<p>Several weeks ago, questions were asked about why I tout the Swarthmore Writing Associates program. The claim was made that the program serves "remedial" students who are “forced” to go there. This post addresses those issues and provides background information and links.</p>
<p>The Swarthmore writing program is viewed in academic circles as a national model for college writing instruction – cutting edge in its design, the resources Swarthmore invests, and the widespread use of the program. It is an example of the financial investment, undergrad-centric focus, and collaborative spirit that contributes to Swarthmore’s unusually strong undergrad educational program.</p>
<p>Here’s a paragraph from the University of Richmond, describing their writing program:</p>
<p>WAC</a> Program Information - University of Richmond School of Arts & Sciences: Writing Center</p>
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Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) at University of Richmond is based on the Brown and Swarthmore models whose success is well documented. Swarthmore's "Writing Associates Program" is an adaptation of Brown's "Writing Fellows Program." It is particularly suited to the needs of an intensive, small, liberal arts college.
In our program, specially selected undergraduates are trained to help other students improve their writing skills. They complete a course in composition theory and pedagogy as well as apprentice with experienced consultants in the Writing Center. Once accepted into the WAC program, Writing Consultants are assigned to serve in the Writing Center or to individual courses whose professors have requested assistance with writing.
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<p>As a bit of history, student-mentor writing programs were first conceived in the late 1970s when colleges realized that the old models of teaching writing were not effective with a much more diverse student body. It was one thing when the whole student body came from private prep schools with intensive prior writing instruction, but a different challenge as the student bodies at elite colleges broadened to include increasing numbers of students from public high schools. Specifically, educators came to realize that the model of a professor telling students how to write a paper may not be the most effective approach, largely because there is an element of just giving the professor what he asked for rather than engaging a dynamic learning process. The approach of draft, discussion, editing, and revision appeared to be more effective, especially discussion and review in a peer relationship rather than a teacher-student relationship. In Swarthmore’s version, the student must turn in the original draft, the reviewed copy with comments, and the final revision.</p>
<p>From the preface to the book, Writing Across the Curriculum by Susan McLeod:</p>
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In the mid-seventies, a few colleges provided space and time for composition instructors to exchange ideas with colleagues in other disciplines. Often these conversations began as confrontations at meetings of curriculum committees, with instructors from “content” disciplines offering diatribes on the various failings of English 101. Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota), under the academic leadership of Dean Harriet Sheridan, was the first institution that I know of to move the venue of these cross-curricular exchanges to the more civilized setting of a summer workshop. With modest funding from the Northwest Area Foundation, Carleton College instituted the first faculty writing workshops during the summers of 1974 and 1975. These workshops included under graduates who were later designated “rhetoric fellows” and during the academic year were assigned to assist instructors of writing-intensive courses, performing the functions of what we today call writing fellows or writing associates. (In 1979, when Harriet Sheridan became dean of the college at Brown University, she moved quickly to establish the well-known Brown Writing Fellows program, which she had already conceptualized and implemented at Carleton.)
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<p>At Brown, Harriet Sheridan tasked a young PhD, Tori Haring-Smith (Swarthmore ’74) with developing what is now known as the prototype Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program at Brown. Starting in 1982, Haring-Smith built the program, with at least three unique attributes:</p>
<p>1) Student writing mentors trained in a full-semester graduate level course for credit in writing pedagogy.</p>
<p>2) A sequence of writing mentor review of papers incorporated into courses across a range of departments.</p>
<p>3) Writing review gaining widespread usage by a cross-section of Brown students, not just for remedial purposes.</p>
<p>A few years later, Haring-Smith’s professor at Swarthmore, Thomas Blackburn, began sharing experiences with her as he implemented a version of the program at Swarthmore, beginning as early as 1985. The development of the Brown program and some discussion of the Swarthmore program are covered in Haring-Smith’s chapter in the aforementioned book:</p>
<p>On the surface, it may seem that many schools have a comparable program, but Swarthmore’s writing program is leagues beyond what even top LACs offer:</p>
<p>1) Swarthmore requires that all students take at least three “Writing” courses. A “Writing” course is built around a write – conference review – revision sequence, the preferred pedagogical approach for teaching writing. In 25 courses per semester, there are student WA’s assigned to the course, including science courses such as intro Bio (hence the term, “writing across the curriculum”). In others, the professor handles the review/revision sequence. By comparison, Amherst has no requirement for a writing course; Williams just implemented a requirement for one designated writing course.</p>
<p>2) Swarthmore devotes massive financial resources to writing. One permanent faculty position responsible only for running the Writing Associates program, teaching the writing courses, and coordinating with the faculty and a second faculty slot dedicated exclusively to teaching freshman writing courses. By comparison, Williams had NOBODY running the writing program or training their student mentors for several years. They got cited in their accreditation review and hired an interim director – a recent PhD from UMass. Most colleges have a faculty member handling the writing center as a sidelight to teaching “regular” courses. The cost of the 60 some student WA’s each semester is not trivial. Bryn Mawr just cut the number of writing mentors in half as a budget cutting move.</p>
<p>3) Swarthmore’s training of WA’s in unequalled. After being nominated, WA’s take a full semester graduate level course in teaching writing. Currently, about 24 students a year (or about 6% of all Swat grads) take this course and get years of experience helping their peers write better. This, folks, is a real-world job skill that lasts a lifetime – making a boss look better, helping associates write better grant proposals, etc. In comparison, Williams had NO in-house training for several years. Amherst has a few training sessions. In their own self-study, Amherst cited Swarthmore’s program as the gold-standard with resources they could only dream about.</p>
<p>Swarthmore’s program is anything but limited to “remedial” students. In a recent fall semester, 700 students had papers reviewed by Writing Associates – about half of the entire student body in a single semester. Or, put another way, in a given semester nearly 1100 papers were WA’s, split about evenly between walk-in Writing Center review and review as part of a WA’d course. The use of the WA process is consistent over all four classes at Swarthmore, with 33% of the drop in Writing Center sessions being with freshmen, but a full 19% with seniors. That makes the Swarthmore program (like Brown’s) very unusual. Collaborative writing is an ingrained part of the campus culture. It’s impossible to call half the student body “remedial” or participating only because they are “forced” to. The best students in the school are encouraged to and indeed do get papers WA’d.</p>
<p>Detailed</a> Description: Swarthmore College's Writing Associates Program</p>
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The Course Writing Associates (WA) Program aims to engage students in the writing process across the curriculum. This goal is largely accomplished through an extensive network of WAs, who are assigned to assist specific classes in writing. Trained by the program director, the WAs work with fellow students during all stages of the writing process: forming an argument, developing rough drafts, and refining a final draft. Typically WAs engage in a series of individual conferences with students, but they have also served as facilitators of larger peer-review sessions and workshops. In both capacities, WAs enable students to improve their writing within a particular discipline and to hone their prose in general. </p>
<p>Faculty request use of a WA for their course. WAs are placed throughout the curriculum, ranging from an introductory biology course to an advanced spanish seminar. Approximately 700 students, or half of the student population, were estimated to have worked with a WA each semester last year.
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<p>Collection</a> - Swarthmore College Bulletin</p>
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The WA Program was originally based on the Writing Fellows Program at Brown University, which was developed there by Tori Haring-Smith ’74. Blackburn consulted many other college peer tutoring and writing programs when designing English/Education 001C, The Writing Process, the mandatory training course for WAs. </p>
<p>According to Blackburn, the WA Program grew out of a curricular change in the mid-1980s that implemented required primary distribution courses designed to give students both exposure and a good foundation for writing in a variety of disciplines. </p>
<p>“The WA Program addressed one of the goals of the College— to have students become competent academic writers,” Blackburn says.</p>
<p>The program now consists of course WAs, a staffed Writing Center that is open Sunday through Thursday evenings, an on-line writing lab, WA mentors, thesis WAs, and workshops. In fall 2001, 585 papers were “WA’d” at the Writing Center, in addition to more than 500 papers through course “WAing.” In spring 2002, there were 64 WAs, with 22 courses being served by the program.
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<p>If you would care to learn a little more, here is an interesting paper recently published in the WAC journal by current Swarthmore writing professor, Jill Gladstein. This focuses on the WA process teaching lab report writing in the intro Bio course:</p>