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Abstract Conclusions
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IV. Conclusions A. Next Steps 1. directions for further research on writing instruction, including possible action research projects by faculty; 2. plans for more professional development in this area among faculty; 3. plans for a campus writing center (being resuscitated by the Writing Requirements Committee) 4. plans for addressing the faculty workload issue so that it does not impede our ability to respond effectively to student writing. 5. plans for addressing the status and stratification of writing instruction. Having led this project for over a year, I would like to use this concluding "space" to reflect on what it means and how I see the "bigger picture" within which this project is nested. I will also suggest a few directions for "next steps". I have led other, larger projects in the past and so my reflections on this one are also informed by those other experiences. One of the things I always worry about when initiating a new project that involves other people is the "so what?" factor. Will what we do make any difference in the busy scheme of institutional life? How can I maximize the little pot of money I have to actually create some positive impact? Also, always at the heart of any project I am involved with is the question, "Whom do I most want to benefit by doing this?" And because I have a strong desire to promote equity, I always wonder whether the projects I carry out help to achieve that. I have to say that I am not passionate about responding to student writing. I enjoy it occasionally, and procrastinate and dread it most of the time. Even when the writing is quite good and a joy to read, still I find that the process involves considerable drudgery. Despite all of the excellent, evidence-based advice provided by Ferris, Goldstein, and the eight faculty projects, I still have to force myself to do it and do it as well as I can. The reason that I wanted to focus on improving our responses to student writing is not, therefore, because I love sitting down with a stack of student papers to read. Rather, I have come to see it as one very concrete means by which we can promote greater equity in education. Unlike educational equality, which assumes that all students should have access to the same teachers, curriculum, and resources, equity in education is about providing different supports for different students so that they can all achieve the standards we set for them. Equity involves a fundamental recognition that students are different and have different levels preparation for university writing. They do not jump from the proverbial "level playing field" onto our campus. Providing feedback on student writing, whether we do it through written commentary, peer review sessions, one-to-one conferences, or other ways, is one of the most individualized moments in instruction. It is therefore one of the key moments through which we are capable of providing different supports for different students. Clear, well-constructed feedback can actually make a positive difference, as this project demonstrates. It serves both instructional functions (teaching students what to do and how to do it) and assessment functions (showing them what they need to improve and giving them a sense of what they did well). It can also serve to connect what students knew before (background knowledge) with what they need to learn, and can reinforce previous instruction given in the classroom. In all of these ways, more effective feedback can mean opening the institutional gateway a little wider so that students who have traditionally failed to "measure up" because their writing does not meet standards know more clearly what is expected and how to achieve it. Thus, improving our feedback to students on their writing is not just a technical skill; it is one of the very concrete ways through which we can materialize the notion of equity. If we miss that opportunity (by not doing it at all, or not doing it well), then we are unwittingly creating yet another differential structure that allows students with all the "cultural capital" to move ahead, and the ones who, for various reasons, do not have that middle class mainstream cultural capital, lose out yet again. It is clear from this project that the effectiveness of faculty response to student writing is partially a matter of faculty development (which the project focused on), and partially an institutional issue. If faculty members are teaching four courses and have more than 20 students per class, it is always going to be difficult to impossible to provide effective, high quality feedback. Thus, while faculty can benefit and become more effective through projects such as this one, we should not be lulled into thinking that this will take care of our need to improve the quality of student writing. Faculty development must not be seen as the only answer to the problem. Institutional change is the other side of the coin. Specifically, the institution as a whole needs to continue to seek ways to reduce the faculty workload so that we can pay closer attention to students and their individual needs and so that we can develop our own research and scholarship in the area of writing instruction. In addition, given that faculty members do not all have expertise in teaching writing, we need a strong institutional commitment to providing more support services in writing. There is currently talk about a campus-wide writing center - a good idea, but one that needs considerable fleshing out to make sure that if realized, it will really serve the needs of our population. Moreover, we need more consistency in when, during a student's time on our campus, writing is addressed. It cannot be relegated only to GE courses and 100 W, which many students take in their final year after completing all the other courses for their major. Lastly, our campus community needs to acknowledge that the bulk of writing intensive instruction on our campus is done by people who are not fully vested in the institution - part time faculty. Although we are certainly not alone in this (most other CSU campuses are similar in this way), it does present an uncomfortable picture in which writing instruction is socially stratified. We say that we take writing instruction seriously and want it to be "across the curriculum." Yet we relegate it to part-time faculty, many of whom are excellent teachers - yet they often have to teach in two or three institutions in order to cobble together adequate salaries. This sends a mixed message: We take writing instruction seriously, but at the same time, it is just a "skill", and the teaching of skills, as opposed to disciplinary content, can be relegated to teachers of lower status in the academy. It is a positive sign that five out of eight faculty projects were led by full time faculty, and that many full time faculty members attended the Symposium. This level of involvement at all levels of the institution needs to continue to increase; one way to do this is to create more incentives for faculty at all levels and in all disciplines to focus on writing. Another way is to question and confront our own biases and assumptions about writing instruction as a skill. Ochoa, in her project report, points out that in her self described "random and anecdotal" review of green sheets for 100W, she gets an impression of "faculty churning out students for whom the labor of writing is taught rather like administering a bitter herbal remedy, necessary yet bereft of the passion of life, and that seems to undermine the import of human communication. As a scholar and an author, I constantly think about the role of the writer in society and in particular how writers, critical and creative, can effect social change." The everyday, mundane practice of responding to students' writing, when seen in this larger context, suddenly takes on a larger significance. It is not only a skill, but part of a larger conversation involving change of individual capacities and change in institutions. |
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