In his op-ed ("Poor Writing at Dartmouth," Jan. 16), Joseph Asch '79 gives the impression that all that the Writing Program has done to date is change some names: the Composition Center to RWIT, and English 2-3 and English 5 to Writing 2-3 and Writing 5. Oh, and we also "upgraded the training of the non-tenure-track adjunct professors who teach these courses."
If Mr. Asch truly thinks that this is all we have accomplished in the 18 months since the Writing Program started up, then I need to enlighten him. As Chair of the Writing Program at Dartmouth, I am happy to take this opportunity to do so, and to update the rest of the campus in the process.
Among the programs at Dartmouth, the Writing Program is unique in two ways. First, because the Writing Program administers First-Year Seminars, we interact with almost every department and program within Arts and Sciences. Second, our core faculty members are non-tenure-track adjuncts. Teaching writing is what these instructors do. It is not incidental to their intellectual pursuits; it is their focus.
The term "writing" encompasses much more than just creating grammatically correct sentences. Good writing -- real writing -- entails research, thinking, analysis, organization and revision. Moreover, not all compositions are written in the traditional sense; we are seeing an increasing number of compositions in new media.
If you buy into the above, then you will understand why we organize the first-year writing courses that the Writing Program administers -- Writing 2-3, Writing 5, and the First-Year Seminars -- to include each of the above elements. You would also see why it makes sense for us to collaborate with the Library and Academic Computing in creating RWIT, the Student Center for Research, Writing, and Information Technology. RWIT is an "occasional innovation" such as Mr. Asch calls for at the end of his op-ed, and not just a renamed Composition Center.
What has the Writing Program done with the first-year writing courses? We have defined goals for students and faculty. Traditionally, writing courses are borne from English departments, and ours are no exception. Because we want students to be able to write about more than literature, we have encouraged instructors in our first-year writing courses to incorporate sources other than literature into their syllabi. We have also expanded the roster of instructors to include faculty whose primary appointments are outside the English Department. This term, for example, we have Writing 5 instructors from the AMELL, Art History and Native American Studies departments.
The Writing Program promotes professional development for instructors teaching the first-year writing courses. We invite all faculty members teaching first-year writing courses to participate and, contrary to the impression given by Mr. Asch's op-ed, that includes many tenure-track faculty members. In fact, along with the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL) and the Library, we hosted a workshop on student writing and research at the Minary Center last October, and most attendees were tenure-track faculty members, representing all three divisions of Arts and Sciences. For our adjunct faculty members, the Writing Program provides a structure in which they can develop professionally; our adjuncts regularly attend discussions and workshops so that they can better serve our students.
We provide additional support for the first-year writing courses. Joe derides the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) students who serve as teaching assistants for Writing 2-3, but perhaps he does not realize that several of our TAs enter the MALS program with extensive teaching experience, or that they transmit the research methods they learn in the MALS program to their Writing 2-3 students. Our Writing Assistants, whom we draw from the same pool of students as the RWIT staff, work with faculty in Writing 5 and First-Year Seminars (as well as in other courses). All of our student staff members -- TAs, Writing Assistants and RWIT tutors -- undergo extensive training in how to work with undergraduate students on their writing. They don't just mark up student papers; they help students think through and become better editors of their own writing. Moreover, our student staff also gains educationally, as well as from the experience of working directly with Dartmouth faculty.
Although we have focused so far on the first-year writing courses plus our support services, the Writing Program is looking toward other aspects of writing as well. Thanks to the support of the Dean of Graduate Studies and the Thayer School of Engineering, we are currently recruiting an English as a Second Language Specialist who will work primarily with graduate students in order to help them become better TAs and writers. We are also developing a plan for Writing in the Disciplines at Dartmouth, a plan that encourages participation by faculty and students across Arts and Sciences.
I admire Mr. Asch for the degree to which he demonstrates how much he cares about writing. You can talk about writing all you want, but Mr. Asch has put his money where his mouth is. I agree that we need to improve student writing, and I agree that the Departmental Editor Program, which Mr. Asch has generously funded for five years, has been a positive addition. I do not see the DEP as competition for other on-campus writing resources; rather, I see it as complementary.
I do question how well the DEP can scale up in order to serve all of Arts and Sciences, however. Providing DEP support in every department and program to match the current level in Art History, Religion and Mathematics would be very expensive. We have approximately 40 departments and programs, and the larger departments would certainly require more than one Departmental Editor. We would be looking at adding on the order of 50 editors. Not only is that an expensive proposition, but finding 50 available offices on campus would be a formidable challenge. Moreover, if we were to stick with Mr. Asch's model of hiring high school English teachers, we would have to recruit several from outside the area, unless we want to drain local-area high schools.
Many of our academic disciplines have specific conventions that are very far afield from high-school English. I commend the current Departmental Editors for getting themselves to the point that they are able to serve their departments, but I doubt that our luck would hold out if we had to hire 50 more. As a professor in the Computer Science Department, I would expect a high school English teacher to take quite a while to master the conventions of writing mathematics and computer science.
Creating change at a so-called "enduring institution" such as Dartmouth takes time. Even with our limited resources, the Writing Program has gotten off to a good start. We look forward to continuing to work with students and faculty across Arts and Sciences to advance toward our common goal of improving student writing.
