Dear Inkshedders:
I also second the term "writing conventions" to suggest the artificial (but
learnable) elements that people usually call "grammar." Use of that term
might at least lead to questions, and even give us chances to mention
Williams, Hartwell, etc. Alas, the original glamour has been lost in
popular usage.
And I like the idea of an inventory of current writing programs across
Canada. As Theresa mentions, I did a study of the use of testing in Ontario
universities in 1995 that turned into an account of the types of
instruction that universities had developed by then (mostly instead of
tests). It's still on the Web at
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/reportw.html. And Henry Hubert did a survey
of writing centres across Canada that was published in Inkshed a few years
ago -- about 1998?? Is this on the web anywhere? (Henry?) Janice Freeman
was thinking of doing some information-gathering this year about writing
centres: is that underway? Can we help? And then there's Tania Smith, who
knows about us inside and out....
It would be useful for our own self-education as well as for internal
politics to see the range of designs that have taken shape in recent years.
Some will be the Best Practices our committees periodically want to hear
about, others will be interesting or serve as warnings, maybe. I know some
fine examples of the intertwining of writing centres, disciplinary courses
and writing courses, and look forward to hearing of more shapes and models.
Has WAC won? Where is ESL, anyway? Is it and should it be separate from
other elements in writing programs? Rob Irish's work at U of T Engineering
really is quite amazing, and I'd like to know more about Amanda's at
Winnipeg as well as to catch up with SFU and UBC and Alberta and UNB and
Memorial.
Margaret
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