Hello, Wendy –
Good to hear from you across the border. I'm interested to hear that both
SFU and UBC are moving towards faculty-wide writing programs. I think I can
say that University of Toronto has had some experience with that type of
program, though as usual our activities are extremely diverse and
unstandardized. Sometimes that means inventive, other times it means
unstable and weak. Here's a sampling, which others can fill out:
– Rob Irish can tell us about the five years or so of Language Across the
Curriculum in the faculty of Engineering. With a mandate from the dean, his
writing centre has worked with scores of course instructors to integrate
writing assignments and to guide students through the process. The website
is at http://www.ecf.toronto.edu/~writing/.
– Andy Payne at Architecture has carried on what Rob began in that faculty,
starting with a focus on helping L2 learners in the first-year history and
theory course. Architecture has recently become a graduate program, and the
writing continues.
– U of T at Scarborough voted a few years ago to require that departments
include writing-intensive courses, and it has monitored and supported that
effort via a couple of dynamic writing-centre directors, first Brian
Greenspan and now Kristen Guest. (See
http://library.scar.utoronto.ca/TLS/TWC/index.htm.) Kristen also
coordinates a composition course that's linked to a first-year literature
course. Rena Helms-Park developed several ESL courses at Scarborough a few
years ago. They also pair a content course on linguistics with a writing
course run as a workshop class.
- Cleo Boyd at U of T Mississauga has persuaded a number of courses there
to pay closer attention to their students' reading, writing, and other
academic skills. The Academic Skills Centre
(http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3asc/) provides workshops giving timely
instruction on specific tasks, sometimes led by peer mentors and sometimes
by faculty members seconded to the ASC. Cleo also works directly with
faculty and TAs.
– The big Arts and Science faculty on the downtown campus resolved three
years ago that students should get more experience doing writing, and also
more instruction about writing, within their program of studies. It's only
part way there. At this point, it still relies on encouragement rather than
requirement, both for students and departments. Over the past two years it
has subsidized a dozen or so courses where instructors volunteered to
integrate more writing within their courses. This brought out some
excellent teaching practices and was generally well accepted by students,
but the cost of providing adequate instruction and feedback to large
classes (e.g. 1100 students in BIO250) is still a barrier. You can see some
aspects of those pilot projects in a webfile at
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/artscilessons.html: note the subtitle
"Lessons from Experience."
– Also within Arts and Science, a special fund for Quality Enhancement
subsidizes a couple of non-credit courses. Patricia Golubev talked at
Inkshed last spring about the Writing for Scientists course, co-taught in
five sections by pairs of writing specialists and advanced science grad
students. Students in one of the big third-year Biology courses often take
WRT300 to get ready to produce a poster paper for their PBL project in that
course -- they pair the writing course with the content course. And Barbara
Rose and Brock Macdonald have also set up a non-credit ESL course that
covers both writing and speaking, and have recently expanded it to two
sections.
There's no doubt more, but that's a sampling. Yes, SFU and UBC could find
some models and also some warnings from our experiences here. Let me know
if you or they want further contact information or war stories.
Margaret
--
(Dr.) Margaret Procter
University of Toronto
Coordinator, Writing Support
15 King's College Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H7
(416) 978-8109; FAX (416) 971-2027
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing
Wendy Strachan wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've just moved to Western Washington in Bellingham this fall but am still
> corresponding with a committee at SFU that is proposing more attention to
> teaching writing in the undergraduate curriculum. I've been asked by the
> chair of that committee whether any university in Canada - other than UBC
> which is just working on a new program - has recently initiated a
> faculty-wide writing program that includes some form of writing-intensive or
>
> linked courses for the first time.
> Can anyone help with an answer please?
> I'm too newly arrived here at WWU to say much about it - except that the
> campus is beautiful and the faculty very welcoming - both great features for
> a start!
>
> Many thanks!
>
> Wendy
>
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[log in to unmask] or, if you experience difficulties,
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For the list archives and information about the organization,
the annual conference, and publications, go to the Inkshed Web site at
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