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Articles Conference Reviews |
2007I2DeanI.2: Negotiating Identities: A Good Deal for both Students and Institution Chair: Ilene Miele Presenters:
This presentation, by members of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s (UCSB) Writing Program, focused on ways that UCSB’s writing program could and did connect students to their own writing and to other students—inside and outside of UCSB. Robert Krut: “Outreach Across Institutions: From the University to the High School and Back” Krut started by talking about the UCSB Writing Program’s Academic Writing Partnership (AWP), which involves faculty of the Writing Program working with teachers in local high schools. The point of AWP is to provide a “flexible and fluid” program so that “teachers could work with teachers”—with an emphasis on the teaching of writing. Krut explained the workings and goals of AWP, and made what I thought was the most interesting point about AWP: that this is a program which changes and alters annually as the needs and desires of the participating teachers change and alter. Invariably each year will bring new teachers, students, and even schools into an ongoing service program, like AWP, and thus the need for an outlook that is not rigid. Craig Cotich: “Building Networks of Support: Academic and Social” Cotich discussed the ways that UCSB’s Writing Program had partnered with EOP (Educational Opportunity Program) to produce ACE (Academic Communities of Excellence), which helps first generation students cope with the shift from high school to collegiate writing. EOP, which is on the student services side of the university, is concerned with trying to ensure that first-generation students are successful at UCSB, and they provide the Writing Program at UCSB with everything from money for class-based tutors to research assistance to help the Writing Program work with students who are trying to make the transition from high school to a research one university—like UCSB. Cotich shared a variety of statistics and experiences about the program, and then made a pretty significant point about how “ACE students bring a much needed voice to our classrooms,” and that this needed voice is the voice of students who are trying to make one of the most difficult transitions a student can make: from being a working-class student to being a confident university student. Ilene Miele: “Publishing First-Year Developmental Writers: Changing Minds, Changing Practices” Miele spoke of how a publication for first-year, developmental writers, Starting Lines, came to be and the effect that it has had on students and teachers. For teachers, they now had exemplary examples of student work to use in class—giving, in essence, a target for student writers to reach. However, for the students the publication project (which has received a wide variety of grants and acclaim) has been even more significant. When students see their work published, they can begin to think of themselves as writers, not “student writers”—the perpetual apprentices of the craft of writing. Also, Miele made a very good point about how both teachers and students can, by looking at and working with published student work, encounter students “in the process of development.” Thus, students and teachers can see beyond labels, like “developmental” or “basic” writers, and begin to see students as writers. Overview of the Session From this session, I gained a clearer sense of how students at UCSB not only connect to each other and academic services, but to the wider world outside of the university. It would have been nice to have the speakers talk a bit about how one might go about creating such projects at other universities and colleges, and it also would have been great to hear more about how the work at UCSB connected to the wider research and work in the field around work with “basic writers.” However, this is a small concern. Ultimately, I left the panel with a fine sense of the sort of work that is being done to help first-year writers be successful in the class, and beyond, at UCSB. As a writing teacher at UCSB, this is the sort of lesson that I value a great deal. Comments? |