Candace Schaefer

Candace Schaefer comes to the University Writing Center from her post as assistant director of Instructional Technology Services at Texas A&M. The University Writing Center is pleased to announce that Candace Schaefer will become the UWC’s Associate Director Jan. 2.

Schaefer, formerly assistant director for Instructional Technology Services at Texas A&M, also worked for three years as the dean of distance education at Blinn College.

Schaefer is no stranger to the world of writers. She earned an M.A. in English from the University of Northern Colorado and has taught writing in several college settings. Currently a Ph.D. student in higher education administration, Schaefer is researching the faculty perspective on academic dishonesty in the classroom.

“The UWC’s mission is critical to the university,” Schaefer says. “I’m excited to come on board and share in the endeavor of improving writing across the curriculum.”

When it comes to teaching writing, there’s one thing Professor Kurt Ritter has long believed: The best assignments give students a stake in what they’re writing about.

That insight has been brought home to Ritter, a professor in the Department of Communication, many times during his research interviews with presidential speechwriters

Stand and Deliver’ faculty blog

Need to vent about teaching writing? Want to share a writing assignment that worked well? Looking for advice about handling the paper load in a W course? Maybe it’s time you blogged.

The faculty section of the UWC Web site is home to Texas A&M’s first faculty blog. Called Stand and Deliver, the blog (short for “Web log”) is a way for the faculty community to discuss teaching writing.

“Having seen W course proposals from departments all across campus, I know our faculty members have terrific ideas about how to make writing an integral and engaging part of our undergraduate curriculum,” explains UWC Executive Director Dr. Valerie M. Balester. “I hope the blog will be a place for instructors to share their knowledge. I hope they’ll also write about what puzzles or frustrates them about teaching writing, because those discussions are often productive.”

The UWC faculty blog is located at http://writingcenter.tamu.edu/stand-and-deliver.

Our logo, etc.

The UWC unveiled a new logo this summer after retiring the “Pencil Dude” mascot that had served since the UWC opened in 2001. The new logo is depicted at this site’s top.

Additionally, Writing Matters has undergone a minor redesign in this issue and the logo has been incorporated on the newsletter’s nameplate. Look for promotional materials bearing the new logo in the coming months.

Classroom workshops

This fall the UWC has unveiled a program to help both faculty members and students: classroom workshops on writing topics.

Instructors can sign up to have a UWC staff member conduct an in-class workshop for students on one of several topics, including mastering components of the writing process, understanding grammar and punctuation, avoiding plagiarism, and citing and documenting sources. The UWC also can conduct a peer response session with students as they help each other improve their drafts of an assignment.

“I’m really pleased that these workshops will bring the UWC services to more students across campus,” Balester says.

That’s not to say that UWC staffers can replace individual instructors when it comes to teaching writing.

“It’s vital that instructors teach students about the expectations for writing in their discipline,” Balester explains. “Our staff can cover basic points about grammar or avoiding plagiarism but aren’t subject matter experts. That’s where the instructors’ expertise comes into play, in teaching the techniques and formats appropriate to writing their in disciplines.”

Workshops on additional topics of the instructor’s choice can be arranged with at least three weeks’ notice. Instructors can also request a presentation informing students about UWC services via the UWC Web site.

A redesigned, upgraded Web site

The UWC overhauled its Web site this summer to improve content delivery, make resources more accessible and enhance the site’s aesthetics. The new site debuted in early August. Led by Communications Coordinator Brady Creel with the help of an undergraduate intern, Mark Wolfe, the project comprised a shift from static HTML pages to a dynamic content management system.

“My goal was a crisp, clean site that was easy to use,” Creel said. “I think we were successful, and our migration to Mambo allows us to bring more people to the content-generation process to build better resources.”

The new site design also shines a light on UWC services for students: usage of the Online Writing Lab, which contains myriad handouts about different writing topics, has risen dramatically. Faculty resources were reorganized to make materials easier to find, and all approved W course proposals have been published online.

Services to meet students’ needs

The UWC has three new ways to give students greater access to help.

Last spring, the UWC set up an instant messaging (IM) system. Students can contact the UWC via Yahoo! or AOL instant messaging to ask questions about their writing. UWC consultants will offer responses to students’ questions and, when needed, direct students to online handouts or Web sites for additional information. If they wish, clients can follow up their IM session with a face-to-face consultation in the UWC.

The UWC also is taking calls on its Write Line (845-2160). The line is answered whenever the UWC is open for business. It’s an ideal way for students to get answers to specific questions, such as grammar or citation problems.

The UWC also has expanded its hours of service: During fall and spring semesters, the center is open for appointments from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday; and 6 p.m. to 10 p. m. Sundays. The Sunday night hours seem particularly popular with students; those appointments book quickly with walk-in sessions also in demand.

Pedagogy workshops for faculty and graduate students

An ongoing program of workshops and lectures on the best practices in the teaching of writing is an important part of the UWC’s outreach to faculty members. The topic of this summer’s workshop was “Aiming High: Using Models of Good Writing to Spur Students to Excellence,” and it proved so popular that a second session had to be added.

This fall the UWC offered—for the first time—a session specifically aimed at graduate students. The topic was “Grading Student Papers: A Method to the Madness.” The information presented included a brief review of grammar and punctuation rules and a practice grading session to help instructors learn to assess student writing on a variety of levels.

This spring Mike Palmquist, a professor of English and a University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University, will come to the UWC to discuss the interplay of writing and technology. Keep an eye on the UWC Web site for further information.

Many will believe I’m deluded when I assert that.

To many faculty members, peer response (also known as peer review, peer editing, or collaborative learning) is—as I’ve often heard claimed—simply a case of “the blind leading the blind.” It’s my experience, though, that Texas A&M students can offer highly useful advice to one another about writing. Here’s why I advocate peer responses:

Peer responses slow writers down, giving them time to re-see (revise). In writing, time often translates into improvement. Time spent with other students in conversation over a text—especially when guided by a rubric or a set of leading questions—usually will produce better writing. Peers reading a text aloud together, puzzling over its meaning and form, will find more of its gaps and errors than will a lone writer reading silently, filling in those lapses through familiarity with what he meant.

Peer responses allow students to form judgments about what makes effective writing. To do a productive peer response, students must internalize some of the criteria for effective writing. Then they must judge their peers’ work against those criteria. Assessing a text in this manner is a necessary skill for good writing. Eventually, students will judge their own efforts against the standards they’ve learned.

Peer responses encourage students to learn from one another. Students working together to improve a paper bring to the task their various talents. The student with strong writing skills shares those abilities, usually in a more comprehensible form than an instructor would. Moreover, because writing is a complex task, students get to share their own expertise: One student might be strong in organization, another in argument, and a third in the rules of grammar. Together, they develop a better paper while teaching each other.

Peer responses provide a fresh way for students to learn course content. While students are reviewing each other’s texts, they’re also reinforcing their knowledge of course material. For instance, a peer responder considers whether her classmate has fully understood a theory being presented. Another student analyzes a peer’s lab report to see if conclusions drawn from an experiment are correct. Students can’t address the writing without also considering the subject matter.

Peer responses promote engaged and active learning. Instructor comments written on a completed paper typically have little impact; it’s too late then for students to apply the knowledge. An instructor may describe a passage as wordy or awkward, but unless a student is allowed to revise, she won’t learn how to make that passage concise or graceful. When she gets that sort of reaction from a peer on an early draft, though, it encourages re-engagement with the text.

While instructors seldom have time to comment on all drafts of all papers, we do have time for peer responses, either in class or as homework. Ideally, students will get some response from peers and some from instructors, all of it in time to be used in revision.

I hope you will experiment with peer responses. I believe the process can help your students improve their writing.

The UWC Web site provides information about peer responses. The UWC offers a peer response workshop in our newly expanded classroom workshop program.
— Dr. Valerie M. Balester
Executive Director
University Writing Center
v-balester@tamu.edu

But Tyer isn’t an instructor. She’s one of the university’s first Undergraduate Writing Assistants (UWA).

The UWA program is a trial offering from the University Writing Center (UWC) that provides talented undergraduates special training in helping student writers and then puts them to work assisting W course instructors and their students.

 

Undergraduate Writing Assistant Javier Ortiz, left, a senior industrial engineering major, conducts an office-hours consultation with a student in the Spanish class in which he is working. He faces the challenge of helping his peers improve their writing skills in what is a foreign language for many of them.

Undergraduate Writing Assistant Javier Ortiz, left, a senior industrial engineering major, conducts an office-hours consultation with a student in the Spanish class in which he is working. He faces the challenge of helping his peers improve their writing skills in what is a foreign language for many of them.

This fall UWAs have been working in the classroom for the first time; sixteen undergraduates are currently assigned to classes in fifteen different departments. Tyer, a senior majoring in telecommunication media studies, is currently assisting Professor Wendy Boswell with two sections of a course in management, offering comments on student papers and holding office hours for those who want additional help with their written assignments. UWAs are also trained to run peer review sessions, help instructors design assignments or grading rubrics, advise students on using WebCT or Calibrated Peer Review, and present lectures on topics such as documentation. About the only thing they can’t do is assign grades; that task always is left to the course instructor.

Professor Boswell considers Tyer “a very key resource” for her students, and the fact that Tyer is an undergraduate is a plus.

“I think the students may see [consulting the UWA] as a less intimidating way to seek help to develop their writing,” Boswell observes.

In preparation for her current position, Tyer

 

Assistant Professor Roel R. Lopez of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences.

Lopez teaches his students about wildlife’s natural habitats, which become the backdrop for his students’ writing projects. To illustrate the value of writing, he issues grades in dollar amounts rather than point values.

Assistant Professor Roel R. Lopez of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences will receive $3,000 as the first winner of the new University Writing Center W Course Teaching Award. The award recognizes W course instructors who approach the teaching of writing with innovation and insight.

Lopez’s course on wildlife and habitat management seamlessly integrates writing and course content and gets students personally invested in their learning. Lopez notes that he’s always made writing part of his courses but intensified that focus in response to the W course initiative.

“Writing in our profession, as in other professions,” Lopez says, “is a critical component.” That’s why Lopez always evaluates both a student’s ideas and the expression of those ideas and why he has high standards for both.

Lopez’s W course includes a number of short writing assignments, called “Writing in the Woods,” that challenge students to put concepts learned in class to use as they make observations during field trips to local wildlife habitats. Each assignment comes with a grading rubric, so students know Lopez’s expectations.

For the major course project, Lopez requires students to develop a wildlife management plan for a local landowner. This is no mere role-playing exercise; the students meet personally with the landowners to develop a multi-layered plan specifically aimed at the landowner’s real-world needs. At the end of the semester, the students present their written plan to their classmates. Officials from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the local landowners attend the presentation and ask tough questions about the students’ recommendations.

Lopez expects students to turn in assignments using the format of a professional journal in the discipline. He also expects students to comment on their classmates’ work. They then receive extensive written comments from Lopez on each phase of the assignment, as well as grades rendered in dollar amounts to further enforce the idea that in the professional arena quality written work brings tangible rewards.

According to Sarah Bednarz, a member of the award selection committee and an associate professor of geography, “What the committee especially liked about Lopez’s approach to writing is its tight connection to thinking in the major. We also recognized that he had designed an exciting writing course in a major that does not have a tradition of being writing-intensive. Aggies in every major need to write well.”

The award’s selection process was coordinated by the Center for Teaching Excellence. Additional $3,000 awards will be given annually for the next four years with nominations for the 2006 teaching award being accepted in the spring.