Libraries & Writing Programs Round Table
Minutes prepared by Steve Lawson
Edited by Rose Nelson
In attendance:
Kaijsa Calkins (Wyoming), Alan Charnes (Alliance), Carrie Forbes (DU), Mary Ann Harlow (Wyoming), Steve Lawson (Colorado College), Rose Nelson (Alliance), Blake Sanz (DU) Lecturer in University Writing Program, Caroline Sinkinson (CU Boulder)
Q: What are you currently doing?
Mary Ann and Kaijsa: Working with conditionally admitted students inthe Synergy Program. Taking a more "intrusive" position in theclassroom.
Interested in "turf"; writing center, center for instruction andteaching, library. Limited WC hours means that librarians end up doingwhat are de facto WC consultations.
Poorly funded WC at WY with lecturers working as consultants. Single director, no other staff.
Blake: AT DU, a newly-created and funded writing program (writing across the
curriculum) separate from the English department. New WC director hiredwith lecturers and tutors hired. Carrie: previously had freshman comp.in English, plus rudimentary writing center (writing table). Blake:Fall freshman seminar, winter and spring writing and research intensivecourses.
Steve: Writing center as the writing program at CC.
Caroline: Required first year course for most freshmen at CU (~100sections per semester). Information literacy requirement of onlinetutorial and in-person session. Supervises tutors of Research Centerfocused entirely on the freshman courses. Writing Center and ResearchCenter located in library.
Blake: Interesting that we are separating the research and writing components physically and intellectually.
Mary Ann: Freshman really want and need some one-on-one consultations.
Blake: Trying to break out of that linear path of "idea - research -writing." Caroline: where is the 1-on-1 assistance between the researchand the revision of the first draft. Kaijsa: How do they do theirreading? What is their process.
Steve: U. of Rochester librarians studying students' research andwriting practices led him to taking the writing center peer tutortraining at CC.
Rose: What about connections between high schools and colleges?Caroline: CU used to have a program for that, but the funding ran out.
Blake: What could writing instructors do to help the students learnresearch better than just have them tour the library? Librarians: Comeat the right time of the semester with real tasks the students have toget done. Treat the session as an integral part of the class. Let thestudents see that you view this as important and take active part inthe library session if possible. Talk about your own research processand how you do research and writing.
Carrie: Concern about librarians' resistance to new models and new ideas.
Steve: Writing faculty need to tell librarians about what they need and what did or didn't work in previous sessions.
Steve: So how exactly do we work together? Carrie: Just looing at language.
Getting rid of "reference" in favor of "research." Modeling referencework more on the style and technique of writing center consultations.
Mary Ann: Where is IT in all this? Carrie: Dartmouth's "WRIT" (writing,research, information technology). We teach the writing and researchbut we fall down on the presentation: using presentation software, ormore sophisticated uses of spreadsheets, etc. Steve: At CC we co-locateIT help desk, Writing Center, Quant Center, multimedia lab all in thelibrary. But how well do we make those connections?
Alan: to what degree is technology an impediment to writing? Problemswith comfort with non-electronic forms, tone, authority. Blake: weteach rhetoric along with writing. There are more occasions for writingnow with a richer variety of choices for how to write.
Cross training: writing centers seem to be more comfortable with theidea of cross training, where librarians are more uptight about the"professional"
nature of the work. Mary Ann: the constant change brought by technologyhas made us more comfortable with (resigned to?) change in theprofession.
Steve: Librarians think that people need a professional while WC usespeer tutors extensively. Ask an undergrad which is more important andpersonal to
them: writing every time.
Carrie: Tagging along with the writing program director as he makesinroads to expand the writing program across the curriculum outside thefreshman year.
The practical reluctance of faculty to spend time on writing andresearch, but also the intellectual reluctance of faculty to want to"dumb it down"
and "spell it out".
The good and bad things about staging assignments on short terms
(block/quarter): it can be the only way to get things done without thestudents getting overwhelmed, but it encourages and reinforces theartificial and linear breaking up of the research/writing process.
Rose: breaking up the library as place and putting the librarians inthe departments and curricula. Kaijsa embedded as the residentlibrarian in an individual course.
Mary Ann: Evergreen College--as open and unstructured as itis--assigned all first year students to a writing tutor who worked withthem extensively one on one over time, read all that they wrote.
Ideas for useful future collaboration: Carrie-writing center directorcontacted her for library participation in faculty development onwriting intensive courses (how to create better writing assignments).Blake:
librarians getting a better sense of the kind of assignments and howfaculty want students to work and proceed. Cross training forlibrarians.
Blake: are there ways we could better share what we know, what actuallytranspires in writing and reference sessions. Would it be interestingto see statistics or records of what happens in consultations (bothreference and writing sessions).
Caroline: How do you facilitate useful collaboration?
Caroline: creating an assignment/syllabus database.