Designing

1
Designingand Sustaining an Independent Writing
Program

• Joseph Harris, Director
• Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing
• Duke University
• joseph.harris_at_duke.edu

2
The Problem

• Faculty at Duke were convinced of need for
  writing to become a stronger part of the
  undergraduate curriculum, but . . .
• Most were not interested in teaching writing
  themselves, and . . .
• Many were concerned about loss of support for
  graduate TAs working in Writing Program

3
Lessons

• A curriculum structures both student learning and
  faculty labor
• Curricular reform must respond both to the needs
  of students and interests of faculty
• Who will teach this? is as important a question
  to ask as What needs to be taught?

4
Response Curriculum

• Writing 20 Academic Writing
• Undergrads select a first-year writing course
  with disciplinary theme related to their
  interests.
• Writing in the Disciplines (WID)
• Undergrads take two advanced courses focusing on
  uses of writing as a practice of inquiry in
  disciplines.
• The Writing Studio
• Undergrads offered one-on-one help with writing
  for both first-year and WID courses.

5
Response Labor

• Writing 20 Academic Writing
• Taught by postdoctoral Mellon Writing Fellows,
  recruited from across the disciplines through a
  national search. Funded by tuition and foundation
  support.
• Writing in the Disciplines
• Taught by faculty assisted by graduate
  TAs.Funding for TA lines linked to number of
  faculty teaching WID courses.
• The Writing Studio
• Free one-on-one tutoring in writing for students
  in any undergrad course at Duke. Staffed by
  graduate TAs.

6
Writing 20 Academic Writing

• First-year course required of all students, with
  no prerequisites and no exemptions.
• Introduces students to practices of close reading
  and critical writing.
• Limited to 12 students per section.
• Sections listed by title, description and
  instructor on university web site, and thus
  selected by undergrads according to interests.

7
Writing 20 Course Goals

• Read closely and critically
• Respond to and make use of the work of others
• Draft, revise, and edit texts
• Make texts public

8
Writing 20 Natural Sciences

• Communicating Science to the Public
• The popularity of science magazines such as
  Science News, Scientific American, and Discovery
  has increased dramatically in recent years.
  Similarly, there has been a prolific increase in
  the quantity and popularity of book-length
  translations of science by such authors as Jane
  Goodall, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Jay Gould, and
  Carl Sagan. This increase in demand for
  scientific information begs the question How is
  science communicated to the public? Specifically,
  how do writers present abstract or complex
  scientific subjects to a general audience? . . .
  . In this class, we will examine what happens to
  scientific information when it is prepared for
  and presented to a general audience. Can writers
  avoid the pitfalls of oversimplification and
  obfuscation? What changes occur in the language
  used and the assumptions made? . . . . Not only
  will students examine how published authors
  communicate science to the public, but they will
  also use their own writing to engage and inform
  audiences about an aspect of science that
  interests them. All students will publish at
  least one essay produced on the course web page
  located at http//www.science-writing.org.

9
Writing 20 Natural Sciences

• From Walking With Dinosaurs to The X-Files
  Science in the Popular Media
• What do you know about dinosaurs? Asteroids?
  Viruses? Volcanoes? While scientists hope that
  people get this knowledge from textbooks, many of
  our perceptions of the natural world come from
  entertainment media sources . . . . To understand
  the role that science communication outside of
  scientific journals and textbooks plays in the
  formation of knowledge students in this course
  will read, view, and write about various
  entertainment texts. . . . . During the semester,
  students will explore the theme of science and
  entertainment media across different media
  formats, historical periods, and cultural
  contexts. Students will closely analyze
  entertainment texts in order to develop clearly
  reasoned argumentative essays about how the texts
  communicate science. Students will also work on a
  small movie treatment to explore the ways in
  which filmmakers and scientists must contend with
  the limitations and possibilities of
  communicating science through entertainment
  media.

10
Writing 20 Social Sciences

• The Spoken and the Written Word What Is a
  "Language"?
• The Oakland School Board's decision in December
  of 1996 to label African American Vernacular
  English (AAVE) as a separate language instead of
  a dialect of English disturbed many politicians
  and public figures. The Reverend Jesse Jackson
  called the move "an unacceptable surrender,
  borderlining on disgrace." The Clinton
  administration labeled AAVE a "non-standard form
  of English" rather than a "foreign language," as
  it might otherwise have been termed. These
  political positions tacitly rest on certain views
  about the nature of language. We will attempt to
  determine what those views are, and investigate
  them using the tools provided by theoretical
  linguistics. . . . How do we determine
  (politically, linguistically, ethically) which
  language is standard, and which is not? How are
  the structures of written and spoken language
  related? How are they importantly divergent? . .
  . Our first project will be an analysis of the
  different ways in which AAVE was defined during
  the Oakland School Board's debates. In the second
  project, we will use the techniques of
  sociolinguistics to analyze the distribution of
  information in the transcripts from the Oakland
  School Board hearing to determine how politicians
  and researchers make arguments. Finally, you will
  be asked to do a research project on the current
  state of English and the growing concern that it
  is declining as a language.

11
Writing 20 Social Sciences

• Claiming Citizenship Belonging and Exclusion in
  America
• How does one claim citizenship? How have group
  classifications such as race, gender, class,
  sexuality, political beliefs, language, and
  religion affected a response to this question for
  varying groups at key moments in US history? . .
  . The methods of the course are collaborative and
  historical. As a group, you will first be asked
  to engage in the project of researching and
  identifying the key terms scholars, lawyers,
  state agents, activists, and others use to
  understand and define the category of
  citizenship. You will then be asked to use these
  terms and definitions in your own reading of
  several different kinds of citizenship documents,
  including history textbooks and monographs. In a
  second project, you will be asked to write an
  essay in which you develop your own definition of
  who belongs as a modern American citizen. For the
  final project, we will turn to the question of
  how those excluded from full citizenship have
  used writing to make demands for inclusion, or to
  forge alternative kinds of citizenship and
  membership. Students will work together to find
  and analyze sources, and to create a public venue
  for their findings.

12
Writing 20 Social Sciences

• America Without High School
• High School is an almost universal experience for
  Americans alive today it is one of the
  predominant social institutions of the 2oth
  century . . . However, the current conception of
  high school is increasingly under criticism on
  several counts that it is inherently biased and
  reinforces inequalities of race and class that
  its scale allows too many students to remain
  anonymous and uncared for, that its uniformity
  prohibits students from learning their true
  interests . . .
• In this course you will read the work of many
  critics (and some supporters) of the modern
  American high school, in order to move from
  complaints to grounded concerns. You will create
  documents for use by other students in the course
  as you work to develop an co-author focused
  policy proposals that promote alternative methods
  of educating Americas teenagers. The proposals
  will be sent to Kenneth Jones, Program officer
  for the Bill Melinda Gates Foundations High
  Schools for the New Millennium initiative.

13
Writing 20 Humanities

• Special Collections
• What do we treasure, and why? What do we hang on
  museum walls? Stash in Rubbermaid tubs in
  basements? What has been tucked in lockets or
  buried with pharaohs? As we explore an array of
  individual objectsfrom a Gutenberg Bible and a
  1999 Delaware state quarter to Baltimore album
  quilts and a "guaranteed authentic" Velvet the
  Panther Beanie Baby with a tag protectorwe will
  develop a complex and nuanced definition of
  value. During the second half of the course, we
  will turn to the practice of collecting itself.
  How are special collections defined, preserved,
  organized, and displayed? Here we will pursue our
  inquiry through primary research, as each student
  locates and writes about a specific collector and
  collection.

14
Writing 20 Humanities

• Writing About the Web
• Though the invention of the telegraph,
  telephone, radio, television, and computer set
  the stage for its arrival, the Internet has
  revolutionized the world of communications as
  nothing before it. . . . . This course will take
  as its focus Web Studies, a still emerging field
  of scholarship, in order to examine and write
  analytical and argumentative essays about these
  implications. Writing assignments will be drawn
  from three broad areas web life, arts and
  culture web business and global communities,
  politics and protest. The course also includes a
  hands-on component students write, edit and
  publish the next issue of the online journal,
  Living in the Digital World A Journal of
  Technology, Media Culture, located at
  http//www.duke.edu/mepetit/DigitalWorld2002.

15
Writing 20 Humanities

• The Rhetoric of Justice Academic Writing and
  Political Dissent
• Academics and intellectuals outside the
  university have often felt compelled to venture
  beyond the relatively self-contained environment
  of the world of letters into the broader and more
  concrete world of human affairs and the claims of
  justice. . . . In this course, we will examine
  various examples of writing that is both
  "academic" and "activist" in nature, including
  Plato's Apology, Engels' and Marx's Communist
  Manifesto, selections from The Collected Papers
  of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
  Steve Biko's Black Consciousness in South Africa,
  and Aung San Suu Kyi's "Freedom from Fear. We
  will focus on the ways in which these authors put
  the values and conventions of scholarly discourse
  to work in service of their social and political
  agendas. Over the course of the semester, we will
  undertake various, interrelated reading and
  writing exercises culminating in the production
  of an academic text that offers a developed and
  sophisticated critique of one or another definite
  political structure or social practice.

16
Writing in the Disciplines

• After passing Writing 20, students take two WID
  courses in which they learn to write as
  apprentice members of the various disciplines.
• Over 200 new or redesigned courses emphasizing
  writing in the sciences, social sciences, and
  humanities.
• Most WID courses are seminars taught by full-time
  faculty assisted by graduate TAs.
• Students keep an electronic portfolio documenting
  their development as writers at Duke.

17
WID Course Guidelines

• Write frequently throughout the semester
• Reflect on and improve their work as writers
• Discuss the work they are doing as writers in
  class
• Consider the roles and uses of writing in the
  discipline they are studying

18
Writing 20 and WID

• Writing 20 draws on materials of disciplines to
  teach practices of close reading and critical
  writing
• WID courses make use of writing as a means of
  inquiry to investigate issues in disciplines

19
The Writing Studio

• A space for undergraduates to talk one-on-one
  with trained tutors about the writing they are
  doing for their courses at Duke
• Students can consult online writing resources
• Tutors trained to respond to needs of
  under-prepared and ESL writers
• Central and satellite locations on both Duke
  campuses

20
Obstacles to Reform

• Faculty concerns
• Previous versions of first-year writing course at
  Duke had been failures
• Support for TAs would be discontinued
• Teaching writing was too labor-intensive

21
Responses

• Recruit and train a professional cadre of
  postdoctoral fellows to teach first-year writing
• Shift funding lines for graduate TAs in
  first-year writing to lines in support of WID
  courses
• Offer faculty teaching WID courses the assistance
  of TAs and tutors in the Writing Studio

22
Sustaining Change

• Recruit writing fellows in an open,rigorous, and
  wide-ranging search
• Offer writing fellows ownership over courses and
  program
• Offer ongoing support to fellows new to teaching
  writing
• Insist on meaningful assessment of work of
  individual teachers and writing program

23
Recruiting Mellon Writing Fellows

• Open search no inside or guaranteed lines
• Three- to five-year contracts, with competitive
  salary and benefits
• Excellent teaching conditions (60 students per
  year)
• Strong support for development of fellows as
  scholars and teachers
• Multidisciplinary faculty for university-wide
  course

24
Writing Fellows as Colleagues

• Fellows design own versions of Writing 20 in
  accordance with program goals
• Fellows are renewed on basis of Teaching
  Portfolio that they construct to represent
  intellectual work as teachers
• Fellows participate as full voting members at
  faculty meetings and on program committees
• By-laws
• Curriculum
• Policies and Procedures
• Search (5/7 members are Fellows)

25
The Writing Program as Multidisciplinary Site

• Fellows have held PhDs in African American
  Studies, Anthropology, Architecture, Biology,
  Communications, Cultural Studies, Economics,
  Education, Engineering, Epidemiology, Forestry,
  Genetics, History, Human Environments,
  Linguistics, Literature, Philosophy, Political
  Science, Psychology, Queer Studies, Religion,
  Rhetoric, Science Communications, Sociology,
  Theology, and Womens Studies.
• Common focus on academic writing as practice
  centering on close and responsive work with
  texts.

26
Supporting New Teachers

• Summer Seminar in Teaching Writing
• Three-week August seminar for all first-year
  fellows focus on writing course materials and
  responding towards revision
• Mellon Symposia
• Series of events organized and led by Mellon
  Fellows addressing issues in teaching and
  scholarship
• Mentors and Class Visits
• First-year fellows are paired with more
  experienced fellows and required both to observe
  classes of senior faculty or fellows and to have
  own classes observed by senior colleagues
• Hallway conversations

27
Teaching Portfolios

• Fellows are offered initial three-year contract,
  renewable for additional two years on basis of
  Second-Year Review of Teaching Portfolios
• Portfolios must include
• Narrative overview of work and growth as teacher
• Course materials (syllabi, assignments, handouts,
  etc.)
• Student writings with teacher comments
• Peer observations of teaching
• Student evaluations of teaching

28
Program Assessment

• Ongoing review of student course evaluations.
  Writing 20 consistently ranked as superior in
• Overall quality of instruction
• Hours of work outside of class per week
• Intellectual stimulation
• Text-based, program-wide, comparison of
  early-and-late student essays showed overall
  gains in their abilities to criticize as well as
  restate work of other writers
• Review of writing portfolios of minority students
  and athletes in process