The Juggling Act of Composition Instruction: Collaboration Among Students, Instructors, and Writing Consultants (October 2006)

By Dana Bisignani

Most Purdue students will take only one semester of English composition, usually in their freshman year, during which they write intensively. Many sigh and whine throughout the course: I’m a bad writer, I’m never going to have to do this in my field, I never liked English. But once students leave their composition classes, they are sometimes surprised to see how much writing is, in fact, required of them in fields as different from English as Animal Science or Engineering.

When ICaP made over the English 101/102 sequence into English 106 and 108, they did so with their eyes on the impact technology was having on both students’ composition processes and the rhetorical contexts in which more and more writing appeared. In short, the program redefined the ways in which we think of our students’ literacy. While incoming freshmen were often savvier than their teachers at navigating such technology, were they thinking critically about those new contexts?

In addition to incorporating technology into lesson plans and assignments, instructors who teach English 106 or 108 are faced with two major challenges. Not only do they coax students out of their current comfort zones and get them thinking critically about the world around them, they also focus them on the brass tacks of the written word and its multiple contexts. But students entering college run the gamut of strengths and weaknesses as writers. While some struggle with organizing their material, others might have trouble with sentence structure. As instructors are performing this rhetorical juggling act, they must convince their students (in particular their non-English majors, who are often the majority) that they are learning what they will need beyond the walls of Heavilon Hall.

However, preparing students for the writing endeavors they will encounter throughout their academic careers (and eventually beyond) is a tall order for instructors who see their students for only a single semester. With at least twenty students per class and 10-minute bi-weekly conferences, instructors often find themselves strapped for time with individual students. The goal of the Writing Lab is to extend the one-on-one work that instructors are able to do with their students.

Often, students learn about the resources available at the Writing Lab and on the OWL from their 106 or 108 instructors, who schedule lab tours at the beginning of each semester and encourage their students to use the consultants at the Lab as a fresh audience for their writing. During the first two weeks of the current fall semester, the consultants at the Writing Lab performed 74 of Lab tours for instructors and their students. As the semester moved into full swing, consultants continued to visit instructors’ classrooms in order to espouse the free services at the Lab and encourage students to drop by or visit the OWL.

The collaboration that the Writing Lab fosters between its consultants and the students at Purdue also reaches the instructors who encourage their students to come. Instructors can request in-class workshops at any time during the semester on any issue of writing, grammar, research and documentation, as well as visual rhetoric. Ready-made PowerPoint presentations are available on the OWL and can be downloaded for free, and of course, the Writing Lab’s consultants are always happy to meet with instructors to discuss writing or projects. Consultants can offer feedback on assignments, offer advice on how to approach various writing issues in the classroom, and serve as a sounding board for any kind of writing on which instructors may be working.

The Lab is currently encouraging students to bring not just essays, but also visual assignments in the hopes that the visual rhetoric being discussed in 106 and 108 courses will become part of the ongoing discussion that takes place every day among those in the Lab and in the Introductory Composition Program at Purdue. As students are required to write more, and to write in increasingly varied contexts, the collaboration that takes place among the Writing Lab, composition instructors, and students is becoming increasingly important. If you would like to know more about services the Writing Lab offers to both students and instructors, please drop by Heavilon 226 or call 494-3723.