Why Is There a KU WAC Initiative? > Diane Martinez

Why is KU implementing a WAC initiative when we already have two college composition courses that students must take in their degree programs? For some, the answer is simple; for others, this opens up Pandora’s box.

College composition courses are traditionally courses that have high dropout and failure rates – at any university. One reason for this is that students, like some administrators and instructors outside of the composition department, often mistake college composition as a content course. It is not. Writing is a practiced skill and one that cannot be taught in one or two courses. It is a skill where students progress in competency throughout their entire degree program; therefore, it is crucial that they are given an opportunity to practice this skill in every class they take.

As English instructors, we often hear the phrase “I hate writing” as if writing were a particular subject like engineering or law. They often think that if they can get through their composition courses then they never have to deal with writing again. They couldn’t be more mistaken. Furthermore, along with this attitude comes the myth that if they pass these courses then they must be good or college-level writers. The fact is, English professors can only do so much in 20 weeks. First, one job of English professors is to teach the fundamental skills associated with writing, such as how to form correct sentences, paragraphs, and introduce students to genres, such as various types of essays, reports, and business correspondence. Second, students are taught the other elements of writing in these courses, such as how to conduct research and integrate that information into their writing. They are also taught how to establish content in their writing, as well. This is a lot of ground to cover and to allow for ample practice in only 20 weeks.  And finally, other reasons these classes have such high dropout and failure rates is because English professors are dealing with several issues that affect student writing, such as the grave dislike for writing and various levels of competency.

The varying levels of writing ability bring up another issue, which is what does it mean to pass a college composition course? Should all students pass these courses with the same level of competence? That is not even possible. English professors teaching these frontline classes must accommodate all levels of ability and help students improve their writing skills; they cannot possibly expect all students to master writing within 20 weeks. Improving writing ability may mean that students who come in with no concept of what a sentence is, much less how to form paragraphs or even write a coherent essay, may show improvement in the ability to construct complete sentences and form paragraphs, but they may still struggle with writing an entire essay. And why should these students pass? Because writing is about more than having correct grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. Certainly those elements of writing are crucial for students to learn, which, by the way, they can achieve only through constant practice; however, some of those students may have excelled at the research aspect of their essay assignments, for instance, as well as demonstrated a thorough understanding of their topic. They certainly may not earn an A in a composition class, but it is probable for them to pass.

What needs to happen then is that in every class students’ writing must be assessed and they must receive assistance with those areas of their writing that they need the most help with. This can come in the form of referrals to the Writing Center, or possibly one-on-one sessions, such as during an instructor’s office hours, to give students further guidance on how to improve their writing for that particular class or overall.

This is where the KU WAC initiative comes in. When students' writing is assessed in every course and they are offered assistance in every term, there is no way they can graduate without having ample opportunity to receive the help they need to become proficient and professional writers. The KU WAC initiative is all about offering students the practice and help they need to become professional communicators no matter their career field.

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

It's Not What The Software Does > Kella Hammond

I was poking around the blogosphere the other day, and I found a cartoon written on the back of a business card that resonated with why I'm here. As the new resource specialist for the KU Writing Center and the Writing Across the Curriculum initiative, I'm here to support you, the faculty, in thinking about creative, innovative, and meaningful ways to integrate learning technologies into the writing and learning process. Many of you are already doing this, but sometimes it's easy to get lost in the glitz and glam of the hottest application and forget to reflect on why we're using these gizmos and gadgets. And since I'm a visual kind of gal, I thought I'd share what Hugh MacLeod posted on his blog, Gapingvoid.com, over two years ago:

I highlight Hugh's business-card cartoon because ultimately our “users” are our students. Whatever we do to help our students to become better writers, and ultimately thinkers, has to include incorporating meaningful learning technologies, and not just because it's what we do as a premier online university.

Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist and the CASE/Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching's 2008 U.S. Professor of the Year, reminds us in a fascinating YouTube video entitled, “A Vision of Students Today,” that we're, in many cases, preparing students for careers that don't yet exist. And while our students' futures may not be clear, we do know that our society will need leaders who have exceptional writing and critical thinking skills to confront the world that awaits them.

I can't think of a better way to instill those communication skills than through a dynamic, cooperative WAC initiative. I'm going to emphasize the dynamic and cooperative parts of that last sentence by inviting all of you to let me know what ideas and opinions you have about the resources you'd like to see developed to support the teaching of writing across the curriculum. Please e-mail me at Mhammond[at]kaplan[dot]edu to share your feedback about how we can best serve our students.

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

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

Confused about what to do with the WAC GEL in your courses?

Attend the KUWC faculty workshop on what WAC is, why it’s important to Kaplan University, Kaplan students, and ultimately, why it’s important to you.

When: June 30, 2009 7 PM ET

Where: http://khe2.acrobat.com/r65146485/

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

What?! APA for Faculty?!

APA is challenging for students, but what about you? What exactly are the rules for citing a personal interview? And just what is the correct citation for a web page? What is a corporate author, and how do you cite a brochure? Kaplan University faculty are invited to come to the June 30, Noon ET workshop on APA to learn some of the more obscure rules of APA, as well as pick up a handy cheat sheet you can use for grading.

When: June 30, 2009, Noon ET

Where: http://khe2.acrobat.com/r29102415/

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

Are You For Real? > James Fleming

The need for online instructors to establish firm, clear and dynamic classroom personalities became very clear for me last term. During the first seminar conversation in one of my composition classes, a student asked me if I was actually a real person. I said that yes, of course I was. My student told me that she had assumed that her instructors were computer programs and not “real” people. Another student explained that he assumed his instructors were all real, but that our assignment and discussion question responses and seminar lectures were “preset” or “canned.” I quickly explained that I was, indeed, a real person and a trained and educated expert in my subject field, and that my comments and postings were my own work. After I finished, yet another student contacted me on AIM and asked if all of her online instructors here at Kaplan were “real professors.” I assured her that we all are indeed “real” professors.

These conversations reminded me of the need for online instructors to make sure to remind our students that we are indeed real people. While the assumption of some of our students that we are simply computer programs, or that we’re providing them with pre-established lectures and seminar discussion points, might offend us, we need to consider this matter from the perspective of our students. Many of our students are only connected to their classes through the Internet. They cannot see us or, save for audio seminars, even hear us. They are being asked, in essence, to trust us to teach them and evaluate them based entirely off what they see written about us or by us on a screen. It is our job, then, to earn their trust and demonstrate to them that we are real people who have an invested interest in their learning and personal and professional development.

There are some simple steps we can follow in order to establish for our students that we are, indeed, “real” instructors. First, offering our students personalized critiques of their work that address them directly and make mention to what they have written can go a long way to proving to our students that we care about their work and success. Second, providing detailed faculty biographies and sharing anecdotes and examples taken from our lives and experiences can serve to help establish that we are, indeed, real people who have knowledge to share. Third, making ourselves available during the half hour before seminar or during office hours and using this time not only to address questions and concerns, but also engage in casual conversation or “small talk” can help provide students with a sense of being part of an academic community and, also, serve to reinforce that we are indeed all real people who are available to provide them with support and education.

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

What kind of writing do you expect from your students?

The WAC GEL at KU states that students will demonstrate college-level writing, but what does this mean? College-level writing cannot be assigned a concrete definition. It depends on the status of the student, content, discipline, form, and so many other factors.  Come to the What is College-Level Writing? workshop for faculty and learn more about this concept and how to apply it to the WAC GEL.

When: June 30, 2009  9 PM ET
Where: http://khe2.acrobat.com/p66817718/

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

Successful Submissions to the Writing Center’s Paper Review Service: Four Tips to Streamline the Process > Robin Gray Nicks

Submitting papers to the Writing Center can be a daunting task for students. We have a set of guidelines for submissions on the Writing Center’s main page, but students may not know that they are there. When instructors refer students to the Writing Center, they can help their students receive even more helpful and effective feedback by simply providing the following tips to their students.

First, it’s important for students to submit from their Kaplan emails. Other accounts occasionally report our emails as junk mail or spam. Using their Kaplan account ensures that they will receive their reviewed papers quickly and successfully. If instructors would remind students of this as they’re referring students, more students are likely to remember to take this important step.Second, it’s helpful for tutors to know the course for which students are submitting papers. Identifying the course name and number (CM225, KU121, etc.) in their emails and on the papers themselves will ensure that the feedback we give is appropriate for the course and program objectives. If an instructor is referring a student, she or he could simply remind the student to include this information.

Third, students who include the assignment instructions with their submission ensure that tutors are thinking about the specific aims and requirements of the assignment as we give feedback. That way, we know just what the content of the essay should be, if it needs a particular format (memo, outline, etc.), and the level of development necessary. The feedback will be more in line with the assignment aims when we have the instructions. It will also help us avoid giving erroneous feedback about the structure of the assignment.

Finally, it’s always helpful to know if the instructor has indicated any particular problem areas in the student’s writing. When I pick up a paper that tells me that the writer has had problems with citation formatting in previous papers, I know to pay close attention to that and to provide more detail in my comments about how to correct the errors that I find. If I receive a paper that tells me that the instructor has previously indicated that the writer needs more development, I know to provide more details in my feedback about how and where to develop more fully the content of the submitted paper.

Providing this information takes little time from the student and will dramatically increase the helpfulness of the feedback the student receives. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve had to guess about the aims of the assignment and whether the format and tone were appropriate. Many times, I’ve suggested that students check with the instructor to find out if what they’ve written is appropriate for the assignment and course.

Doing just these four things will streamline the process for all involved, ensuring that students receive the most helpful instruction possible from our Writing Center Paper Submission Service.

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

Synopsis - June 2009: Director Annotations > Susan Coller Carlson

Greetings! We are so thrilled about the far-reaching effects our Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Initiative will have on Kaplan University that we want to share our news and progress with everyone—so welcome to our newsletter! Studies show that students required to write more tend to grasp more fully, process, and have the ability to apply the information and concepts they are learning. Writing well goes beyond the prospect of assuring one’s resume doesn’t end up in the rubbish, or landing a promotion due to a keen business plan. Writing well helps us think better and become more thoughtful and competent participants in our communities and the world at large.

We know that addressing writing issues can be a little uncomfortable for non-composition faculty, so to help alleviate the stress this can cause, we are developing workshops and presentations geared toward creating strong writing assignments as well as assessing the assignments using the universal (GEL 1.1) rubric. At KU, writing is everybody's business and we have to come together to help our students truly succeed—you can expect plenty of faculty support.

We are also excited to announce that the Writing Center will be undergoing some major renovations to support our students. We have an amazing foundation on which to build, but you can expect to see things like a more visible and dynamic Writing Center, expanded Live Tutoring services, and an exciting Writing Coach program to help strengthen the relationship between students, faculty, and tutors (which we are now piloting in 0903A).

As of June, we now have a full Writing Center staff. Joni Boone and Chrissine Rios (who specialize in developmental and ESL/ELL writers respectively) are joined by Diane Martinez, our Writing Specialist, Michaella (Kella) Hammond, our Resource Specialist, and Kurtis Clements, our newest full-time tutor. Their work is supported by a strapping team of part-time tutors who work very hard to provide feedback on student projects. I feel very lucky to have such a creative, talented, and caring team!

Please enjoy our newsletter and stayed tuned for more updates in our future issues. If you have questions, ideas or concerns, please contact me at SColler[at]kaplan[dot]edu. I am always interested in ways we can better serve our students and faculty!

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

Tips from Writers, Writing Teachers, and Students: Embrace the Mess > Joni Boone

A concept that Peter Elbow reveals in Writing without Teachers (1976) that I am currently exploring is the “mess” – the idea that writing is a messy exercise. The first stages of writing, the discovery phrase, where ideas, creativity, and substance are born, are fundamental. Before word processing, these stages were a visible part of the process. Crumpled papers, jagged lists, scratches, arrows, circles of text created beautiful collections of wording that were out in the open, scattered over table tops. But what happens to our messes now that we compose on a computer? How has the creative process changed now that we can immediately edit our ideas by wiping the screen clean with a backspace? Wording that used to remain scratched on the corner of a tattered notebook, visible and alive, is now deleted from the screen in seconds.

Our mess has certainly been cleaned up. But does the creative process of discovery suffer as a consequence? And how do teachers and tutors encourage students to use their writing to create in such an orderly world of perfect margins and smart Calibri font? My free writing exercises look more like first drafts these days, which troubles me. I am on a mission to become messy again. And I want to show students what a mess can look like and inspire. I must encourage the mess.

My task is daunting. Students do not typically enjoy making a writing mess because making a mess means making more words. As they struggle over their notions of perfect phrases and clauses, they are reluctant to write anything more than necessary for fear of having to mark it out. And as adult learners, they typically don’t want to ‘waste time’ writing something that will not be graded. But if we lead them to becoming more prolific writers and to realize that the process of writing truly does provide a method to discover meaning, perhaps they will write more. Perhaps they will realize that some writing doesn’t have to be seen by anyone but themselves and can exist without being used in their papers. Writing more is fundamental in their development as writers.

Of course we must make sense of the mess at some point. We must order our ideas, bring logic into the picture, focus the audience’s attention, and guide them through the discussion we are trying to create. This process of making order is usually encouraged through writing classes, in writing assignments, and through the Writing Center. Order is fostered through word processing. But writers rarely have depth to their discussions without first making messes. As writing teachers and tutors, I think we spend quality time with ordering and cleaning up. I think more time could be devoted to the mess.

WAC provides an opportunity to make the language of writing part of the student’s vocabulary. It also provides opportunities for students to become metacognitive and examine their writing process. If we encourage their messes when assigning writing projects or teaching methods of writing, they can wallow in their wording without guilt or worry. If we continue to only focus on the product, they lose this opportunity. So as we stress the importance of writing to students through this initiative, we should recognize that students need time and space to make messes, to create ideas through the process of writing without being constantly hounded about their sentence structure, the order of their ideas, that looming thesis statement.

As I write this piece, I have begun the process of making a mess again. Various colors of highlighted sections, a text box here, an arrow there. It still looks too neat. Perhaps I can change fonts with each free write. I can capture screen shots to print out and scatter about the desk. What Elbow first encouraged me to do as a writing teacher years ago is still relevant today. On my computer, with the cursor blinking at me, I must embrace the mess. And I must find a way for students to see how glorious a mess can be.

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

KU WAC and Writing Center Support for Kaplan University Faculty

The KU WAC site (http://intranet.kaplan.edu/kunet/SiteDirectory/SAS/GenEd/WAC/default.aspx) houses WAC information specifically for Kaplan University faculty. This information includes reports from the National Commission on Writing and a WAC clearinghouse that has links to information on how to incorporate meaningful writing assignments into content area courses, as well as how to assess writing when you are not a writing instructor.

The KU Writing Center now hosts workshops specifically for faculty. Topics will include WAC, What is College-level Writing?, APA for Faculty, The Reading and Writing Connection, Teaching Students How to Use Writing to Learn, professional development topics related to writing, and many more. Workshops are offered on a rotating basis and at varying times in order to accommodate faculty schedules. In June, the following faculty workshops are available. June 30: APA for Faculty, Faculty and the WAC Initiative, and What is College-level Writing? URLs for these workshops are included in this newsletter and will be announced via email as well, so be on the lookout!

[This announcement was originally published in our June, 2009 issue.]

Why Writing Matters or Stomping on Our Mothers > Kurtis C. Clements

 For about ten years, I conducted a little experiment in my freshman composition courses on the first day of the semester. Standing before the wide-eyed group and posturing myself as professorial as possible (I probably even wore a tweed sport coat), I posed this question: Why does writing matter?

I’d waggle a finger in the air and add, “I don’t want you to answer this question - it’s rhetorical. Just think about an answer.” I’d pivot and pace across the front of the room noticing out of the corner of my eye one or two eager beavers reaching for their college-level dictionaries (required) and thumb quickly for “rhetorical.” The others sat slack-jawed and glazy-eyed.

I instructed the students to rip a piece of paper into fourths and write on one the name of a vegetable they couldn’t stomach, on another a movie they hated, on the third a rule or law they thought was inane (probably not the word I used in class), and on the last the word they used for their mother or someone they loved deeply.

“Take the piece of paper in which you have written the name of a vegetable you can’t stand, drop it on the floor, and stamp all over it,” I instructed. Blank stares and a smattering of nervous is-he-serious laughter filled the room. “Go ahead,” I cajoled. “It’s ok.” And they did it, reluctantly at first, but soon with growing enthusiasm as if to say, Hey! College is fun!

They stomped all over the cauliflower and turnips and broccoli. They loosened up and some smiled when they stamped their feet on the movies they hated. Most delighted in their perceived rebellious behavior of trampling out a rule or law they thought was stupid. Then I paused. The brighter students knew what was coming next (they were almost always the ones who had reached for the dictionaries earlier). I asked the students to hold up the piece of paper they had written the name they use for their mother or someone they loved deeply. For theatrics, I sometimes asked students to share those names. Mom, Mommy, Mommy Dearest.

“Ok,” I said. “You know what to do - stomp on those papers!” Almost always the students hesitated, looked up, offered furtive glances around the room, occasionally someone remarked, and then slowly the students dropped the slips of paper onto the floor and half-hearted stepping, not stomping, ensued.

Then we started talking. “Why did it matter?” I asked. “It’s just a word.”

To most of the students (the vast majority over the years, I imagine), my antics put me in the category of loopy English professor, another talking head trying to convince non-believers of the merits of what I did - the teaching of writing. But to some, maybe only one in a class if I was lucky, what I did helped them connect with something that simply made sense in their eighteen-year-old minds.

Words have power. Writing matters. Writing enables us to express our thoughts and ideas, and it helps us understand ourselves, our lives, and our world. Writing allows us to make connections, to organize our thinking and to sort the fact from the fancy. Writing creates a record that lasts. Writing is empowering in that it enables us to communicate with others. If writing didn’t matter, then we might as well be stomping on our mothers.

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