by Erin Vieira, WIC Intern

As my time as a consultant at the Writing Center comes to a close, I find myself saddened to leave the wonderful people I’ve worked with, but also proud to have been part of such a great community. In reflecting about what I will take from my experience over the past years I’ve worked with the Writing Center, I’m reminded of “writing transfer”. Writing transfer, in one of its many definitions, can be described as how “previous learning influences current and future learning” (Elon Statement on Writing Transfer) and how that knowledge is used in a specific way.

Writing transfer can act as a framework to explore in self-reflection, becoming a useful tool to engage with understanding your own writing and learning process.  Below, I explore how writing transfer has shaped my own writing journey as well as my work in the OSU Writing Center.

Writing Transfer as a Writing Consultant

1. Situational Awareness

Working at the Writing Center has been both beneficial to me not only as a peer writing consultant, but as a learner myself. When working with so many different students, I find there are so many fascinating stories and subjects that are outside of my traditional realm of expertise, from learning about professional writing in the media to science papers about fictional fish. As an English major, I tend to focus on literature and fiction, but working at the Writing Center has allowed me to see a much wider variety of different topics.

Understanding this allows for “situational awareness”; there are so many different methods and knowledge of writing and writing subjects at play during a consultation. Writing itself is such a broad category (persuasive, argumentative) that a person in one field may focus on more than another. Having a consistent reminder of the different genres of writing in consultations opened me up as a learner to take in new things. At the Writing Center, having situational awareness keeps me engaged with the different fields of writers that come in for assistance. Whether you’re a student, a professor, or a faculty member, it’s always important to continue expanding your awareness, both of your own field and of the world around you. When working with writers, it is important to continue having this in mind and understanding there are different levels of knowledge at play.

2. The Revision Process

Through my awareness of how writing transfer works, the methods of revising and drafting have transformed my process for my own work. With writing transfer, anything that is new or unfamiliar to the writer draws from the writer’s fount of knowledge via their methodologies, skills, strategies, and rhetoric. In learning new methodologies such as pedagogical approaches at the Writing Center, a new approach to writing can be taken. When approaching my own writing, I find I pull from all of these elements as well, with the current knowledge I have as a writer being taken into account before I begin to learn new skills and strategies to consider later work. When working with other writers, I ask questions like “how should I organize this piece for the best flow of information?” and “what audience should I be considering?” Asking myself these questions in turn is a great reminder of the writing process; the approach of my work draws on the transfer of knowledge. Keeping knowledge transfer in mind allows me to use my own when assisting writers to offer better guidance. 

3. The Power of Collaboration

One of the most valuable things I’ve learned as a writing consultant is the power of collaboration. When I first began the process of peer feedback in university, I thought of it from a critical standpoint, ready with my red pen in hand to highlight, circle, and strike through any error that came across my path. Through the Writing Center, I’ve since come to learn that this is no way to approach giving feedback—it’s all about the collaboration between the consultant and the writer.

Writers are sharing a personal part of themselves when they offer another a chance to see their writing; it can be a very raw, honest experience for them. When writers face a new task, they tend to draw on previous knowledge and strategies. What they’re currently working with is what feels comfortable to them, and it can be frightening to come to someone, step outside of that comfort zone, and open up to critique. In understanding this, consulting a writer becomes more than just critiquing their work—it’s lifting them up, understanding that what they’ve written comes from the heart and that there are features of every writer’s text that deserves praise, and features that invite revision. In moving forward with not just others’ work, but my own as well, this is something I’m going to continue keeping in mind. Offering both constructive criticism as well as praise creates confidence in writers and encourages them to continue improving.

My personal favorite sessions were brainstorming consultations, which act as collaborative and informative consultations with other writers. Depending on the consultation, they can range from the writer already having a broad range of ideas and needing to narrow it down or having no idea where to start at all. These reflect back on my earlier reflection of growing as a learner—discovering new things. Elon University notes that “prior knowledge is a complex construct that can benefit or hinder writing transfer”. This holds very true when it comes to brainstorming with a writer. When I’m brainstorming with someone, I get to challenge my own perceived knowledge and open up my mind to a broader field of things I haven’t considered before, while also keeping in mind that I may not possess all the information. Taking over a brainstorming session with my own perceived knowledge of the subject wouldn’t allow for the proper kind of transfer. Instead, a brainstorm consultation should give the ability to bounce ideas back and forth with the writer in a collective amalgamation of our own knowledge, challenging the both of us to consider new topics and how to integrate the kind of information they’re seeking to write about.

Looking to the Future

The beauty of considering what I will take away from working at the Writing Center is that it is a sweet harmony of everything else I’ve reflected on. As a graduate, I’m currently considering going into the editing field, becoming a novelist, or perhaps both! As an editor, asking those whose work you review requires consideration towards their metacognitive abilities, prompting them to self-reflect on what they produce. Being able to react, consider, and constructively critique any and all types of writing is an invaluable skill for an editor. As a novelist, I believe observing and understanding the environment around me serves to enhance my personal writing skills, and a drive to learn heightens the content I produce. Engaging in development, whether it be my own or prompting others towards their personal growth, is vital to growing myself and my expertise. No matter the field I end up stepping into, what I’ve learned from the Writing Center will certainly carry on to my future work.

The Value of Reflection

Thanks to my time at the Writing Center, I’ve fostered my own growth as well as others in my journey as a consultant. Allowing a moment of personal reflection for myself and applying it to the framework of writing transfer encourages me to continue practicing these qualities for my own sake. Understanding my transfer of writing from a consultant perspective helps me continue transferring my learning to future endeavors. I encourage anyone—student, consultant, or faculty alike—to consider how writing transfer affects their own proficiencies, and to provide the opportunity for self-reflection.

If you’re interested in learning more about writing transfer, you can read about here.

Congratulations to this year’s awardees!

Student name	Paper Title	College	Nominating Major	Nominating Professor
Grace Burks	Attracting Pacific Northwest Pawpaw (Asimina Triloba) Pollinators Through Dual-Use Production Management	Agricultural Sciences	Agricultural Sciences	KJ Joseph
Katrina Doggett	The Racehorse Industry: ethical and welfare considerations of standard practices	Agricultural Sciences	Animal Sciences	Giovanna Rosenlicht
Erin Jackson	Starkey Experimental Forest and Range Prescribed Grazing Plan, Union County, OR	Agricultural Sciences	Rangeland Sciences	Claudia Ingham
Madeleine Reyes	Economic Analysis of Policy Options for Water Scarcity in California Agriculture	Agricultural Sciences	Agricultural and Food Business Management	Penny Diebel
Monica Vickers	Cost-benefit Analysis for Invasive Weed Control: The Case of Knotweed in Skagit County	Agricultural Sciences	Environmental Economics and Policy	Penny Diebel
Juriana E. Barboza Sagrero	Guinea pig model of mild hyperandrogenemia – is it a suitable model for women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? A pilot study.	Agricultural Sciences	BioResource Research	Katharine Field
Sarah Ellis	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	Business Administration	Angelika Buchanan
Nicole Kotwasinski	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	Business Information Systems	Angelika Buchanan
Tiffany Huestis	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	Entrepreneurship	Angelika Buchanan
Katie Wallace	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	Finance	Angelika Buchanan
Dhrushil Patel	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	International Business	Angelika Buchanan
Kendyl Druffel	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	Management	Angelika Buchanan
Suzi McConnell	Personal Ethical Action Plan	Business	Marketing	Angelika Buchanan
Maria Baker	Cold Desert Climatology of the Patagonia Steppe in Argentina	CEOAS	Environmental Sciences	Andrea Allan
Christopher Egyed	Describing the Climate of the Lake Superior Basin: The Influence of Continentality and the Great Lakes on a Humid Continental Climate	CEOAS	Geography & Geospatial Science	Andrea Allan
Giulia Ann Wood	Determining Arctic krill spawning regions and impacts of warming on abundance and distribution	CEOAS	Ocean Sciences	Kim Bernard
Ranyu (Sienna) Shi	Neural Prosthetic Hand Design Impact Assessment	Engineering	Electrical & Computer Engineering	Rachael Cate
Rachel Villarreal	Connection to the Lan	Forestry	Forest Engineering	Jon Souder
Jay Sharpe	Cooperating to Address the Risk of Wildland Fire: A Policy Brief	Forestry	Forestry	Mindy Crandall
Alissa Liu	The Cultivation of Social Harmony: A Discussion of Tradition in Chinese Contemporary Styles and Popular Music	Liberal Arts	Music	Kimary Fick
Ana R. Pearse	Marina Abramović’s Rhythm O: Reimagining the Roles of Artist and Observer	Liberal Arts	Art	Lei Xue
Grace Knutsen	Colonial Combatants: Moroccan Soldiers in the Twentieth-Century French Army	Liberal Arts	History	Jonathan Katz
Tristan Mitchell	Scientific Realism and Trust as a Remedy for Coronavirus Vaccine Skepticism	Liberal Arts	Philosophy	Jonathan Kaplan
Kendrea Beers	Embodied Wisdom in Mahāyāna Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity	Liberal Arts	Religious Studies	Geoffrey Barstow
Shane Ania Louise Dela Cruz Ty	Individual Interventions for Social Justice	Liberal Arts	Ethnic Studies	Marta Maldonado
Rhythm Kristich	The Impact of Political Ideology on Aggression and Compassion	Liberal Arts	Psychology	Chris Sanchez
Maire K. Hargaden	Does Universal Early Childcare Affect Academic Outcomes?	Liberal Arts	Economics	Taylor Rhodes
Duncan Sean Kemp	The Economic Path Dependency of Foreign Extraction Duration: Why Colonialism Still	Liberal Arts	Political Science	Michael W. Trevathan
Whitney Thaler	Student Debt and the Alteration of Adulthood Independence	Liberal Arts	Sociology	Mark Edwards
Joshua Stickrod	Intertextual Revisionism: Recontextualizing The Eurocentric Literary Tradition In Hannah Crafts’s The Bondwoman’s Narrative	Liberal Arts	English	Megan Ward
Evaggelos Klonis	100 Dinge: Wie entkommt man der hedonistischen Tretmühle?	Liberal Arts	German	Sebastian Heiduschke
Christina Jackson	Capital vs. Capability: Evaluation in Early Childhood Education	PHHS	HDFS	Kathleen McDonnell
Katie Sawtelle	Women’s Health Narratives: A Cervical Cancer Prevention Program for College-Age Women in Portland, Oregon	PHHS	Health Promotion & Health Behavior	Kari-Lyn K. Sakuma
Andrew McKelvey	Condensation of 4-tert-butylbenzophenone via Friedel-Crafts Acylation and Characterization of the Synthesized Product.	Science	Chemistry	Christine Pastorek
Jared Jensen	RESEARCH PROJECT: Mosquito Sensory Modulation — Effects of a striped pattern and olfactory cues on mosquito host-seeking behaviors	Science	Integrative Biology	Meta Landys
Genevieve Connolly	Using Euclidean Geometry to Construct Objects in the Elliptic Klein Disk	Science	Math	Tevian Dray
Richard Puro	Photodimerization of Organic Semiconductors in the Strong Coupling Regime	Science	Physics	Ethan Minot

By: Sarah Tinker Perrault, WIC Director

Spring in WIC is a season of awards and final reflections, and although we remain in remote mode, we have much to celebrate and look back on.

First, the awards! I am happy to report that this year 37 students received WIC Culture of Writing Award in their disciplines. The number alone does not convey how impressive their work is, but you can read their names and paper titles, and the names of the faculty who nominated them, in 2021 WIC Culture of Writing Awards: Celebrating Writing in the Disciplines. 

Numbers also cannot capture the excitement of WIC work, but they can provide some idea of its breadth:

• In fall, 12 faculty members completed the WIC faculty seminar, zooming in each week from Corvallis, La Grande, Bend, and Virginia.
• In winter, 207 faculty, staff, and students attended Mike Caulfield’s talk on “Teaching Truth and Trust in an Era of Digital Dissensus.”
• WIC’s six workshop events had a total of 85 participants; of those, faculty participants reached 7,812 OSU students this year, over 1,122 of them via WIC classes.
• OSU undergraduates now have ten new WIC courses in disciplines ranging from Polar Oceanography to Music Education.

Finally, spring is time to express gratitude to all members of the WIC team.

Thanks for this year’s WIC GTA, Alex Mahmou-Werndli, who is graduating this month with an MA in Rhetoric and Writing. Alex served as a WIC intern in 2019-2020, and his previous experience with WIC, as well as his steady, thoughtful management of his GTA duties, were invaluable assets during this pandemic year (not to mention my first year at OSU as WIC Director).

Thanks also to WIC undergraduate intern Erin Viera who is graduating this month with a BA in English. Erin has been an invaluable help in all the WIC events, and in many behind-the-scenes activities, and she also dreamed up and created a new newsletter column that offers faculty a first-hand view of how Writing Center consultations work.

I am grateful as well to graduate intern and first-year MA student in Rhetoric and Writing, Jessica Al-Faqih, whose interpersonal and research skills have enhanced WIC since she joined us in Winter 2021. Jess will continue with the WIC team as the 2021-2022 WIC GTA.

Thank you to Caryn Stoess, the WIC operations manager, who helps make my job as WIC director not only immeasurably easier, but also highly enjoyable.

Members of the WIC Advisory Board have provided indispensable guidance, and I thank them for their dedication to WIC, individually and as a group.

Last, but far from least, thanks to all WIC faculty, and all faculty who teach writing, no matter what the course level or discipline. Because of you, we have a strong culture of writing at OSU.

By: Alexander Mahmou-Werndli, WIC GTA

The WIC team is happy to report on a successful Spring event series throughout our ongoing remote modality. Each of this term’s four events is summarized below, along with a bonus announcement for an upcoming event this fall.

Additionally, you can view recordings and download materials from each event listed below on WIC’s website.

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April 9 – The art of asking questions: How to prime stronger student engagement

In this workshop, Jessica Al-Faqih, Erin Vieira, and Alexander Mahmou-Werndli (WIC Interns and GTA) explored how the way questions are phrased can inspire more engaged responses, clarify instructor expectations, and influence student learning. After exploring several examples, participants were asked to identify common questions in their instruction and academic support work, then to consider how those questions could be revised to better prompt the types of meaningful responses that participants hoped to elicit.

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April 20 – 3 quick hacks to build cognizance, agency, and logical flow in a STEM WIC class

Lauren Dalton (Biochemistry and Biophysics) shared advice from her experience teaching BB 317 (Scientific Theory and Practice), distilled into three quick “hacks”: Learn the importance of clear communication, Build agency through writing, and Teach transitions via analogy. A discussion about common challenges and how to apply these principles in practice followed, and participants left with some concrete suggestions to try out in their classrooms.

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May 5 – Whose language? Inclusive teaching of academic communication across disciplines

Adam Schwartz (OSU), Sergio Loza (UO), and Devin Grammon (UO) led this discussion on inclusive language practices and perspectives. They began by establishing guiding assumptions about language, including the existence of privilege and the importance of language to identity. They explored these further via the introduction of sociolinguistic concepts, and frequently prompted participants to analyze their own experiences with language through reflective questions. Finally, the discussion turned to the often problematic ways in which multilingualism and bilingualism are evaluated in the academy.

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June 9 – Using learning outcomes to create clear assignments

This workshop, led by Sarah Tinker Perrault (WIC Director), demonstrated how course learning outcomes and WIC learning outcomes can be operationalized in writing assignments. Sarah began by exploring how course outcomes could be divided into categories of factual, conceptual, procedural, and self knowledge that students must develop and demonstrate to meet learning outcomes. Participants spent most of their time using graphic organizers to explicate these types of knowledge in the contexts of their own course outcomes and discussing differences between disciplines. These graphic organizers are available along with the recordings on the WIC website.

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RESCHEDULED – How to design accessible and engaging course material

September 20th, 12:00-12:50 |Milam 215 and via Zoom

Due to factors beyond their control, the presenters have asked to postpone this workshop until fall. It will be held on Monday, September 20th, in order to allow participants to make adjustments to materials before classes start on the 22nd. COVID restrictions permitting, this event will be held in person, and pizza and beverages will be provided for in-person attendees. This workshop will also be accessible via Zoom regardless of in-person status.

Description: Do you struggle to make syllabi, assignments, and other course materials look inviting? Do you worry that they are hard to read, hinder understanding, or that they’re inaccessible to students with visual impairments or reading difficulties? Learn easy-to-apply design principles at the “How to design accessible and engaging course material” workshop on September 20th. (You’ll also learn what not to do!) In this 50 minute interactive workshop, design faculty members Christine Gallagher, Deann Garcia, and Andrea Marks will offer a range of practical tips and lead you through how to apply them to your own course materials.

Whether you’d prefer to attend in person or online, you can register via this link.

For a higher resolution version, download the following .pdf:

You can also view the talk in its entirety here.

“When Dr. Natchee Barnd presented me with the WIC award, I actually cried because, still, in my senior year, I wasn’t terribly confident in my writing and I think part of me thought I was undeserving of it for some reason. The award spoke far more to my skills than I realized, and it validated all my hard work that I’d put into my classes (I’m welling up just writing about it).”

Elena Ramirez Robles, College of Liberal Arts, 2018

“Thank you for your support.  The Culture of Writing Award was the first award I received during my academic career.  It’s an accomplishment with significant positive impacts on young scholars during a vital stage of their progressive young careers.”

Andrew Larkin, College of Science, 2010

Participation in the Culture of Writing Awards has thrived since 2006, as 326 total students have earned recognition and cash awards for both individual and collaborative writing projects. WIC would like to thank all participating units for their continued desire to recognize and reward outstanding student writing.

How to Nominate a Paper:

Units comprised of more than one major/designator may give an award for each major/designator (but not for each concentration). The manner in which a paper is selected is up to the unit, but here are three possible models to follow:

• Model 1: The academic unit might use the unit awards committee to ask faculty to nominate and submit their best undergraduate paper for the year. The committee chooses the awardee.
• Model 2: The academic unit wants the awardee to be from a WIC course, so one or more WIC instructors select the best paper.
• Model 3: The academic writing occurs in a capstone course with a team project. The unit selects the team with the best-written capstone project for the award. When the award goes to a team of four, some units divide the $100 award four ways, while other units contribute more than $50 so that individuals will receive a more substantial award.

Once a paper has been selected, fill out the nomination form in its entirety and submit the form to Caryn Stoess no later than 5:00 p.m. on May 25th, 2021.

For more information regarding the Culture of Writing Awards, please visit our website.

By Sarah Tinker Perrault, WIC Director

Outside, March means daffodils and crocuses, migratory birds, and alternating t-shirt and winter jacket weather. Inside, it means tired faculty working on wrapping up winter quarter and getting ready for spring quarter. 

Here is what WIC can offer from winter, and for spring.

In winter, we had two excellent information literacy events, and the content of each is available online. In January, digital literacy expert Mike Caulfield gave a talk on “Teaching Truth and Trust in an Era of Digital Dissensus,” and in February OSU librarians Hannah Rempel and Jane Nichols offered a workshop on how to integrate information literacy so that students are empowered and create stronger connections in their thinking.  

If you missed these events, or were there and want a refresher, please avail yourself of the following resources:

• Mike Caulfield talk: Recorded video, written event overview, and an infographic of key ideas
• Rempel and Nichols workshop: Recorded video and written event overview

Another winter project was to continue WIC’s year-long focus (begun in a fall interview with Dr. Ana Milena Ribero) on language difference and inclusive pedagogies. This term we add a video essay on linguistic equity created by graduate and undergraduate student members of the WIC team.

Looking ahead to spring, we will offer an array of events, including one on how to practice linguistic inclusiveness in teaching. Normally offered as the Spring Lunch Series, this quarter’s events will be a bit more varied in time of day—think of them as the Spring Snack Series—but no less useful than in previous years.  Here is the lineup, with links for registering:

• The art of asking questions: How to prime stronger student engagement
• 3 quick hacks to build cognizance, agency, & logical flow in STEM WIC
• Whose language? Inclusive teaching of academic communication across disciplines
• Using learning outcomes to create clear assignments
• How to design accessible and engaging course material

To keep up to date on events and other WIC news, please click here to sign up for the WIC listserv. 

Finally, as we look ahead to spring, please also remember to nominate a an undergraduate writer for the WIC Culture of Writing Award in your discipline.

by Erin Vieira, WIC Intern

Thursday, April 2^nd, 2020. 4:58pm.

My Zoom screen is already pulled up—it has been for about eight minutes now in anticipation of my upcoming student appointment. Normally, this would be an easy thing for me. I’ve been working at the Writing Studio for well over a year at this point and I’m always looking forward to learning more about what I can do to support student writers. It should be the engaging experience I’m always looking forward to.

But it’s different this time because the Writing Studio services have shifted onto Zoom and it’s my first online session with a student. My anxieties only seem to grow as I see the student pop into the waiting room, right on the dot at 5:00—back then, the ‘your student is waiting for you’ notification in the corner of my laptop screen was unfamiliar. Steeling myself with a deep breath, I accept their request to join and put on my game face, ready to help the student however I can in this new and difficult time.

To put it bluntly it wasn’t my greatest session, as brief as it was.

Our time was filled with awkward pauses and the occasional moment of speaking over one another, with lapses where neither of us knew quite what to say. When the student shared their paper with me on the screen, I found myself staring at it too long, and the silence only seemed to stretch on and on. Compared to our usual studio pedagogy, this approach felt like a whole new beast. I was used to flitting between the students, offering advice where I could give it or sitting down to brainstorm deeper concepts, but now, knowing that an entire hour of my time was dedicated to a single student without being able to step away and return—it was daunting. And, yes, even that classic internet lag seemed to be getting in the way too.

This experience isn’t individualized to just me. Many educators often find themselves attempting to overcome these Zoom silences now that everything’s online. Zoom etiquette takes time to learn, and I’d like to think I’ve improved over the almost three terms we’ve spent using it as our main platform for student assistance. Even so, there is still much we as educators can learn to do for the sake of our students. In our weekly Thursday meetings, the Writing Center staff has spent time strategizing how to better support the student writers via Zoom, with one strategy being a focus on how to better prioritize the student. Thus, I’ve taken the strategy of student prioritization and showcased a few different techniques that I use in order to ensure student needs and goals are prioritized and helping create an active conversation with them.

Techniques for Student Prioritization

We must ask ourselves about the importance of priority. What does it mean to prioritize the student during a consultation? What does that look like?

1. Listen to the student

I am not the main speaker in the sessions, the student is. Although this may take some gentle guiding, it is important to encourage the student speak about their experiences and what they find important about their paper. When you’re actively encouraging the student to do so, you’re showing them that you want to actively listen to them and understand where they’re coming from. This also nods towards myself as a writing consultant, as I must recognize the student writer brings disciplinary expertise to the table. Being open about wanting to understand where their expertise lies creates an open channel of communication between the two of us.

Secondly, it can be very easy to talk over others during a Zoom session, which is why I must remind myself to stay quiet when the student is speaking and wait for signals to see if they’re done. I don’t want to dominate the conversation; I want students to speak for themselves. Listening to what the student has to say without interruption shows openness and availability to understand them.

Take these questions in for consideration that I typically ask I student:

Hello, welcome to the Writing Studio [your name]! Can you tell me a little bit about what you’re working on today? “Hi, I’m working on [my paper] today. Let me tell you a bit about that.”

2. Ask questions about the student’s goals

Students often tell me that they feel as though they are struggling “in general” with their paper and don’t quite know where to start. It can be difficult to understand where they should start, where their weaknesses lie, or where their focused goal need to be, which is why it’s important to ask some opening questions. Where in the paper do you feel like you are having difficulties? Are there any particular spots you have already received feedback on that you believe need more work? What stands out to you in this paper that you feel like you could work on?

“I’m having trouble with [a certain aspect] of my paper and I just don’t know if it’s good enough.” What is the main goal of the paper? What are you striving to achieve in writing it?

“I don’t know where to start.” Are there any recurring issues you’ve noticed when you write papers? Is it possible this paper has those same problems you’ve had before?

Oftentimes, these questions will bring results, and the student and I can work from there. Other times, they still don’t seem to know where to go and still feel they are stuck on the “in general” problem, which is what leads me to my next point.

3. Ask the student to explain their thought process
   

Not everyone processes information in the same way. I’ve had quite a few sessions where students find themselves being better “talkers” than “writers”, and they claim they have no idea where to start. Even the simplest question, such as “what is your paper about?” or “what are the main points of your paper?” can prompt a train of thought that allows the student to talk their way into realizing the problem they have. In such moments, students will often go on a long spiel about the topic they’re interested in talking about, but they ‘don’t know where to start’. The ideas are in there, they just need to be nudged towards talking about them.

“I guess if I had to pick one, this body paragraph could use some work, but I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” Let’s focus on this section in particular, then. Can you explain to me what the purpose of this paragraph is? Do you feel like you discuss those points well?

4. Take notes

While a student is talking their way through an idea, I like to keep a notepad opened on my screen or have a physical one to jot notes down on. Once the student has talked their way through the issue that was brimming in their brain, they’ll often pause and go ‘but I still don’t know where to start’, which is my cue to raise my notepad in success and show that they may already have an entire essay sitting on the tip of their tongue. Then, I go through the notes with the student, help them make more explicit connections between the content they were just discussing, and how to organize it properly. Doing so helps highlight their ideas when they’re struggling and reveals the active ideas they’re sitting on that we can now bring our attention to.

I noticed you mentioned this point when you were talking about the topic. Why don’t we add it to your outline to make sure you touch on everything you want to talk about? Could this help better organize your ideas?

5. Acknowledge the strengths and skills of the student

It can be easy for a student to get tangled in what they’re doing wrong. They feel their grammar is lacking, or they never have clean transitions and nothing about the paper feels right. Recognizing where the students’ strengths lie can help them come to understand how to continue using their personal strengths. If I continue to point out all of their weak spots without ever drawing attention to what they do well, they may not even notice their strengths. Taking these strong points and explaining why it works well allows them to continue using techniques they may not have realized they already have.

Although you mentioned you were concerned about your transition sentences, I actually found they were quite strong. The reason they are strong is because you [list the techniques the student uses], which you should continue to do in the future.

6. Ask questions about writing choices

On many occasions, students don’t notice why they make certain choices, leading me to questions like “Why did you decide to make this statement?” and “Do you feel as though this is proper analysis?” This reminds the student to take a closer look at their work and dig into their own analysis—an analysis of their analysis, if you will. Question the reasons they decided to portray certain information or how they organized their essay. “Is there a paragraph you feel is more important than the other?” “Which order should these paragraphs go in because of that?”

7. Seek weaknesses together, but don’t override their perspective

Students put a lot of trust in me as a writing consultant. Because I am in this position, they are inclined to take the suggestions I give them. This requires a careful balance, as I don’t want to take over the conversation or assume ownership of the paper. It is key to recall that when I suggest something, the writing in front of me is the student’s paper, not my own.

I have a suggestion for adding some information to this paragraph. Do you think this is something that would work well with the topic we’re discussing? Are there any ways you could improve on this idea? Can we consider these options together?

Ultimately, the student makes the final choices in the paper, and I want to highlight their agency, as they have the expertise on the topic. If I am sharing something from my perspective, I need to be clear why it is that I have that perspective and to brainstorm with them to promote their own ideas rather than having them just write down my own. Ask for the student’s opinion on what I’ve offered and be open to change. Empathize with the student’s perspective.

I know you said this feels like your thesis statement is right here, but I actually felt like it was more of a summary. The reason I feel like you’re summarizing rather than making a claim is because of these reasons. How could we adjust this to make it feel more like a claim?

Looking to Future Sessions

Thursday, February 11^th, 2021. 4:58.

With my Zoom screen pulled up, the cold feeling of anxiety has all but left in favor of anticipation as I see the student join my waiting room. This time when I welcome them into the studio, I’m not bracing for impact—I’m opening up my mind to a new experience that the student will be carrying with them in their future writing career.

In the end, making the student feel heard is my main priority. By trusting our service and choosing to get assistance with their writing, students are allowing themselves to be very vulnerable. It is crucial that I am constantly reassessing the way I choose to go about my consultations to ensure that I am helping the student to the best of my ability. Despite the added challenge of Zoom, using the techniques for prioritizing the student, such as listening to the student, asking about their writing process, etc., has allowed me to better my consultation strategies to give my students something that’s worth their time and allows them to take away strategies from the consultation to use in their future writing.

And there are fewer awkward pauses, too.

By Alexander Mahmou-Werndli and Erin Vieira

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Alex: Can you expand a little bit on the institutional context of Yakima Valley College, and how your role with WAC fits into it?

Travis: Yakima Valley College is right in the heart of Washington and we’re a two year college that now has roughly five bachelor’s degrees too. We’re traditionally a community college, but we’ve moved the word community out of our name as a lot of two year colleges have. We’re an HSI [Hispanic-Serving Institution] with roughly 60% Hispanic-identifying students. That number has increased a lot over the last two decades from when we were initially awarded HSI status about 20 years ago, give or take. We have around 8000 [8,139] enrolled students and the area that we serve is largely an agricultural area; a lot of the families here are involved in agriculture. There are a lot of immigrant families here, too – the community as a whole is over half Latinx as well – and a lot of our students are first-gen students from all different backgrounds.

It’s really a privilege to work at an institution like this. It’s partially why I came here after being at the University of Utah for four years; I wanted to transition into teaching two-year college and I liked the Northwest. When this opportunity came up, I was really excited to come up to an HSI and learn here and bring whatever I could to the campus.

In terms of shared governance at our college, it’s a little bit fuzzy at times… we don’t always know what our roles are as faculty in terms of campus leadership. We don’t have a faculty Senate, for example, like OSU has, so there are a lot of leadership opportunities, but the ability to do WPA work is about building relationships and taking your own initiative and plowing forward and building support for that.

Alex: On that note, could you tell us a little bit about the process for initiating the WAC initiative at YVC?

Yeah. It was a pretty informal process. I was having lunch with another former WIC GTA, Laura May, who runs our Writing Center in Grandview (one of our two campuses) … this was a few years back, and I said “wouldn’t it be amazing if we could initiate a WAC program here?” And we thought “oh we’re just dreaming,” you know, but then, over the course of a couple of years, I started to develop some relationships with my Dean, for example, and our grant manager, our Title V Director, etc, and I just made the pitch. I put the research together and I sent it to Wilma Dulin (our Title V Director) and to my dean, Kerrie Cavaness. We also had support from our Vice President, Tomás Ybarra, who’s opened up a lot of lines for equity initiatives on campus. I made sure to provide a lot of evidence to show how impactful WAC programs are and how many colleges have them, including two-year colleges – roughly half of all two year colleges have a WAC program and others are developing them right now.

I also made sure to show how WAC practices are especially impactful for an HSI, where students are marginalized by these high stakes testing and assessment measures that are frankly racist. If your disaggregated data shows disparities in demographic success right along racial lines… we could talk about how “Oh, these are inequitable,” but let’s not split hairs here, let’s not equivocate about inequitable outcomes and student learning. What we’re talking about is racism and about racist outcomes, so your assessment is either racist or its anti-racist and there’s no in between.

From there, they said “alright, we believe you, this is one of the 11 high-impact strategies for higher education promoted by AAC&U.” So I just brought the evidence in a five, six page proposal. I made sure to tie it to equitable assessment. From there, they gave me a few dollars of grant money and I started doing workshops with faculty and doing one-on-one consultations with folks. Then, you find buy in, you connect with the instructors who are using writing and you learn from them, too. I don’t have all the solutions on how writing should happen across disciplines in higher ed, but I believe in the cause, and I believe that we should be using writing. I believe that it should be responsive to, of course, the needs of a discipline, but also to what students bring; what are the assets within a discipline that students bring in terms of communication and writing, too? Let’s build from there.

Alex: You mentioned that, in pursuing these goals, you went from initial proposal to workshops with faculty – how has the WAC program grown at YVC since?

Travis: I ran about a year’s worth of workshops for faculty to introduce them to the idea of writing across the curriculum and the classroom practices involved, the assessment, all that. Then, from there, I identified folks who would be ideal for an advisory committee.

And then the pandemic hit.

So that has sort of put some things on pause, but it worked out because at the same time we’re developing a new strategic plan at our college, and we recently rewrote our mission statement. What I don’t want to see happen is trying to force a WAC program at an institution that’s not ready to do that, or with faculty members who don’t have buy-in that writing is an appropriate thing to incorporate in their curriculum. You have to build from a grassroots standpoint, see where the faculty’s interest is, what their needs are, what they’re doing in the classroom, and learn from that.

In order for a WAC program to be equitable, to be implemented in a way that’s not based in the white supremacist notions of the institution, we don’t want to be just trying to get people to write for the academy constantly. I think that the academy needs to be more responsive to the community and the assets that our students bring as writers and critical thinkers into the institution.

Right now, we’re working on an anti-racist first-year composition assessment ecology. There is a statewide grant through College Spark (and Asao Inoue, another OSU alumnus, is one of the directors of the grant) and I’m on the team to administer that grant in Washington. We’re working with seven different colleges across the state to develop an anti-racist composition assessment ecology for first-year composition. I think that’s an important thing to do before we build out and flesh out a WAC program at YVC, because writing across the curriculum all begins with first year composition. That’s such a critical entry point into the university, into higher ed and writing. Writing is critiqued in that space from all across the university and all across higher ed and is important for building the right type of writing environment that is necessary to build a WAC program.

Over the spring and over the summer, we need to increase our institutional presence with, for example, a WAC resource page or WAC website. And then, our advisory committee will help to lead us forward. We’re also going to have to do some work with our curriculum committees. I don’t know that we’re ready to do that work until the strategic plan is laid out, though. We need to have programmatic assessment happening, according to our accreditors, and before we go about assessing our programs we need to figure out what we want to assess. In the future, I see WAC as being an integral part of that.

Erin: You speak a lot towards equity; what other values guide the programmatic assessment of learning at YVC? 

I’m part of our 20-30 person equity team here and we recently rewrote our mission statement with our administrative council, which was a big win for our equity team and our faculty:

Yakima Valley College cultivates equity and a culture of innovative and inclusive teaching and learning. As a federally recognized Hispanic Serving Institution residing on the traditional homelands of the Yakama Nation, Yakima Valley College serves all students holistically, supports all students’ learning goals, and fosters achievement within career and educational pathways. We strengthen our communities by providing opportunities for personal enrichment, economic mobility, and sociocultural engagement.

I think that, you know, we focus on equity, a culture of innovative inclusive teaching, and innovation in that. When we look across campus, we need some innovative teaching. Nationally, only 40% of two-year college students finish their program – whether it’s a transfer degree or a certificate in a specific area – within a six-year period of time. We’re a little bit above that at YVC relative to other two-year colleges, but still not good enough.

Our institutional research team really encourages accessing our disaggregated data regularly to know, for example: if our students who identify as Black are not being supported in classes for some reason, what does that say about our instruction? If our indigenous students are not succeeding at the same rate as other students, why is that? What is it about my instruction that is leading to some of those outcomes? These are the values I think that we’re seeing. At an HSI, there’s an additional mandate for this. Latinx students and students who are immigrants and the children of immigrants in our Valley have been marginalized from and excluded from educational opportunities historically, and YVC has a mandate as an HSI to serve those students as best we can.

Erin: You mentioned needing to create a website for WAC; what other short-term goals and benchmarks does WAC have at YVC and how would you say they align with the values you just described?

Travis: Right now the short term is to create an equitable first-year composition ecology. We’re making steps there – we have a directed self-placement model now.  Carolyn Calhoon-Dillahunt and I wrote a chapter on this for a collection that’ll be coming out soon too. That’s a part of our move toward a more equitable learning environment and more equitable student success rates as well.

I’ve done some one-on-one consultations over this year with instructors who are using writing. But I haven’t done as many faculty forums, for example, and other activities in part because everyone’s just really spread thin.

So, in terms of institutional presence, resources for faculty are needed right now, so that faculty who are not familiar with WAC principles and practices can go to a Canvas page, see what’s going on in their own discipline, and get some ideas based on the resources there. There are faculty in STEM, for example, who occasionally email me and say “hey Travis look at this, did you see how writing is being used in this chemistry class here?” so trying to collect those resources and make sure that those are available for people is a goal.

A lot of this has been about building relationships, because I don’t have all the answers. Having worked with OSU’s WAC program and having taught business writing and tech writing over the years, for example, has helped me to learn a little bit of what the expectations are for students across campuses, across workplaces. As for our long-term goals, I’d love to see a WAC program that grows out of an anti-racist first-year composition assessment ecology and that could serve as a basis and a foundation for a WAC program that stretches across our campus. I’d also love to see our student success rates increase across campus because we’ve gotten away from the culture of high stakes testing. “You don’t need to test to assess” is my position at assessment meetings – some mixed reception on that, but I really believe it.

Erin: Most definitely. What advice would you have for aspiring faculty, say from business administration or biology, interested in developing these sorts of anti-racist assessments in their classrooms?

Travis: I would say: get away from testing and look carefully at your disaggregated data often. You know, see it as part of the fabric of your courses and your teaching. A culture of testing, I think, is really antithetical to deep learning and the kind of creative brilliance that we’re all capable of producing and experiencing. We just don’t need to test to assess, and when we teach to assessment tools that we know to be racist, we’re producing racist outcomes and we’re not encouraging deep learning and critical thinking.

I would say “think about culturally responsive pedagogy” as well. How do your students operate? What assets do they bring to your classroom, and how can you really lean into those assets for assessment and learning?

But those are big abstract concepts, I think. The most simple thing is to try to get away from a culture of testing if you can and assess in more authentic ways that really allow students to thrive and show their brilliance.

Erin: Would you be willing to share a story of success from interactions with faculty, or some faculty-led events?

Travis: I’ve had really good conversations with faculty who are interested in this. One instructor in psychology, for example, came to me about two years ago with some questions about his psych classes: “I really want to use writing and I want to have my students to create a good research paper in my class, I want them to be producing good research papers and they’re just not doing that. I give them a model of the paper, sometimes, or an example, but I still end up with papers that just aren’t very strong.” And so, we talked about different things that he could do in his class. For example, I recommended having students in groups critique and analyze model papers and sample papers. And so, he brought that into his classroom, and he started conducting peer review sessions in his class for the drafts.

Just those two things alone improved the situation –  before the pandemic, I’d see him around campus, and he’d be like “Travis, that assignment’s going really great! I want to talk to you about this idea and that idea that I have about writing in psychology and sociology now.” Seeing that is really exciting because this is one of our most senior faculty. He’s been here for almost 30 years and it’s changing his classroom approach and his assessment approach and his practices of incorporating writing. Students are more engaged and they’re succeeding at higher rates. It’s really cool to see somebody who’s been here for like two decades longer than I have, to see his face light up when he’s bringing new ideas into the classroom that are helping his students, so it’s rewarding to me in that sense, too.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of having conversations and building relationships with people and saying “well, think about trying this. If you can afford a half an hour in your class one day, do this and see what comes of it. See what kind of conversations happen. Incorporate some free writing exercises, some note taking exercises, and some reflection during your class, or model student papers.”

Alex: You’ve already spoken a bit to how your experience at OSU has shaped your goals for Yakima Valley’s WAC program. Is there anything you’d like to add about your OSU experience or share from your experience at Utah that has shaped your activities at YVC?

Travis: Being a part of the WAC program at OSU and working with Vicki Tolar Burton is a learning experience that I carry with me to all of my institutions and all my classes moving forward, because I know what’s expected of students across the curriculum now. I’ve learned from faculty across the curriculum at OSU, at Utah, and now here at YVC as well. And what we do is allow students to show what they can do with their writing when they have a chance for feedback, when they have a chance for communication and open dialogue through an assessment process. And so, I got to see that firsthand working with — whether it’s sociologists or the mechanical engineering department or whoever it might be at OSU that I worked closely with over those years. It also showed me we don’t have to continue doing things the way that we do at every institution.

Alex: In an inverse way: from your work to establish Yakima Valley’s WAC initiative, have you gleaned any takeaways from more established WAC or WID programs?

Travis: One of my takeaways is that you need to have a team in place to build and maintain a strong WAC program. Right, so the relationships and the collaboration that those of us who are invested in WAC engage with — that’s all really necessary. And you have to have people — you have to have investment from across a college. If there isn’t investment from administrators, if there isn’t investment from folks in STEM, if there isn’t investment from the English department – then it’s just not going to happen, despite our good efforts. It also takes time to show the value of a WAC program. If folks aren’t familiar with it, if folks are busy and occupied by other projects on campus, which is often the case, it can be slow to try to build and maintain a WAC program. And again, I think one thing I’ve learned too is that WAC programs look and function in different ways at different sites in different campuses, and that’s okay and even necessary. There’s not a one singular approach to building, developing, or assessing a WAC program that’s going to fit for every institution. Your approach needs to be responsive to the community needs and the community assets that are available at any site.

Alex: That’s a great point and that description which, I think, really resonates with the kind of the grassroots approach you described earlier.

Travis: Right, exactly, yeah. And as an outsider – I grew up in Michigan, and here I am in central Washington – you need to go in and listen and try to understand all the points of view that come into play when we talk about writing and communication and critical thinking and learning on a campus. A little bit of intellectual humility is always necessary in higher ED.

By Jessica Al-Faqih, Erin Vieira, and Alexander Mahmou-Werndli

This video essay is hosted on Oregon State’s media site and can be accessed via the following link:

https://media.oregonstate.edu/media/t/1_qvfmuu9j

Works cited:

• Baker-Bell, April. (2020). Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy (1st ed.). Routledge.
• Gonzales, Laura. “Multimodality, Translingualism, and Rhetorical Genre Studies.” Composition Forum, vol. 31, 2015.
• Inoue, Asao B. (2019). Labor-Based Grading Contracts: Building Equity and Inclusion in the Compassionate Writing Classroom. The WAC Clearinghouse; University Press of Colorado. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2019.0216
• Krall-Lanoue, Aimee. “And Yea I’m Venting, But Hey I’m Writing Isn’t I: a Translingual Approach to Error in a Multilingual Context.” Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations, edited by Suresh Cagarajah, Routledge, 2013, pp. 262-269.