtual teams. Listed below are a few strategies for promoting effective communication:

Channels for Communication. Communication systems need to be established that encourage ideas, questions, and concerns to be directed to the team members. Methods for virtual communication in teams include email, instant messenger, discussion forums, blogs, live chats, and teleconferencing.

Virtual Team Member Roles. A virtual team needs to be organized around a set of team roles and responsibilities. Roles need to be created that address both the talent and interest of the team members. The roles must also take into account the work distribution by each member. An equal amount of work and responsibility needs to be established among the various roles.

Clear Instructions. One of the challenges for individuals working in virtual teams is the anxiety with group work. You may have had negative experiences working in groups and teams and bring this anxiety in the project. It is important to clearly provide instructions for group roles which outline a timeline for completion and expectations so that members of the group will understand the steps required for completion of the project and a reassurance of equal distribution of the workload.

Managing Conflict. Conflict is sure to arise in virtual teams. Guidelines need to be established within the virtual teams for working with group members when conflict occurs. At appropriate times, the group leader may be required to intervene to resolve group conflict.

Communicate Respect. Communicate respect to each other by acknowledging group members comments. Provide a direct response elaborating on what someone else has said. Be polite and let everyone talk during live chats. Take turns sharing information. The group leader should ask if the team is ready to move on to a new topic and wait for acknowledgment.

Stay On Topic During Group Chats. When you stay on the subject at hand it refrains from the possibility of miscommunication. The designated agenda items can also

be covered in a timely manner.

Be An Active Listener. Listen actively and pay attention to the conversation at hand. It is important to remain open-minded and respect everyone’s ideas.

Ensure All Voices are Heard. During an online discussion, one detrimental group practice is when one participant dominates the conversation. This does not allow for proper group dynamics since participation is not balanced. If one person controls the group it becomes a biased project. When each person in a group agrees to unite and work together, the group becomes perhaps the most effective force it can be – a team.

As our global workplace is becoming increasing smaller and more diverse, more organizations are incorporating virtual teams into their work groups. As such, it is critical that students have prior knowledge working in virtual teams before entering the workplace. A sense of community needs to be embraced following the guidelines of effective communication to ensure that every voice is heard in the virtual team.

Virtual team members (left to right): Tanya Peterson, Carrie Wells, Carrie Hannigan,

Carolyn Stevenson, Diane Martinez

Daft, R.I. (1995). Organizational theory and design (5th ed.).
     Minneapolis/St. Paul: West.
Daft, R.I. (2006).Understanding management (5th ed.).
     Mason, OH: Thompson South-Western.
Jones, G.R. (2007). Introduction to Business: How companies
     create value for people. New-York: McGraw-Hill.

Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2006). Fundamentals of organizational
     communication. (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Williams, C. (2003). Management (2nd ed.). Mason,
     OH: South-Western.
Williams, C. (2207). Management (4th ed.). Mason,
     OH: Western-Western.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.] 

Beyond Kumbaya: Exploring Writing Together > Kella Hammond

I have a little secret to share before I get too philosophical: I approach the teaching of writing as a writer, first and foremost. When I work with a student on his or her paper in the KU Writing Center, I try to remember what it’s like for me to share my work with another reader, how I best receive feedback, and how to reflect on what worked or didn’t work for a particular piece of writing after it’s been published.

 I was reminded to do all of this and more when I recently read The National Commission on Writing’s May 2006 report, Writing and School Reform. Dr. Patricia Lambert Stock, Professor of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures; English; and Education at Michigan State University, highlighted six effective instructional practices to challenge and support authentic student writing:

• Encourage students to bring the languages, experiences, and images of their home communities into the classroom to be used as resources in service of student learning;

• Position students and teachers as co-inquirers and co-learners, a process that allowed teachers to model inquiry, study, and learning for their students;

• Ask students to use writing to collect, analyze, synthesize, and communicate information and opinions;

• Call on students to draft, compose, and revise a variety of writings for a variety of audiences, purposes, and occasions;

• Require students to use all the language arts (listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking) all at once and all together in the service of learning and sharing their ideas; and

• Encourage students to make some of their writing public beyond the classroom, so as to gain a better understanding of how literacy works in the world (2006, p. 12).

Yet, the point that fascinates me the most right now is the second bullet:

Position students and teachers as co-inquirers and co-learners, a process that allowed teachers to model inquiry, study, and learning for their students.

I think the more we can show students that writing is truly a collaborative process, one that we actively take part in and often fumble through, the better. I enhance my teaching when I write alongside my students because I receive an opportunity to remember what the writing process is like firsthand — not as a reader-observer, but as a writer-participant.

We can “co-learn” with our students by sharing what we’ve written, especially the drafts that we know are not finished or look picture-perfect (yet), facilitating honest conversations about what our varied writing processes look like and which approaches set us up for success, and asking students to determine what effective writing looks and sounds like not only in the classroom but also in the workplace.

     The wonderful part of “co-learning” is that this phrase assumes that both parties may share and impart knowledge. Of course, our students have so much to share with us. As writers who not only write essays but also compose their work in the office, e-mails, the blogosphere, social media websites, and text messages, our students are writing with a fervor and openness today that leads us to important conversations about the role of writing in our classrooms, careers, personal lives, and society at large.

     As novelist E.L. Doctorow once said, “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” The more we as educators remember what it’s like to “start from nothing” the better we will be at scaffolding the support, encouragement, and constructive feedback our students need. And while I believe that many of us already do what I’m suggesting, I think it bears repeating because every time I write for this newsletter, I realize just how hard (and impor-tant) writing is. Writing connects not only thoughts but also people, and what better way to do both of those pursuits than in community?

Kella Hammond is a Resource Specialist at the Kaplan University Writing Center.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

Autobiography among the Blogs and Tweets: An Information Age Tribute to Donald Murray > Joni Boone

Although Donald Murray died several years ago, his essays on writing give me a glimpse of who he was in life, as would be expected of someone who wrote the piece “All Writing Is Autobiography” (1994). Here is one way Murray explains autobiography in this essay: “I have my own peculiar way of looking at the word and my own way of using language to communicate what I see.”

Sometimes students struggle to create their autobiography, to reveal themselves as distinct, interesting beings in their writing. They certainly have a unique way of seeing the world, but the process of writing in and for the classroom can be intimidating and prohibitive. Their voices can seem forced and artificial. Their paragraphs can seem empty and their perspectives unimportant. It is difficult to get students to practice process writing or discover ideas through writing assignments. However, there are less intimidating avenues for writing. And the accessibility and lack of formality of these avenues seem to encourage more writing. These avenues that I am suggesting are driven by technology – texting, chatting, tweeting, blogging, and more I am probably not aware of yet. Could new technologies, dare I say even texting, help students become better writers? I certainly don’t have the answer to this question, but I am willing to explore the possibility.

Teachers and tutors remind students that the only way to discover oneself as a writer is to write and write often. The more students write, the closer they become to the products and the richer the products can become. And brace yourselves grammarians (me included), technology might be beneficial to this process. We lovers of beautifully balanced sentences packed with correct spellings, subject-verb agreement, and a nice full stop wonder when our world will be totally corrupted by text language and snide tweets. However, perhaps these newer forms feed the needs of new generations. Can’t language be alive and changing as well as respectful of tradition? As one who teaches Standard American English to college-level writers, I am at a crossroads. Though I cringe at some of the spelling variations found in text messaging and ultimately sneaking into the research paper, I do see the value in people using written communication more. Perhaps these outlets allow writers to discover their writing and define themselves as writers. Not only could these writers become more comfortable with the written word, they could also become more interesting on paper.

These new technologies do not need to replace more formal and traditional types of writing but rather exist along with them. Students can use technology to write more and create that autobiography that is strewn about from the blog post to the final written exam. The teens of today, Kaplan’s future, have already established an online writing presence. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project ,

• 64% of online teens ages 12-17 have participated in one or more . . .content-creating activities on the internet…

• 39% of online teens share their own artistic creations online, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos…

• 33% create or work on webpages or blogs for others...

• 28% have created their own online journal or blog…

• 55% of online teens ages 12-17 have created a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace. (Lenart, Madden, Macgill, & Smith, 2007, p. 2)

Our future students are becoming more comfortable and prolific as writers through nontraditional platforms. They do have a voice and an autobiography to share with the world. Murray would be proud, I think.

As our students learn to write using sarcasm in their latest Facebook posts, tweeting about a class experience, and blogging about their daily struggles, I could continue to cringe at the destruction of English language standards. I am learning instead, however, to remember that ultimately they are creating a specific text for a specific audience. They are learning more about themselves. They are sharing their autobiography with a wide and varied audience. And who knows, maybe they are learning to become better writers after all.

Lenhart, A., Madden, M., Macgill, A.R., & Smith, A.

     (December 19, 2007). Teens and social media: The use

     of social media gains a greater foothold in teen life as they

     embrace the conversational nature of interactive online

     media. Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American

     Life Project.

Murray, D. (1994). All writing is autobiography. In S. Perl (Ed.),

     Landmark Essays on Writing Process (pp. 207-216. Davis,

     CA: Hermagoras Press. (Reprinted from College Composition

     and Communication, February 1991, National Council of Teachers

     of English.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

Student Workshops and Recordings Available On the Writing Center Home Page

Please direct your Kaplan University students to the Writing Center home page for a monthly schedule of workshops and recording links. Recordings are available 24-48 hours after a workshop has taken place.

[This notification was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

Debunking the Myth of the Writing Center as Paper Review Service > Kurtis C. Clements

Ask the typical student on KU’s virtual campus what he or she knows about the Writing Center, the odds are that most would say the Writing Center provides a paper review service for students. While this statement is true, it is not the whole truth – and there lies the problem.

Over the past several months, the Writing Center has seen a drastic increase in submissions to its paper review service to the point where meeting the 48 – 72 hour turn-around time can be a formidable, tutor-intensive challenge. Students often submit papers at the 11th hour, including sometimes frantic messages for paper-weary tutors: “Please help! This is due tomorrow!” For too many students, submitting a paper to the Writing Center has become an ingrained part of their writing process: draft, submit to the Writing Center for review, finalize based on Writing Center feedback.

This tendency to use the paper review service as purely an editorial service is not only a bad practice in general, but it has also come at the expense of other valuable Writing Center services – live tutoring, writing reference library, question and answer queue, and workshops and presentations – that might legitimately assist students with their writing process. For example, a twenty minute live tutoring session might help the student discover and articulate an appropriate focus and/or structure for a paper. Visiting the writing reference library might assist a student with prewriting strategies that can be employed to generate ideas for paper topics or supporting points.

Too often students come to the Writing Center at the end of their process (if a bona fide process has been used at all), thinking that a paper review is just what they need before finalizing and then submitting for evaluation. This approach is a breeding ground for bad writing because students often need help much earlier in their process, but due to a complicated amalgam of factors (work, family, other courses, for example), students don’t use the Writing Center until a draft is completed and at that point problems may already be inherent in the writing that may have been resolved sooner and much easier. Unfortunately, as is often the case with writing, “fixing” something involves much more than correcting a few comma splices and possessives errors; to this end, the work needed to improve upon a draft with systemic issues (a skewed focus, for example) will take considerable time, which is a strong argument against using the Writing Center’s paper review service as it is being used now. If a student submits a paper to the review service that lacks a clear focus, what is it the tutor can say, really, other than the paper lacks a clear focus and that perhaps a stronger thesis would help give the paper much-needed clarity and even structure? If this same student came to the Writing Center earlier, say to chat in real time with a tutor, he/she could have discussed the focus of the paper and perhaps worked on a thesis that established an appropriate focus – all before drafting. Students and instructors need to realize that the Writing Center can help in significant ways prior to a draft ever being completed.

To complicate the issue, some courses and/or instructors have a blanket policy that requires all students to submit papers to the Writing Center for review. This practice, while well-intended, does not promote good writing and, in fact, encourages the writer to be more passive about his/her learning as students give their work less attention up front because they think the tutors will point out what needs to be “corrected” during the review process.

While the paper review service certainly can be helpful, it is important to understand that tutors offer holistic feedback, not line editing. Tutors offer global, here’s-what-to-do-when-thinking-about-the-writing-as-a-whole type responses, and do not simply point out errors, though the latter seems to be what drives students to submit papers in the first place. The “error and correction” method of responding to student writing is an ancient and still used pedagogy that does little to improve student writing. What value is there in knowing a comma splice exists in a sentence in the sixth paragraph if the focus of the paper is not yet defined clearly, if body paragraphs lack supporting details and general development or if ideas are arranged as haphazardly as leaves in a windstorm? By over-relying on the paper review service, students miss out on the opportunities to think about and explore their ideas – to be a part of their own writing process and not a casual by-stander. If students compose a draft, submit that draft (sometimes the very first draft!) to the Writing Center, and then revise based on what a tutor reports, how is that kind of process truly going to help students become better writers?

And what do the students do with the feedback they receive from tutors, especially if it holistic? Do they really address the important substantive issues that can help them become better writers or do they only address what can be easily “corrected”?

Paper review can be an effective form of feedback if the service is used appropriately by students and faculty alike. To this end, all must realize that the student needs to do the legwork first – the working through the process – and submit a paper that represents time and effort spent to discover a focus, try out ideas, draft, experiment with structure, and clarify meaning. When students rush to complete a draft, when they bypass the actual writing process and instead just sit down and type, problems will ensue. When instructors make it mandatory for students to submit papers to the Writing Center, students are compelled to hurry through the writing so they can submit their papers for review.

The Writing Center and tutors can offer substantive help long before the final period is placed on a draft so those services should be used. Indeed, students should take advantage of the other valuable Writing Center services that may provide the kind of feedback and help that will lead to a much more polished final project and, better yet, real hands-on learning in terms of understanding and working with the writing process and addressing issues to make students better college-level writers.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

Synopsis - July 2009: Director Annotations > Susan Coller Carlson

Welcome to the second issue of our monthly newsletter! Dean Kara VanDam (School of General Education) kicks off this issue with “Do as I Say, Not as I Do: Best Practices in Writing Feedback.” Kara makes an excellent point about how we learn by doing—and that writing is certainly no exception. Regardless of our discipline, many of us can identify with the experience Dean VanDam had in college, and many of us struggled to find our way as writers. Her three indicators of valuable feedback are significant. We all have the ability to foster our students’ sense of accomplishment and empowerment—and giving them the tools to think critically about their writing and make marked improvements can do just that.

Other articles that will pique your curiosity about writing include one by Kurtis Clements, “Debunking the Myth of the Writing Center as Paper Review Service.” He exposes the dangers inherent in “editing” papers for students instead of nurturing the process of writing and gives a compelling argument for why we need to change our attitude. In “Autobiography Among the Blogs and Tweets,” Joni Boone explores how to find an academic “voice” using modern technology. She posits that texting and other informal modes of communication do not replace formal writing, but instead coexist. Kella Hammond discusses the notion of students and instructors as “co-inquirers” in the writing process and how writing truly is an exploratory, collaborative effort in “Beyond Kumbaya.”

Carolyn Stevenson maintains the key to successful virtual teams is learning to communicate effectively while working at a distance in, “Strength in Numbers.” In “A Unique Opportunity.” Tara King writes about the unique opportunity we have with WAC to help students. Echoing our first newsletter on how writing cannot be taught in 20 weeks of composition courses, Tara proposes that, since many of our students are scrambling to learn so many skills at once, we could use our WAC GEL program to help bring developmental skills to the forefront.

Erica Ellsworth discusses how using terminology specific to a particular field or discipline can help students more clearly understand what is expected in their writing projects. In “English for Insane People,” Mike Jensen, takes a humorous look at how the English language can drive people insane and notes some of the finer points of being a “guardian” of English.

Finally, Diane Martinez offers a thought-provoking look at the anatomy of a good writing assignment in “What Makes a Good Writing Assignment?” This article offers a number of very useful tips that can help course developers and instructors.

I hope you enjoy this issue and are moved to do a little writing of your own—as always, we welcome your suggestions and contributions.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]

ESL/ELL (English as a Second Language/English Language Learner)

     Are the ESL/ELL (English as a Second Language/English Language Learner) students in your courses struggling with their writing assignments? Are you struggling with what direction to give them? The Writing Center offers outreach services to ELL students that you may want to know about. Come, meet Writing Center Tutor and ELL Specialist, Chrissine Rios, receive important information about the ELL referral process, and learn about the new ELL workshop and forum series. Your ELL students want to succeed. Learn how you can help!

When: Monday, August 3, 2009 6 PM ET
Workshop Link: http://khe2.acrobat.com/ellfaculty1/

When: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7 PM ET
Workshop Link: http://khe2.acrobat.com/ellfaculty2/

[This notification was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.] 

Do As I Say, Not As I Do: Best Practices in Writing Feedback > Kara VanDam, Dean, School of General Education

I didn’t write my own papers in college.

Before this is taken as a gross admission of plagiarism, let me clarify. I wrote my own drafts, but when I turned them in for review, professors would invariably scratch-out and re-word sentences, scribble through what they felt were unnecessary commas, even change main ideas so completely that I wondered if they knew what my main points actually were. I found this form of feedback irritating, but I knew the game. They didn’t want me to write like me; they wanted me to write like them, and what they were doing wouldn’t make me a better writer generally: it would simply improve in their estimation the paper at hand. So I dutifully retyped my papers, made sentences I had thought elegant into ones written by another hand, deleted the commas that another felt were superfluous, and went along with the new main ideas even though they made my papers make less sense. As the English author Gilbert Chesterton once wrote, “You could compile the worst book in the world entirely out of selected passages from the best writers in the world.” My professors weren’t poor writers; their style was just not mine, the hodgepodge didn’t make a better paper, and I never did learn how to write better based on their feedback. I accepted it to get the grade.

When I became a writing teacher, I vowed not to make the same mistake. My goal was to make my students better writers, not simply to make them write a better individual paper, or for that matter to write like me. Don’t get me wrong—the temptation to reword and rework the prose, to remove superfluous punctuation (or insert what’s missing) can at times be overpowering. So I sit on my hands and I resist the temptation. A student is never going to learn where a comma goes by deducing why that one circled comma doesn’t go there. They are never going to learn to write a compelling thesis statement, or skillfully organize an argument by looking at the thesis sentence I wrote or by seeing how I would jumble the paragraphs in a different order.

Students learn by doing, and this is especially true in writing. All the sample essays and grammar exercises will not make a student a successful writer. Only writing and writing a great deal, and writing on which they receive valuable feedback will. The best feedback consists of:

Letting students know what they did well. This accomplishes several things: it lets them know what they don’t need to revise, it builds their self-confidence, and it makes them trust that the constructive criticism to follow comes from a place of support and coaching, rather than personal attack.

Pointing out repeated issues. A student who misuses one semi-colon doesn’t need a long spiel on semi-colon use. Focus feedback on patterns of errors that show a need for clarification.

Setting specific, achievable, and limited goals. Students look at paper feedback as a to-do list. If that to-do list becomes 50 unrelated and un-prioritized things—a capitalization error here, a logical fallacy there, a need for outside evidence here, a formatting issue there—students will (a) feel overwhelmed, and (b) as a result focus on the easiest things to fix because if they focus on the easy things, they will accomplish more of the to-do list. If the student really needs to improve how arguments are structured—something which takes far more thought and time than a punctuation error—which one will be done? Which one should be done? Allowing the student to focus just on argument structure one week and really improve these skills will allow the student to move on to the next goal the next week, and over the course of a term, a student makes measureable and notable progress – and the student knows it, feels the accomplishment, and becomes empowered to continue to achieve.

Writing well is a careful collaboration of many skills. It is an appreciation of audience and how one must tailor a piece of writing to its audience. It is the ability to lay out an argument logically, compellingly, and in a way that leads one’s readers to one’s conclusion without feeling they’ve been force fed it. It is the clarity that comes from using norms of punctuation, grammar and spelling, as errors in these distract readers from the heart of the message at hand (as the English playwright W. Somerset Maugham once wrote, “The best style is the style you don't notice.”). It is content and knowing when to use logic and when to bring in outside muscle with a data point, quotation, or reference to prior studies.

Students only become better writers when we allow them to build their skills in all these areas, and we provide them the support and feedback that fosters this. That’s not just writing teachers’ job: it’s everyone’s job.

[This article was originally published in our July, 2009 issue.]