Tag: teaching writing

With Writing Always at the Center: Reflecting on a Year of University Writing Center Accomplishments

Bronwyn T. Williams, Director

Each year at the University Writing Center, in the sweltering last days of August, we welcome a new staff of consultants. And each year each staff has its own personality. Temperaments, personalities, areas of expertise, senses of humor, are individually and delightfully varied from one year to the next. The new consultants arrive at the end of summer with much to learn about teaching writing in a writing center, and with much to teach us through their new ideas and new approaches.

Now, as the dogwood and redbud trees start to light up with blossoms, and the season turns toward the closing of the academic year, it’s always a time at the University Writing Center of wrapping up and reflecting. We’re having our last consultations, finishing our own projects, and talking of plans for the summer. I’ve been watching these cycles as director of the University Writing Center for twelve years now and this time of year once again brings with it a mixture of gratitude, satisfaction, and a touch of weary wistfulness. This year will be the last time these cycles at the University Writing Center will include me as I will be stepping down as director after July (more on that later). Still, the cycles go on and it is indeed time for wrapping up and reflecting.

Our Ongoing Work in the Writing Center

For all the differences in personality among various University Writing Center staffs from year to year, what is more important is the consistency. What did not change this year was that the consultants in the University Writing Center engaged in the most interdisciplinary, wide-ranging teaching on campus, working with writers from every grade level, every college and from more than 50 different majors.

Whether working with first-year students or doctoral student writers, our writing consultants helped people at every possible stage of their writing processes – from the brainstorming at the start to the polishing at the end. Our consultants are exceptional teachers who never lose sight of the fact that they are working with individual writers, not just responding to the words on a page. Through their work, consultants help writers feel more confident, not just for the moment, but in navigating unfamiliar writing situations in the future. Such work requires that our consultants be good listeners and resourceful teachers. Working collaboratively, patiently, and focusing on learning, not grading, takes time and energy, but such approaches made significant differences in the lives of thousands of UofL writers this year. From our perspective, this individualized, personal teaching is the best way learning happens and it all depends on the talent and commitment of our consultants. I’m so proud of the work they do, every day and every year.

Collaborative, reciprocal learning also requires the contributions and commitments of writers and we are also grateful for the trust placed in us by the writers who bring their work to the University Writing Center. We are always learning from them as they learn from us. I also thank all the faculty and staff who supported our work by recommending us to their students.

This is my last semester as director and I will be writing more about that on this blog next week week. Today, however, I want to focus on this year’s amazing staff and what they’ve accomplished.

Transitions at the University Writing Center

The most important transition at the University Writing Center this year was the arrival of Dr. Annmarie Steffes to the position of Associate Director. In this full-time position she provides the intellectual core and ethical heart of our work. Annmarie came here from a faculty position at the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne where she had developed a writing center and made huge contributions to our daily work and long-term planning as soon as she arrived. Annmarie brings to the position energy and innovative ideas that will help move the University Writing Center forward in vital and exciting ways. For example, just since starting her position in September, she has developed a series of workshops for faculty about teaching writing and has many more ideas ahead for how to improve our work as a center of writing on campus.

Dr. Tim Johnson, associate professor of English, will become director starting in July. Tim has exceptional insights into approaches for teaching writing across disciplines and in professions. He’s an exceptional teacher and and insightful researcher. He’s friendly and warm and will help energize and inspire both staff and writers in the years to come.

I am excited to see what innovations and new strategies Annmarie and Tim will bring to the University Writing Center in the future. Writing support and teaching at UofL is in excellent hands.

The Best Writing Center Staff Around

It is also essential to thank the fantastic administrative staff who carried us through this year with calm creativity and good humor. In addition to Annmarie, Maddy Decker, handled the front desk and office managing responsibilities flawlessly and was supported in this work by our undergraduate student workers Katelin Wilkinson and Tera Hathcock. Maddy also coordinated our social media, including this blog, with imagination and wit.

The assistant directors were also indispensable this year. Liz Soule, as Assistant Director for the Writing Center, helped both with mentoring new consultants, but also researched and held workshops to respond to the many questions we received about AI in writing, such as ChatGPT. And Kendyl Harmeling, the Assistant Director for Graduate Student Writing, both facilitated the Faculty and Graduate Student Writing Group and engaged in outreach at the Health Sciences Campus.

All of these people make the Writing Center work, day in and day out, and make it a positive, inclusive, and productive place for the UofL community.

Writing at the Center – Community Writing, Workshops, Writing Groups, and More

Community Writing and the Cotter Cup: Our commitment to writing is not limited to the UofL Campus. Once again we worked closely this year with Western Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL). This participatory and collaborative partnership, under the coordination of Assistant Director Liz Soule, is an important part of how we understand writing as transcending communities and boundaries. You can find out more about these community writing projects, including how to get involved with them, on our website. We worked with Western Branch to provide workshops and mentoring. But our primary project for the year was the third annual Cotter Cup K-12 poetry contest. This is the third year we have partnered with restoring the 100-year old tradition of this contest. University Writing Center volunteers met at the Western Branch Library with K-12 writers to brainstorm, draft and revise their poems for the contest. We worked with 30 student writers and the contest winners will be announced later this spring. We’re grateful to the contributions of our volunteers: Liz Soule, Jessica Gottbrath, Clay Arvin, Cassidy Witt, and Dylan Williams.

Writing Groups: We continued our commitment to provide UofL writer with safe, supportive communities where they can write and talk about writing. We continued to facilitate our LGBTQ+, Faculty and Graduate Student, and Creative Writing writing groups. We have always believed that writing, and the confidence to explore new ideas in writing, is a social activity as much as a solitary one. Through our writing groups we want people to be able to gather and learn more about the craft of writing, but also build the confidence that comes from writing in a supportive community.

Writing Events: Once again we hosted or took part in a range of writing-related events, including our Halloween Scary Stories Open Mic Night and a Valentine’s Day Open Mic, both hosted with the Miracle Monocle Literary Magazine. Annmarie also organized our annual celebration of International Mother Language Day. We’re always delighted to celebrate writing of all varieties and hope to continue with more such events in the future.

Dissertation Writing Retreat: In May we will hold our 12^th annual Dissertation Writing Retreat. During the retreat, 14 doctoral writers, from 10 different disciplines, will spend a week writing, talking about dissertation writing strategies, and having daily consultations about their writing. This event is the capstone to each academic year and an important moment for us.

Workshops: This year, Annmarie planned and facilitated a series of workshops for faculty both on issues of using writing effectively in their courses, and also on thoughtful and creative ways to respond to the development and use of more sophisticated AI in writing. We also held our regular workshops on issues of graduate student writing, organized through the Graduate School.

Writing Center Staff Achievements

The University Writing Center is also an active, ongoing site of scholarship about the teaching of writing. Staff from the University Writing Center were engaged in a number of scholarly and creative projects during the past year in rhetoric and composition, literature, and creative writing.

Bronwyn Williams, Director. In terms of writing-center focused research, my article, “Writing Centers, Enclaves, and Creating Spaces of Change Within Universities” has been published in Writing Center Journal

Annmarie Steffes, Associate Director, presented ““Instructor Autonomy: Exploring the Role of OER in Composition Classrooms” at the Conference on College Composition and Communication.

Liz Soule, Assistant Director, will be the Assistant Director of Writing in the College of Business next year. She also held two workshops this spring on ChatGPT and writing and also completed her doctoral exams and will be moving on to writing her dissertation.

Kendyl Harmeling, Assistant Director for Graduate Student Writing, had a book review published in Rhetoric Society Quarterly (in press): “Writing Their Bodies: Restoring Rhetorical Relations at the Carlisle Indian School” By Sarah Klotz. She will be the Assistant Director for the Writing Center next year.

Christina Davidson, presented a digital humanities project at the UofL Graduate Student Regional Research Conference (GSRRC). Next year she will be an Assistant Director in the Composition Program.

Braydon Dungan, presented on “American Dreams, Desires, and Deception: Nationalistic Pride and Toxic Heteronormativity in Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘The Strenuous Life'” at the Community in Peril: From Individual Identities to Global Citizenship Conference in Brno, Czech Republic. He also visited Longbranch Elementary School to exemplify how public educators can apply Writing Center techniques to elementary composition curriculum and pedagogy. And he self-published a book of poetry titled Songs for the Public from a Poet Who Can’t Sing.

Katie Fritsche, presented at two conferences, on “Princess Mononoke: Animated Solutions for the Global Climate Crisis”, at The 16th Annual Graduate Student Conference, University of Ottawa, and on “Colliding Forms in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Collin’s The Hunger Games” at The Louisville Conference on Literature & Culture. She also published an article in the St. John’s University Humanities Review titled, “A Freudian Interpretation of Familial Dreams in the Demon Slayer Anime.”

Mahde Hassan served as a Scholastic Awards Juror at SUNY Oneonta for Leatherstocking Writing Project, which is writing contest for secondary students. He also worked as a volunteer with facilitating the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture

Wendell Hixson chaired a panel at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture.

Andrew Messer will be the Assistant Director Creative Writing in the English Department next year.

Elizabeth Pope will have the poem “Coal Camp” published in North Dakota Quarterly. She was also awarded The Annette Allen Poetry Prize sponsored by the UofL Humanities Department and read her work at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture.

Charlie Ward, presented “Exploring Gender in Tommy Orange’s There There” at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture and “Black Identity and Performance in ‘Sonny’s Blues'” at the Coast-to-Coast 2023 Conference. They also have two poems accepted for publication, “nightmare.” in Printed Zine and “fire” in Louisville Zine.

Yuan Zhao presented at the 2022 International Conference on Romanticism and the16th Graduate Student Regional Research Conference (GSRRC) at University of Louisville. Yuan also completed his MA Culminating Project titled, “Formulaic Writing and Technology in TOEFL: Algorithm in e-rater and White Supremacist Desire.” Yuan will be joining the UofL Rhetoric and Composition PhD program next year.

On behalf of all the University Writing Center staff, thank you again for another fulfilling and exceptional year. We hope to see you back this summer or in the fall.

In-Person or Online, We’re Still Here And We’re Still Talking about Writing

Bronwyn T. Williams, Director

For the first time in almost 18 months we have been arranging tables, stocking up on handouts, and dusting off shelves in anticipation of once again holding in-person writing consultations. On Thursday we welcomed our new group of writing consultants for orientation and once again the University Writing Center was full of conversations about how best to help writers in the UofL community learn strategies for being more effective writers as well as gain a stronger sense of confidence and agency about their writing. One thing we have missed in the last year, given the kind of collaborative dialogue that is at the foundation of teaching writing the way we do, is the kind of nuance and richness that comes from in-person conversations. Though we value the online video chat and written response appointments we held last year – and will continue to hold this year – we are also excited at the opportunity to talk to writers face to face again.

**University Writing Center Staff – 2021-22**

Of course, the fact that only half of each face will be visible is a reminder of the range of physical, logistical, and emotional challenges we all continue to confront. We are returning to a campus where masks are mandatory, in a city and state were delta variant cases among the unvaccinated are skyrocketing. Though all of our staff are vaccinated, we are not immune to anxiety or the distraction that comes from the ongoing uncertainty all around us. We will be adopting myriad modifications and practices to do our best to keep everyone safe. It’s certainly not a return to 2019.

Even so, our plan is to move ahead and, whether in person or online, do the best we can to use constructive dialogue to help writers address their individual concerns about their work. We will continue to listen carefully during appointments and respond with suggestions that writers can use to rethink and revise their work to make it as engaging as possible. And we will do our best to create a safe and supportive space where writers can try out new ideas – and sometimes make mistakes – and then be able to try again. There may be many uncertainties ahead in the coming year, but we will – as always – be committed to starting where writers are, with their concerns, and working toward honest, constructive conversations about writing that emphasize collaboration and creativity.

We are excited about the year ahead and the chance to help writers do the important work of communicating the ideas they are passionate about to the world around them.

Writing Groups and Events

In addition to our individual consultations, we will continue to offer other ways to support and sustain writing at UofL. Once again we will facilitate writing groups for Graduate Students and Faculty, Creative Writers, and LGBTQ+ Writers. For graduate students we will offer workshops on writing issues and our annual Dissertation Writing Retreat. We will sponsor events, from our annual Halloween Scary Stories Open Mic Night (co-sponsored with Miracle Monocle), to our celebration of International Mother Language Day. What’s more, we will continue our community partnerships with the Western Branch of the Louisville Free Public Library and Family Scholar House.

We wish everyone a safe and fulfilling year and we look forward to working with you soon.

Writing by Delighting

Demetrius Minnick-Tucker, Writing Consultant

“Gollum threw himself backwards, and grabbed as the hobbit flew over him, but too late: his hands snapped on thin air, and Bilbo falling fair on his sturdy feet, sped off down the new tunnel. He did not turn to see what Gollum was doing. There was a hissing and cursing almost at his heels at first, then it stopped. All at once there came a blood-curdling shriek, filled with hatred and despair. Gollum was defeated.” (Tolkien, 87)

This is a scene from The Hobbit, written by J. R. R. Tolkien. In context, a Hobbit finds himself in a cave, separated from his friends, with a little, hungry creature named Gollum, ready to eat him if he didn’t solve his riddles. Thankfully, the Hobbit solved the riddles, escaped the unnerved Gollum, and eventually, found his friends. However, as a writer, reflect for a moment. What provided the scenes dramatic nature? Grammar. Tolkien includes six commas to slow down the scene. He carefully uses the colon — a prelude to the dramatic outcome of the scene. And lastly, he uses the period to drive home the scene. These are the simple beauties of grammar within a model text. Our breath stops for a moment, like Bilbo’s, as we await his escape or demise, and in the process, we are delighted.

This scene is useful for our main concern: As teachers, what moves can we make to unite teaching grammar and student learning? This question is scrutinized by the best in the field, yet a solution seems elusive. Often, grammar is taught in moves that simply request the regurgitation of information. However, when our “bright” writers come to writing samples, the findings are disheartening. Students writing shows no sign of improvement and as new students come in, the cycle continues. In the article, Reconceptualizing the Teaching of Grammar, Weaver asserts that learning “seems to be most enduring when the learners perceive it as USEFUL or INTERESTING to them personally, in the here and now.” It seems that Weaver is asserting that we should teach grammar indirectly, through means of delight. Whether reading of the boy who lived or the Sonnets of Shakespeare, both are avenues of delight for a variety of students, proving useful for our ends as teachers. As I reflect, I am reminded of my freshman year in college. My English 102 Professor, Dr. Amy Crider, challenged us to find writers we admire and work on imitating their writing style. As English 101 and 102 courses have a knack for creativity, my interest was peeked. Thus, my search began. As I discovered beautiful writing, writing became more alive to me. “How did Flannery O’Connor paint a world that was darkly comical? How did J. K. Rowling create such gravity in the final scene? What would happen if I remove the commas from this paragraph? Let’s consider syntax.” All these questions bubble up, but why? Indirectly, Dr. Crider was using my delight in model texts as a means to teach grammar. I argue as instructors, we ought to take the same road. Learning the conventions of grammar is inherently grueling and full of mystery, yet, when we provide students moments to see grammar through lenses of delight, their stance changes.

In another article, The Case for Rhetorical Grammar, Micciche states “This intimacy with the language of others can be an enormously powerful way to impress upon students that writing is made and that grammar has a role in the production.” Micciche’s claim reiterates the usefulness of model texts. In short, when students analyze model texts they are delighted by – novel, poem, paragraph – a productive space is created for teaching grammar. Why? The student is no longer focused on distant formalities that are required of a sentence. Instead, they are delighted, entering the world of the author, and hungry to figure out how the author made that delight erupt into their reading experience. And notice the subtle change, it is intimate, no longer distant. The writing is beautiful, humorous, or full of wit, and the student is left wondering “how did they do that?” A teacher happily responds: “The writer made intentional choices with their words to bring that effect. Now class, what would we have lost if they didn’t understand the uses of grammar?” As we can see, now students disposition towards grammar changes, as they have become focused on replicating the grammatical moves of writers, because they were required? No, because they were delighted. Grammar is no longer seen as mere conventions and formalities, but the freedom to create beauty. As students push into that reality, I suspect, the teacher to beam with a quiet triumph. Why? The teacher has brought them to their goal: Learning.

Responding to Student Writing to Encourage Revision

Meghan Hancock, Assistant Director for Graduate Student Writing

The University of Louisville Writing Center’s website isn’t only meant for students to make appointments and browse for writing resources. It’s also there for faculty to utilize when teaching writing in their courses. Our Resources for Faculty page provides helpful information from what to expect when your students make appointments at the Writing Center, to how to schedule consultants to come to your class to talk about what the Writing Center does.

We also recently dedicated a section of our website to Resources for Teaching Writing. In this section, we provide some strategies for faculty to think about using when teaching writing in their courses. These strategies grow from topics we have thought a lot about as writing instructors ourselves, and also from common topics we hear our colleagues discussing when it comes to teaching writing in their classrooms.

Below, you will find what we have provided for strategies to help you when you are thinking of ways to respond to student writing in your classroom.

Instructor comments on students’ writing is an important part of helping students become effective academic writers, and can provide the productive feedback a student writer needs to revise a particular assignment. Responding to student writing can be a challenging task, however, particularly when deciding what feedback to include in a response. Too much feedback can be overwhelming for students, while too little feedback can leave students feeling they don’t have a clear direction for revision.

At the University Writing Center, our consultants work with students to help them understand instructors’ responses as well as come up with plans for revision based on instructors’ responses. Here are some strategies, though, that may help when structuring and formatting commentary on student writing, as well as in prioritizing types of feedback.

Some forms of comment have proved to be more effective than others.

Research on student writing has demonstrated that a draft covered in corrections and cryptic comments such as “vague” or “needs more detail” is not as effective as fewer, more detailed comments. Explaining what kind of detail is needed, for example, is more helpful to students. Also, students report that the comments they find most helpful to their writing are those that point them forward to how best to revise the next draft (or complete the next assignment) by suggesting new ideas, strategies, or questions, rather than only making criticisms on the current draft. Finally, pointing out to student how and why a piece of a draft or paper is effective also helps the student learn to recognize and potentially replicate the writing in future assignments.

Different comments can serve different functions in response.

End comments commonly take the form of a letter written to the student about overall or more holistic strengths and weaknesses of the writer’s paper, as well as what productive directions for revision the responder would recommend. Marginal comments are your chance to point to specific places in the paper. These places could be anything from a thesis statement that needs work, to an unclear sentence or paragraph, to a quotation that needs more explanation. End comments can also be a chance to explain how marginal comments play into the bigger picture of the response. In other words, try to refer to some specific marginal comments in your end comments as examples for what the student can work on in a revision.

It helps to distinguish in comments between higher- and lower-order concerns.

Higher order concerns, like overall organization, whether a paper has a clear argument, what kinds of examples the writer is using for evidence, etc., are the most effective places to begin in responding to student writing, as these conceptual issues are much more challenging for writers to address in a revision. Although problems with grammar and style can be frustrating to read, correcting those errors for students is not an effective approach to either revision or teaching grammar and style. Instead, respond to these issues by telling the writer what patterns of error you are noticing in their writing (for example, run-on sentences, subject/verb agreement, or comma use) so they can be more conscious of them in the future.

Explain to students your approach to response.

Different instructors can use very different approaches to responding to student writing. Comments can vary in emphasis, length, and detail. It can be helpful to students to explain how you approach reading their work and what you will emphasize in your comments. Such explanations can be included in the assignment if you wish. In addition, it can be helpful to have students respond to your comments, both to ensure they have read them and to engage in a more dialogic process. For example, if you have commented on student drafts, you might ask students to send you an email in which they explain their plan for revision based on your comments. You can check such email quickly and see if the students plan to address your concerns.

Use other forms of response such as conferences or audio comments.

If time allows, try conferencing individually with students to discuss your written comments with them as well as give them the opportunity to ask you questions if any of your comments are unclear to them. If this isn’t possible, try to dedicate the last ten or fifteen minutes of a class meeting for your students to read your written comments and ask you questions or raise concerns. Some instructors also find success using audio comments that can be recorded digitally and even attached to student texts. For an example of how to use audio comments, see this link.

Try responding at different points in the writing process.

Responding at different stages in the writing process can both save time and offer students clearer direction as they work on the writing. For example, asking for a brief proposal for a paper, or responding to the first two pages, can help catch issues of focus and analysis early in the process and takes less time than reading longer papers.

Read the paper first, before commenting.

Jot down some notes on a separate piece of paper instead, focusing on common themes you notice that you might want to address in your response. This will keep you from commenting too much and will allow you to prioritize what you comment on when you read through the paper the second time. Also, if you are handwriting your comments, try not to use a red pen if you can help it. Many students associate this color with past negative responses to their writing in school and it may cause anxiety for them.

Encourage students to visit the University Writing Center.

We often work with students to help them plan how to revise assignments based on instructor comments and would be happy to work with your students.

Here are some links that might also be helpful when thinking through how to respond to student writing:

Responding to Higher Order Concerns and Lower Order Concerns – The Purdue OWL

“Beyond the Red Ink: Teachers’ Comments Through Students’ Eyes” (Video) – Nancy Sommers

“Responding to Student Writing” – University of Delaware Writing Center

“Using Audio Comments to Respond to Student Writing” – University of Wisconsin- Madison Writing Center

“Responding to Writing of Non-Native Speakers of English” – University of Minnesota Center for Writing