Take advantage of Writing Center Services

As you are preparing for your winter term, please take advantage of the Writing Center services for you and your students! Click here for more information.

SNL faculty discuss supporting student writers across the SNL curriculum

When the SNL writing faculty gathered this past October for our semi-annual meeting, we discussed the points in the SNL curriculum where students do the most writing or where their writing is assessed more heavily than at other points. To deepen a conversation of how to help SNL students become better writers and succeed in the program and beyond, we asked faculty who teach SNL's Independent Learning Seminar, Research Seminar, and Advanced Project to join us and contribute their thoughts about what writing looks like and where students need support. Below are some highlights of that conversation.

Not surprisingly, we agreed that the "path" for SNL students when it comes to becoming a better writer is not always the same. Some students enter with lots of professional writing experience but little knowledge of what it means to do academic research or why research matters when students are seasoned experts in their field. Others may come straight from a community college with a great sense of what a traditional academic essay should look like, but are not comfortable "writing from experience" or "writing to demonstrate competence". Others come to us with extreme anxiety about writing in general; the idea of writing an essay or a professional letter makes them cringe. There are, of course, students who are some combination of these. Although, the ideal path is not the same, we agreed that it would be useful to have students take a writing class early on in their SNL career. Discussing the major writing assignments and the conventions of academic writing earlier will afford plenty of time for students, their mentors, and faculty to wrestle with assumptions, contradictions, and requirements when it comes to writing at SNL. This early conversation gives students the opportunity to learn SNL's language (discourse), navigate the major writing assignments they will encounter, and begin to think about the best path for them. 

Another question raised was, "What are the priorities with regard to writing at SNL in general?" Based on the overview provided for us by the ILS, RS, and AP faculty, the SNL curriculum prioritizes insightful responses to the assignments within the conventions of the genre (ILP, Research Proposal, Artifact/Analyis, etc.). However, "error-free" writing is a very, very close runner-up. In alignment with this, SNL writing faculty explained how they prioritize global issues like thesis development, paragraph focus and organization, writing as a process, conducting research, and integrating sources in our two main writing courses (LL140 and LL260), and a great deal of time is spent on these in class, in online exercises and discussion, and through instructor feedback on drafts. Sentence-level issues like grammar and spelling are also covered in the two writing courses through one-on-one conversations, individualized feedback, and in-class activities.

However, as is true for anyone trying to improve their writing, students need more practice with all of these writing concepts than a 10-week course can afford. As a result, SNL writing instructors give students the tools to address their own grammar needs over time and provide them as well as other SNL faculty with information about resources for ongoing writing support, including the Writing Center tutors and writing groups, online self-directed activities, the SNL Writing Guide, and the Purdue Online Writing Lab. The most common issue is that students pass their writing course but then forget about these resources or the processes for research and effective academic writing because there is too long of a hiatus before they need to use them again. Another issue is that their ongoing development as writers is not directly emphasized again in the curriculum until they get to Research Seminar, where the expectation for writing proficiency is sometimes near a graduate-student level or sometimes heavily social-science oriented, which may be foreign to students who are not interested in pursuing a research-oriented path. The SNL writing faculty agreed that exploring some of the various approaches to these SNL genres is key, they also felt that a continued dialogue about these genres and types of writing throughout the curriculum is necessary. They felt that if all SNL faculty members play a role in reminding students of the available writing-related resources and support them in their ongoing development throughout their tenure at SNL, even if only via one-on-one feedback on an essay or a brief discussion in class, the students are more likely to excel and further develop their writing competence.

 While these were just a couple of the points we covered in the meeting, they are foundational concepts that we agreed to continue monitoring and discussing when it comes to adult learning, supporting SNL students in becoming better writers, and helping each student succeed in navigating academic discourse and in a competence-based curriculum that is writing-intensive. We plan to continue this conversation on a regular basis to consider additional ways each person in the SNL community can meet students where they are and continue providing resources for success. SNL Writing also will continue to provide support for SNL faculty in working with SNL students on their writing through our resources such as Writing Fellows and the Teaching with Writing professional development course, the SNL Faculty Support: Writing Resources website, the SNL Writing News blog, and the SNL Writing Rubric for Papers and Essays.

Encourage students to submit to the SNL Writing Showcase

As the term comes to a close, students should consider submitting their excellent final papers, portfolios, or other writing projects to the SNL Writing Showcase. Entries are welcome through April 1, 2015. More details are here:
https://snlapps.depaul.edu/writing/WritingShowcase.html

The 2014 Month of Writing Challenge: The Blank Page as an Opportunity for Revision

by Steffanie Triller Fry

During this 2014 Month of Writing Challenge, I’ve spent much of my time penning something my Creative Writing MFA program calls a “craft essay.” It’s an essay of 5,000+ words that analyzes the way a writer performs a particular aspect of her craft. 

But it’s not the craft in the essay that I’ve been struggling with this month; it’s the craft of the essay. I labored over the first draft: I revised over and over, printing it out to scribble handwritten notes over the entire document, rewriting my introduction, only to have my instructor come back with this: “What’s the original angle / approach of this essay? Does its author have her own ideas, or is she only going to call forth old chestnuts? Trust yourself. Use your own expertise.”

But I did! I thought. I drew together the ideas of numerous experts and, I thought, made some interesting and enlightening connections between their ideas. What was missing?

Then, about a week later, one of the students in the Write Now class gave his required “Pep Talk,” a 500 word reflection on how to effectively write at least 25,000 words in one month. His talk included the following message: 

“We can’t always pick our topicsand genres of writing outside of this class, but we can try personalizing everypaper or report by adding ourselves to actually become part of the story,instead of just telling it.” 

Oh, I thought. That's what was missing from my essay: Me. In trying to communicate my analysis in my essay, I failed to communicate even my main message. My writing became overly academic. 

So the spirit of the Month of Writing, I set my essay aside. I opened Microsoft Word and clicked open a blank document. I wrote my introduction again. I decided it was still too impersonal. I opened another blank document. I tried again. I thought of my daughter’s favorite toy: a set of stackable rings. I had them, every kid’s had them. The rings fit onto a cone-shaped tower. The blue goes on the bottom, then the yellow, green, orange, and red. When she first received the toy, my daughter loved the red ring: it’s also a rattle. She would dump all of the rings off the cone, and then put just the red one on. Of course, then none of the other rings would fit. She’d get frustrated. This is what I was trying to do with my essay: jump to the top ring without building the foundation of blue, yellow, green, and orange for my reader. 

As the author of my essay, I need to build that foundation of blue, yellow, green, and orange. Now in my final draft, I use a short personal narrative about my daughter (much like the one in the previous paragraph) to illustrate the main idea of the essay. I state my purpose briefly but completely, and I even include an example of a time that I attempted to use an object to evoke emotion in a short story, and failed. This time, as I worked on what felt like the 500^th draft, I felt like I was building and supporting my own idea. I had found my expertise in the topic. I appreciate the Month of Writing for giving me the courage to turn to the blank page, and to turn to it again. Without the blank page, I might never have found myself in this essay.

We would do well to remind our students and ourselves that we have a place not only to craft our writing, but to write about ourselves as part of our craft. As my student said, it’s not enough to tell the story. We need to become the story. Next year, the School for New Learning will partner with the University Center for Writing-based Learning to hold the 2015 DePaul University Month of Writing Challenge. Encourage your students to participate. Offer extra credit. Participate yourself! The Month of Writing can be a wonderful time to extend the invitation of the blank page, and to invite students to bring themselves to that page.

And, if you’re interested in the complete text of my student’s talk above, or to read more Month of Writing Pep Talks written by SNL students attempting the Month of Writing Challenge, see the Pep Talks page of the Month of Writing website.

The Pleasure Principle

by Kamilah Cummings

Earlier this month I participated in a webinar presented by Dr. David Kirkland of New York University titled A Song of the Smoke: Critical Thoughts on the Literacies of Young Black Men. The webinar was part of Georgia State University’s “Conversations in Global Literacy” series. Kirkland’s presentation examined how educational bias has marginalized black male youth and created a cycle of miseducation that disengages them from the classroom at all levels of education. As part of rethinking the ways educators address this crisis, he offered thoughts on how to better engage these students and their literacies in the classroom. One of the thoughts Kirkland offered for how to do this is to replace “reading, writing, and arithmetic” as the rudiments of education with “pleasure, play, curiosity, and creativity” (Kirkland).

Although we envision the classroom as a place of inclusion, research reflects the reality that many classrooms from kindergarten to college remain places of exclusion. In the article, “Are we having fun yet? Students, social class, and the pleasures of literacy,” Bronwyn T. Williams writes, “if we consider how experiences of reading, writing, and other forms of popular culture influence students’ perceptions of pleasure and literacy, social class has a role to play. Intelligence and pleasure obviously have no class boundaries, but the experiences students have with different forms of texts and communication often do have them. (Williams 339-340)” Williams admits that this can be an uncomfortable subject for educators, but it is a fact that both he and Kirkland argue educators must acknowledge to better facilitate student engagement and learning. Kirkland believes a pedagogical approach that incorporates pleasure, play, curiosity, and creativity can create a more inclusive learning experience.

Certainly, Kirkland and Williams are not the only scholars to recognize the need for pleasure in the classroom. However, as they both acknowledge, the pleasure principle has all but disappeared from most college classrooms. For many educators, pleasure and learning are mutually exclusive experiences that can only unite in specific disciplines.  

Following Kirkland’s presentation, I thought about ways that I use “pleasure, play, curiosity and creativity” to engage students. As much as writing teachers, or teachers in any discipline, love our subject matter we have to accept that many students do not share our love or enthusiasm. With adult learners in particular, there might be a multitude of reasons why students have been disengaged from writing. However, if we find ways to make it more pleasurable and, dare I say fun, perhaps we can disarm some of their fears and frustrations.

This reminded me of a recent class where several of the students confessed that they, “did not like writing.” Rather than attempt to unpack all the reasons why they felt this way, I decided to try to make writing fun so that they could gain pleasure from it while revealing their writing strengths. So, I brought the party game “Table Topics” to class. The game consists of cards with thought-provoking questions on a range of topics from popular culture to politics. It is marketed as a conversation-starter. I used it as a form of low stakes journaling/prewriting assignment. Students pulled two cards and were allowed to decide which question they wanted to answer. I gave them 15 minutes to write a response to the question. I was surprised at how much fun the students had with the game. However, more importantly, they were surprised by how much they were able to write and how much pleasure they had writing it. In previous low stakes journaling/prewriting assignments, students sometimes struggled to write for the allotted time.

The University of New Hampshire’s English Department Director argues, “We can make great claims for the future utility of writing, but if we make it a dutiful act of delayed gratification, devoid of immediate pleasure, students will not write voluntarily, and they will not really engage with the work we require” (Writing and Pleasure). My experience supported this. Playing a game delivered more benefits than I expected. I was able to use their responses to show them how they could effectively write a thesis, use narration, support points, use descriptive detail, compare subjects, and more.  I learned about my students’ outside interests and experiences, which I pulled from to further engage them by selecting more pleasurable future readings that aligned with their interests. I also referred to their game responses when providing later feedback on written assignments. Rather than compromise the academic integrity of the class, as some fear might happen, I felt playing the game enhanced it.

Williams cautions that “taking pleasure seriously in the literacy classroom is not about making everything a game” (Williams 341). Instead, he argues that “it is a matter of encouraging students to bridge supposed barriers between creative and critical work and to understand how pleasures in interpreting and creating texts of all kinds can connect to building pleasure in academic literacies” (Williams 341). I agree. I did not turn my classroom into game night at SNL. However, I did find that one night of play helped me to improve student engagement in my class and yielded a more pleasurable overall learning experience.

  

Works Cited

Kirkland, David E. A Song of the Smoke: Critical Thoughts on the Literacies of Young Black Men. 14 September 2014.

Williams, Bronwyn T. "Are we having fun yet? Students, social class, and the pleasures of literacy." Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (December 2004/January 2005): 338-342.

Writing and Pleasure. 2003. 29 September 2014 <http://cola.unh.edu/english/writing-and-pleasure>.

SNLwriting on the radio

Check out Steffanie Triller and Edward Evins on DePaul Radio this past Friday! They were guests on the UCWbL's Scrawl Radio show and talked about what makes SNL unique, how to work with SNL writers, and the Month of Writing.
http://ucwbling.chicagolandwritingcenters.org/live-from-depaul-its-snl-scrawl-s11-e02/

Month of Writing Challenge

For more information about the Month of Writing Challenge, see our website: https://depaul.digication.com/snl_month_of_writing_2014