Online Edition | Washington State University | Pullman, Washington | Friday, January 25, 2002

WRITING
‘Baby’ revived; faculty participation puts writing program into national limelight
by Robert Frank, WSU Today


Lisa Johnson and Diane Kelly-Riley settling 
into their new offices provided for the 
Writing Center in the Center for Undergraduate Education.
(Photo by Shelly Hanks, WSU Photo Services.)

Several corporations had a message for Washington State University in the late 1980s: Start teaching your students to write well or we’re going to quit hiring them.

Today, WSU’s writing program is a national leader and model.

The initial message from corporate America was far from subtle, but it was fitting for many colleges throughout the state and nation. Furthermore, when statements like this come from companies such as Microsoft, Battelle, Boeing, Intel and other major employers, everyone tends to pay attention.

In 1990, the state also weighed in, requiring universities to measure the effectiveness of lower division general education core classes.

Today, WSU’s alumni regularly rate the program as one of the university’s greatest strengths. But the transition to a vigorous, model program was not quick. It required persistence, creativity, a heart for students, awareness of employer needs, participation by faculty, and a willingness to admit error and regroup.

Rescuing the baby
Assisting students in writing has always been a part of the university system, but in 1985 it became more focused when former WSU English professor Robin Magnuson founded the Writing Center. Located in a small classroom in Avery Hall, with no windows and one door, it was a humble beginning with great expectations.

The traditional philosophy of teaching writing had been to copyedit using the "red-pen method," said Lisa Johnson, director of the Writing Center since 1995. The emphasis was making sure that sentences were properly punctuated, words were properly spelled and commas were in the right places.

"A lot of people, I think, came to fear and hate writing from that philosophy," said Johnson. "We all remember the horrible English teacher that was so picky about our correct usage.

"When Robin took over in 1985, he ushered in a new philosophy of peer tutoring that valued the construction of an argument rather than correct grammar and punctuation," she said. "So things kind of swung 180 degrees. In essence, we said: ‘Let’s throw that out for awhile and get back to what we really are trying to accomplish with our writing. We are trying to express an idea, send a message, build an argument.’

"Now we’re kind of coming back to a middle ground. We’re realizing that students don’t know how to do grammar and punctuation anymore, and we need to emphasize that a little," said Johnson. "In terms of writing instruction, we kind of threw out the baby with the bath water. So now we’re going back to rescue the baby."

"We realize that in order to write an decent presentation, punctuation and grammar are important. It’s not t-h-e most important thing, but it must be correct."

At the bottom
To ensure consistency in teaching writing, the center established a "hierarchy of values." Incoming tutors and faculty participating in the program are all taught this method of reviewing student papers. The hierarchy is relatively simple, with four writing characteristics:

1. Focus

2. Organization

3. Support (details supporting the argument)

4. Proofreading (grammar, spelling, punctuation)

"Proofreading is still at the bottom of the hierarchy," said Johnson. "Partly because, if a paper doesn’t focus on a main point and it isn’t organized in a logical fashion, and if it isn’t supported with details, it doesn’t matter how good your grammar and punctuation are. That’s why we have it at the bottom."

How does it work?
Today, the writing program consists of two major phases — assessment and tutoring. In brief, here’s how it works.

Phase 1: Freshmen begin by taking a timed-writing placement exam that requires them to write an argument and a self-evaluation. Trained faculty review the papers, which helps them to recommend the level of writing classes best suited to a student’s needs.

"There is no remediation at all," said Diane Kelly-Riley, director of the writing assessment program. "It (the placement exam) just evaluates skills and suggests what entry-level writing courses would best help students to succeed."

Phase 2: Before the end of their first semester, juniors must submit a "writing portfolio," which includes three papers, each from a different class and each signed by the appropriate professor. In addition, students must complete another timed-writing placement exam, similar to the one given in the freshman year.

Once again, these portfolios are reviewed by trained faculty, who rate them as: pass with distinction (generally the top 10 percent), pass, or needs work. Before graduation, all students are required to take at least two "Writing in the Major" (M) courses — writing classes that teach the conventions of writing in the student’s major. Students who receive a "needs work" rating on their junior portfolio are also required to take a one-credit, pass/fail tutorial class called Gen Ed 302. Provided by the Writing Center, this class helps students improve their writing skills, and all work is directly related to their Writing in the Major courses.

"The toughest part for me is getting students to turn in their portfolio on time," said Kelly-Riley. "Most students focus on the fact that the portfolio is a graduation requirement, so they try to wait until the very end. Some are just not aware of the system."

For the past several years, more than 70 percent of all juniors turned their portfolio in late.

But today, Kelly-Riley has an effective tool to persuade students to get portfolios in promptly. Students who don’t turn in their portfolio on time have their registration put on hold. Last semester, that amounted to more than 2,400 students — about 50 percent.

The good news is, the junior portfolio can often be completed in one or two days, if students have kept their papers on file.

300 faculty involved
The ultimate success of this program hinges on participation by, and service to, faculty. As a result, the writing program goes out of its way to recruit, serve, train and encourage faculty. Approximately 300 faculty currently participate as paid writing assessment readers in the program.

Why so many? First, consider that every junior has to submit a portfolio that needs to be personally reviewed and rated — more than 4,800 students last semester. Second, faculty have realized it’s to their benefit to participate in the program.

"We encourage every faculty member who teaches a Writing in the Major (M) course to link to the Gen Ed 302 course," Johnson said.

For example, if a faculty member has 20 students in an M-course, they might encourage 10 students to take Gen Ed 302 in conjunction with their class.

There, students would be divided into two groups of five, each with a tutor. Once a week, those students would work together on their writing assignments.

"What that does is take the responsibility off the faculty member for reading multiple drafts of that paper," said Johnson. "Instead, the writing group processes those drafts, providing feedback and help. So, the faculty member sees the end result, which should be better writing. That means it takes faculty members less time to review and grade papers. I think that would be a big draw for faculty. Plus, it gives students feedback on their papers before they are turned in for grades."

The Writing Center runs about thirty Gen Ed 302 tutoring sessions each semester.

The bigger picture
"The reason I do this (serve as a Junior Portfolio reviewer) is that I know that everyone who graduates and applies for a job is a representative of WSU," said Carl Wells, an instructor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "If they have poor communication skills, it gives a poor impression of Washington State University. I want people to see WSU in a very positive way, and writing portfolio assessment is an effective way of ensuring that.

"For faculty, it’s a great opportunity. It helps you see a bigger picture of things, to see outside your own department and college. The norming sessions are always very enlightening. It allows me to hear comments from people outside my area of interest. And it helps me gain different insights and perspectives," Wells said.

Romana Hillebrand, an English instructor at WSU and the University of Idaho, notes that when reviewing portfolios, she sometimes is "encouraged, delighted and impressed," and occasionally wonders "how a student got to this writing level in college."

"All students can use the help (provided by the writing program). The more you write, the better you get. This program offers additional practice," said Hillebrand.

Don’t send them
The Writing Center currently boasts about 40 tutors, and is open five days a week, plus Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Students can walk in at any time, with any project and talk to a tutor. Generally, there are five tutors available each hour. Altogether, they handle about 2,000 student contacts per semester.

"We prefer that faculty don’t ‘send’ students to us, but rather ‘encourage’ them to participate," said Johnson. "We hope they will encourage all their students to come into the Writing Center, not just the poor writers. They can all benefit."

The center also offers English 102, which is a similar one-credit lower division writing course that is virtually identical to Gen Ed 302, except this course is attached to freshman composition courses.

In addition, the Writing Center is proposing a new class, English 202, which, if approved, will be a 1-credit, pass-fail tutorial on grammar, style and usage, with pilot sessions next fall.

Common misperception
"I think the most common misperception about the Writing Center is that we are going to ‘fix’ a student’s paper. What we want to do is to steadily educate the student recognize their patterns of errors.

"Writing instructions are like piano lessons. You have to come back, and you have to come frequently," said Johnson. "You don’t come just one time and you’re fixed. Because we are an instructional center, we’re not going to just fix a student’s paper and send them out of here. We want them to understand what’s wrong so they can fix it themselves."

Usually, it usually takes about four to five visits for a student to begin to see their own patterns of errors.

Still jazzed
After 11 years of working at the Writing Center, Johnson is still enthusiastic about her job and the center. A university award modestly tucked in the corner of a bookshelf notes: "For having the patience, vision and energy to develop and implement programs which have transformed the Writing Lab into a nationally recognized writing support service."

"It’s a fun job. It changes every semester. The tutors grow up here, they graduate, they are replaced by other tutors," Johnson said. "I don’t work as a tutor often, but when I do, I always learn something new, because every student and every paper is different — stream management, stream bank erosion, vitamin E, genetics.

"Generally, I work with the tutors, and the tutors work with the students. But regardless of who I’m working with, the energy is always really positive. Very, very seldom do we see students who are belligerent and rude. They usually are grateful and patient.

"I like students and the energy that they have. They keep me young," she said with a laugh. "They are funny and intelligent and have all kinds of ideas, enthusiasm and idealism. And they’re the ones doing most of the work.

"It’s a perfect job for an English teacher, in that I don’t have to go home with a stack of papers. The papers that we see, we respond to, and the students take them with them. And I don’t have to grade."

The Writing Center and writing assessment program are located on the third floor of the Center for Undergraduate Education.

Successful development of WSU’s writing program has been documented in a new book titled Beyond Outcomes, edited by Richard Haswell, professor of English at Texas A&M at Corpus Christi and former director of English composition at WSU.