The Write Project: as we saw it

by Judy Anson and Dallas Hightower

Last semester, Fall '96, the Boise State University Writing Center--under the direction of Dr. Rick Leahy--implemented The Write Project (TWP), a program modeled after one at Brown University. Writing Assistants (WAs) were assigned to participating classes. All students in these classes submitted drafts to which the WAs responded in writing. The purpose of the project is three-fold: to reinforce writing skills in all disciplines, to encourage students to feel comfortable writing in various situations, and to help students understand that writing is "valued by all readers." TWP's first full test came in the fall semester of 1996. Twenty-two WAs and nine BSU instructors from eleven classes took part in the project. In addition to English, those classes included Sociology, Communication, Social Work, Criminal Justice, and History. Each WA read and responded to an average of two five-page papers per student per class.

Dallas Hightower and Cameron Lindsey collected surveys from students, professors, and WAs involved in TWP, and compiled data about the project. Their findings are included in this issue of Word Works.

Responding to Drafts in Writing Rather than in Person

Written response, to borrow from Marshall McLuhan, is a "hot" tutoring medium, and verbal responses are a "cold" tutoring medium...As a hot tutoring medium, written response fades much more slowly, and makes forgetting much more difficult for the student. To escape the tutor's advice, the student can't get away with forgetting, they must ignore.

For most WAs, giving written response stands as a new form of tutoring. We're used to working face-to-face with our clients. In the usual interpersonal tutoring session, communication occurs in a flash. We're used to being able to see the blank look in their face, or, hopefully, a glimmer of understanding in our client's eyes. They can ask questions, and we can ask questions. WAs and students alike have an opportunity to clarify the essay, the assignment, and each other's works and thoughts. "What are you trying to say, in this sentence here?" "What do you mean, 'I need to make my thesis more tightly focused?'" So written response as a tutoring medium, for many WAs, is at first uncomfortable and cumbersome experience. However, written response has many advantages over an interpersonal tutoring session. Written response, to borrow from Marshall McLuhan, is a "hot" tutoring medium, and verbal responses are a "cold" tutoring medium. The spoken words tend to wisp through the air in a ghostly fashion-maybe they are absorbed by the other party, maybe not. Many students, upon leaving the Writing Center, quickly forget most of what the tutor says (unless they have taken notes), while inside the Writing Center, the tutor is still beaming about how much he helped the student. As a hot tutoring medium, written response fades much more slowly, and makes forgetting much more difficult for the student. To escape the tutor's advice, the student can't get away with forgetting, they must ignore.

The WAs involved in TWP had mixed feelings about the efficacy of written response. Judy Anson, the Writing Center's graduate assistant, noted that written response not only means being blind to the student's interpersonal response, but often involves knowing less about the person's writing process.

To choose the appropriate words to write on a student's draft is one of the most difficult tasks Judy has undertaken in the seven years she has worked as a Writing Assistant. It didn't take long to understand why Rick instructs the WAs to use pencil to respond to the drafts.

"I'm accustomed to getting acquainted with my clients before looking at their papers. I ask them how they approached the assignment, observe their facial expressions, their voice intonations, their body language. All of these elements of communication provide me with cues about writers and their approaches to the writing process," Judy explained. "As I sat down with my first batch of papers from Dawn Craner's CM161 Communication and Culture class, I felt as though I suffered from sensory deprivation. I knew nothing about the student whose paper I was to respond to, other than the parameters of the assignment. I didn't know whether the person did any prewriting before beginning the assignment, or whether they simply sat down at the computer and cranked it out. I was not alone in those feelings."

Linda Chaffee-Kirby feels there is less pressure responding to the drafts in writing since she can take her time to plan what to write although she found it frustrating trying to find words to communicate exactly what she intended to say. "It is difficult to show what you mean with words on paper."

Derik Casper made many interesting observations. "I had to be really careful because I like to use humor when I tutor, and you can't do that on paper. You never know how someone else might react to something you intend to be funny."

Writing jargon is another thing Derik feels we need to be more aware of when writing responses. "We use language like thesis, flow, transitions, and organization assuming the student understands us. This most likely is not going to be the case unless the student just happens to be an English major."

Some suggestions Derik offers are to make it mandatory for the students to make at least one visit to the Writing Center. Derik believes many students (probably most of them) simply do not take writing seriously. Derik said if students cannot intelligibly write about the subject of a class, they probably don't understand what they are attempting to write about.

Lastly, Derik adds, "And I think we should have gotten paid three times as much as we did."

Results of the TWP Study

To assess the success of TWP's first semester, the Writing Center conducted a survey of participating students, professors and WAs. The objectives of the survey were to evaluate the overall success of the program, determine where problems might exist, and ascertain how TWP might be improved.

Results of the WA survey

...the most common writing problem encountered by WAs was "clarity with sentence or para-graph structure," followed closely by "organizational problems." The results of the WA surveys indicate that the most common writing problem encountered by WAs was "clarity with sentence or paragraph structure," followed closely by "organizational problems." The least frequent problem WAs encountered was "a clear lack of effort."

However, the problem of "lack of coherence" posed the greatest difficulty for WAs to handle through written response. Unfortunately, during a staff meeting, it became clear that the WAs had different ideas about what "lack of coherence" meant on the survey form. One WA wrote: "[It] was hard to try and explain how to make their material coherent without re-writing it for them." Another WA remarked, "lack of coherence makes it difficult to tell what's going on [and] difficult to identify and respond to other problems..."

The coordinating WAs' relationships with the participating professors were typically smooth, and most coordinating WAs experienced no problems whatsoever. One of the participating professors was Dr. Dick Baker of the Sociology Department. JoAnne Russell, who was Dr. Baker's coordinating WA, is pleased with Dr. Baker's interest in student writing. Baker provides handouts about clustering and prewriting, in addition to discussing writing strategies with his class. When students see professors, such as Baker, emphasize the value of thinking about such strategies, students are more likely to take writing more seriously.

Dawn Craner of the Communications Department was exceptionally cooperative. She developed an evaluation for her class to fill out and gave us feedback right after the first assignment for her class was finished. She also facilitated excellent communications between her class and the WAs, often allowing us extra time to discuss concerns we observed in their papers.

Likewise, Jane Newby says Professor Susan McCorkle of the BSU Communication Department was exceptionally cooperative. We need that kind of support if this program is to succeed.

A few problems, however, did surface. There were some expectations that the WAs would function as teaching assistants. A few of the assignment sheets were difficult to understand and confused the students. A few professors did not observe project rules and "made changes which did not follow our guidelines," particularly about allowing the WAs sufficient time to return drafts.

Some WAs had difficulty with the students' desire for more comments and specific instructions. "Many asked for more specific instructions, which surprised me, but Judy says this usually means 'edit my grammar.'" Another WA also found students wanted more specificity, and she wasn't "sure what they meant by that." Yet not all WAs were bothered by the student's desire for more feedback: "...students said they wanted more comments, and I had no problem with that." For most WAs, any feedback they received was positive. "They let me know that I was doing something for a reason and not as busy work," a WA said on her survey. For another WA, the feedback was "helpful for it was extremely encouraging and uplifting."

"The program and project need to be advertised more-expanded and improved. It is an outstanding project and one which can be highly beneficial to the university, the students and tutors."

Some WAs encountered problems with students blaming the WA for poor grades. A few students complained on their surveys that the WA "led them to believe they had a good paper," and then the paper received a poor grade. "The students need to know that the papers are ultimately their responsibility," a WA wrote in response on her survey.

Overall, most WAs felt TWP was helpful for the students, and a positive experience for all participants. "The program and project need to be advertised more-expanded and improved. It is an outstanding project and one which can be highly beneficial to the university, the students and tutors."

Results of the student survey

The results of the student survey indicate that more than anything else, the students would have the WAs provide more specific examples. The students also felt the WAs' remarks helped them to improve their paper, and to a lesser degree, their overall writing skills. The students believed TWP helped them improve their second paper more than it did their first. Students also said on their surveys that they tended to use most of the WAs written suggestions. For most student respondents, the WAs' comments were not difficult to read or understand. Most of the students responded that they would like to participate in TWP in the future.

Most of the students responded that they would like to participate in TWP in the future.

Results of the professor survey

Due to limitations of time we were not able to get responses from many TWP faculty. Those professors who provided feedback noted that TWP helped students write better, made them more aware of writing as a process requiring revision, and noted that the students were forced to produce a draft well in advance of the due date. Most professors who worked with TWP were happy with their WAs and with the project itself.

Conclusions and Recommendations

TWP of fall 1996 was, overall, a resounding success. Most students (73 percent) wished to participate in the future. Many student surveys were returned with positive remarks such as "Great help-thanks!" Another student wrote: "I felt they were very dedicated and helpful in the analysis and critique of my paper. Also the encouraging comments made me feel more secure about my paper and my writing skills. Thanks Marsha!"

Most importantly, we should consider ways of getting the participating students to visit the Writing Center and conference with their WA. This way, the advantages of the hot tutoring medium...and the cold tutoring medium...could be combined. TWP needs to stress to participating students that the grade they ultimately received is never the responsibility of the WA. Just because the WA might like their paper, this doesn't mean the professor will-particularly since the WA does not attend the same class every day, and has no way to note everything the professor has emphasized. Written responses are recommendations, which they need to compare with what they have heard in class from the professor.

Most importantly, we should consider ways of getting the participating students to visit the Writing Center and conference with their WA. This way, the advantages of the hot tutoring medium (written response) and the cold tutoring medium (the face-to-face conference) could be combined. Although we urged the students to visit us in the Writing Center so that we could clarify our comments or go into further detail about the concerns we noted in their papers, we were surprised when only a very small number of the students responded. Of course, it may be that there was not enough time between receiving the papers from us and the time their rewrites were due. Some WAs feel a conference with the WA should be mandatory for all students who participate in TWP. Robin Miller questions whether it might be better to ask participating professors to offer incentive, such as extra credit, for students to visit the Writing Center for extra feedback on TWP writing assignments. Students who come in knowing that--if nothing else--they are going to benefit grade-wise for having done so are more teachable than those who are forced in on a punitive basis. They have an altogether different attitude about sitting down with someone and talking about their drafts than do those who simply want verification that they've walked through the Writing Center's door.

Robin also recommends informing students that the better the first draft, the better the final draft. This might encourage students to make appointments, knowing that the more effort they put into that first paper, the greater the likelihood that the final paper will become even better.

We should try to provide the maximum amount of feedback and specific suggestions without actually writing the paper for them or funneling our own ideas into the paper. This was by far the student's greatest desire for what we should do more in the future, and we should respond as best as we can.

However, we must also realize that students are either motivated, or they are not. Some will hear (or read) only what they want, or they will be absent when we explain the project's function and parameters. Many students are not serious, and most of them don't know how to talk about writing. Nevertheless, we are obligated to work with all of them.

One change which has already been implemented is the Writer Response form. We are asking students who participate in TWP to fill out and hand in a Writer Response form with their drafts, which asks questions designed to require students to think about and assess their drafts prior to handing them in. We are hoping this will encourage students to become more aware of writing, and in the long run to care more about their papers.

Rick and Judy are exceptionally proud of our staff's performance in The Write Project last semester. They put in many extra hours with minimal compensation in order to successfully launch The Write Project. They learned new strategies to address writing concerns, and proved their mettle in the process.