Return of the WACRATS

Several years ago, the Writing Center began working with individual classes to support writing done on campus. The effort quickly acquired the name WACRATS. The WAC stood for Writing Across the Curriculum. The RAT stood for Rhetoric AssistanTS, or Rhetoric Assistant TypeS, something like that -- we didn't try to be too exact. The name was meant to be temporary, until we could come up with something better. But we never did, and the name stuck.

The WACRATS effort had a few notable successes. The WACRATS did pretty much did whatever the instructors wanted them to do, short of grading papers. WACRATS conducted in-class writing workshops and facilitated in-class peer response groups. They consulted with instructors about assignment design. (One of our efforts has grown into an ongoing cooperative effort with some of the Nursing instructors.) But an important ingredient was missing from these efforts: the students were not coming to the WACRATS to talk about their writing. Without the built-in contact between the WACRATS and the students themselves, the effort had as many failures as successes.

Three years ago, we began a project that would require the active participation of both students and faculty. It was The Write Project, modeled on successful programs at other universities. We contacted colleagues at Brown, Western Washington, BYU, and Utah State, who generously shared their materials and advice with us, and we launched the project. Over the past three years we have enlisted an average of ten classes each semester in the project, from departments all over campus: Modern Languages, Social Work, Criminal Justice, Sociology, Engineering, History, English, Art, Marketing, Economics, Biology, Chemistry, HPER.

We have described the project at length before (see Jude Anson and Dallas Hightower's article in Word Works #84), but if you just joined us, here's a quick description. A Write Project class requires two or three papers. Students are required to submit complete drafts of each assignment. The drafts receive extensive comments and suggestions for revision from the Write Project consultants. After the students receive their drafts back, they revise their papers and submit them to the instructor for grade.

What makes The Write Project work is that it involves everyone in a class. It sets ground rules which instructors must agree to from the beginning. For instance, a class must require two or three writing assignments. All students must submit drafts for feedback before submitting their finished papers. And the Writing Consultants must follow a set of established guidelines for responding to the papers, to ensure that all students get comparable feedback on their drafts. So far, the project has received enthusiastic approval from almost all the faculty who have taken part, and positive evaluations from about 70% of the students.

What we've learned from The Write Project

The single most important outcome of The Write Project is that it has promoted revision. Revision has been identified for years by composition scholars as a powerful stage of the writing process. It is often the stage at which writers discover and clarify what they want to say. The written feedback they get, hopefully, helps them do that. Aside from the feedback, as one student admitted on an evaluation form, "The project at least made me write the draft ahead of time and do one revision" -- a grudging admission of revision's value.

Students aren't the only ones who benefit. Faculty appreciate reading papers that have been through at least one revision. The papers are better thought out and have fewer errors. Faculty also receive feedback from the Consultants about problems with the assignments. Many faculty who have taken part in the project have discovered ways to improve their assignments, so that students better understand what is expected and thus do a better job. (For more on assignment design, see Word Works #80.)

When we began the project, we thought of it as a service we were offering in support of writing in the disciplines. But we have come to understand that it is not just a service, it's a partnership: a three-way partnership among the consultants, the teacher, and the students. All three contribute a special kind of effort. The teacher contributes carefully designed assignments, clear grading criteria, and (ideally) sample students papers. The consultants contribute their knowledge of writing. The students contribute the extra effort of revising.

What we need to do next

A few important ingredients are still missing, though. First, the project is still a "project," a designation which sounds temporary. It is still an offshoot of the Writing Center's main operation, which is one-to-one consultation. The student Writing Consultants have to fit Write Project work into their schedule as best they can to respond to Write Project papers, often giving up evenings and weekends -- time they need for their own studies. They have no time left to get more involved in the classes they serve, for instance by meeting with all the students individually. They have very limited time to follow through by assessing the changes students make in their papers after receiving feedback. The project, in other words, does not yet stand on its own and so can't reach its full potential as a resource for participating students and faculty.

Second, the student Writing Consultants do not yet represent a broad spectrum of disciplines. With the exception of a handful of consultants -- majors in social work, criminal justice, history, and art -- they are all English majors. They do a fine job; they work hard to adapt to the writing requirements of other disciplines, which are sometimes strikingly different from the writing they are used to. But the project would benefit from a richer mix of representatives from other disciplines. We are certain there is a huge pool of untapped talent in other departments -- majors in the sciences, social sciences, education, business, and the arts -- who are excellent writers, and whose knowledge of their disciplines would add to their effectiveness as writing consultants.

And third: in some ways, the project has reached its limit. In order to serve more students and faculty, and to improve aspects of the project that need improvement, we need to consider a somewhat different approach. If the program is going to succeed in the long run, it can't rely just on warm bodies from the English department. It needs broader participation.

Return of the WACRATS

Having learned a great deal about how to make the project work, we are ready to move to the next step. In Fall 1999, The Write Project will become a program with its own training course, separate from the current Writing Center training. Faculty will be asked to identify majors in their departments who are strong writers, highly reliable at attending classes and meeting deadlines, and who work well with their peers. We will invite them to take the training course. In the course, they will learn rhetorical theory and apply it to the analysis of student drafts and the writing of productive responses -- a difficult task that takes considerable study and practice. They will also learn the art of face-to-face consultation. After they complete the training course, they may, if they wish, continue working for a stipend (probably $300 per semester) as long as they are officially enrolled in the University.

While in the course they will work with faculty and classes in their major departments by responding to student drafts and working closely with the professors and students. In addition, they will meet individually or in small groups with every member of the class, the week after they return drafts. They will also perform other duties, such as conducting in-class writing workshops and facilitating peer response groups, depending on the arrangement the instructor wishes to make. (Some faculty prefer to work with English majors, who they feel understand writing issues better. No doubt some English majors will also take the training and will be available to work in the program.) The program should result in an even stronger partnership with faculty and students.

About the name WACRATS. We needed to come up with a title different from Writing Consultants, which is the title of students working in the Writing Center. Comparable programs on other campuses go by two different titles: Writing Fellows and Rhetoric Associates. We had a problem with "Writing Fellows," because even though the word fellows refers to academic fellowships, many people perceive sexist implications in the title. We liked "Rhetoric Associates" better, but not a whole lot. It sounds like a faceless corporation, to say nothing of the baggage that comes with the word rhetoric (see Word Works #82). And inevitably the title would be shortened to RAs and get confused with the Resident Advisors and Research Assistants already on campus. So we will probably go back to the old nickname, WACRATS. During the original WACRAT days, several faculty told us they liked the whimsy and user-friendliness of the name. (Of course, time change, and these days the title might remind people of the Rugrats. But we predict that one day the Rugrats will be forgotten, and we will still be here.)

Though the program will be separate from the Writing Center with a largely separate staff, the two programs will support each other. For instance, the Writing Center Consultants can teach the WACRATS how to do one-to-one consulting, and the WACRATS can teach the Consultants about the writing done in their majors.

In Spring 1999, faculty will be asked to nominate likely candidates for the Rhetoric Associates program. But you need not wait for spring. If you know any students who are topnotch writers, who are reliable at showing up and getting their work done on time, and who get along well with other students (and who are likely to still be here next year), please give us their names now.

RL
Edited by Derik Casper