College Level Writing Collaborative

Two weeks ago, I went to a meeting of the College Level Writing Collaborative that was hosted at JWU's Harborside Campus. The goal of these meetings is for both upper-level high school instructors, and college writing instructors to meet and discuss how they (cumulatively and separately) help students become college writers.

We split into groups to hold round-table conversations, and the group I was in quickly began discussing templates and formulas for writing. While most of the high school instructors were required to use some manner of formula for their teaching, (i.e. write a topic sentence; then write three sentences that raise three examples; then write a closing sentence for the paragraph), many of them were unsatisfied with such rigidity in their instruction.

When we work with college writers, we sometimes see this kind of formulaic writing that lacks an overall sense of presence: a purpose or cohesion to a piece as a whole. I will admit that I've often taken the easy out and blamed it on high school instruction... but this became tougher to do once I heard high school teachers voice the same concerns that I've had.

Templates help beginning writers get a foothold on a concept, but they (eventually) need to see a "bigger picture." I guess that where I'm going with this is that, in the writing center, we have a unique opportunity to converse with writers. We are there as peers, as fellow writers, and so students are more comfortable telling us when they've written a certain way because they think it's an immutable rule, or because they were aiming for an effect. I suppose the whole experience of the meeting is making me re-think college and high-school instruction, and the ways that students are taught. I wish I had more of a handle on where my thoughts are going so that I could make an overt "point" with all of this, but all I can do at this time is mull it over.

Would any of you like to be added to the list-serv for the College Level Writing Collaborative? I think it would be interesting to have more writing center voices in the mix; (there was one college writing center head at the last meeting). The collaborative is really a fascinating concept, and the conversations are productive.