When I speak about the move from expressive to academic discourse, I realize I am perpetuating a notion which may interfere with the proper understanding of either of these modes.That is, my statement implies that there's a one-directional movement, that academic discourse is somehow higher up on a hierarchical scale.I do not, in fact, believe that to be the case."Academic Discourse" as it occurs in practice in many undergraduate courses, may be among the least useful, least authentic forms of language use.Required term papers or critical papers often function as tests rather than as explorations.They are performances of certain required skills: use of sources, correct documentation, proper formulation of someone else's ideas.Writers are often actively discouraged from expressing their own points of view, from participating in their own reading, or indeed, from "appearing" in the paper at all.Yet if the expressive mode is truly the matrix from which other forms of discourse evolve as James Britton has claimed, then writers, in order to work successfully in academic modes, must move back and forth on the continuum from one form to the other, keeping the self always at the center.The "will to learn" which Jerome Bruner asserts is an intrinsic motive in all of us, may be stifled when rigid and formal demands prevent students from engaging in more tentative, exploratory prose."What the school imposes," say Bruner, "often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learning -curiosity, a desire for competence, aspiration to emulate a model, and a deep-sensed commitment to the web of social reciprocity" (127).In the Writing Lab at the University of Iowa we try very hard to engage -or perhaps to rekindle that will to learn in our students.

Published on 01/01/88

Published on 01/01/87

ERIC and NCTE combined, in 1983, to produce a small, fifty-page booklet giving English teachers the no-nonsense lowdown on the use of computers for instruction.Its name was straightforward, Computers in the English Classroom , and its advice was traditional.After mentioning various drill and practice and record-keeping possibilities, the document informed us, with time-honored NCTE gentleness, that "the value of the computer lies in the fact that it provides one more tool for the teacher to use."It then made what seems to me a manifesto of sorts."[The computer] frees the teacher from certain mundane chores so that instructional time is better utilized."Isn't this the way most of us have always thought about computers, as mechanical servants which can take over "certain mundane chores" so that we can get to the higher-level stuff?When you think about it, the idea is not all that comforting.It lies at the heart of the scary theory that computers intended to replicate low-level skills may someday co-opt skills considerably above the "mundane-chores" category so that the servant becomes the master or, at the very least, the master finds himself tailoring and limiting his activities for the convenience of the servant.The concept of a "servant-master" relationship between computer and human being suggests an anthropomorphic view of computers which, I think, channels our attitudes and severely limits our options in using computers.What I call the "Replacement Fallacy," the belief that computers are most successful when they are most human, hems us in between

Chaos reigns.Or does it?When uninitiated visitors walk into our Apple Lab (which is a part of our Writing Lab) at Hazelwood West High, their first impression often is "How do you work when there is so much noise going on?"But when the fifteen printers stop, visitors are even more amazed by the quiet diligence and concentration of the students who are working at the computers.Our Apple He Lab often accommodates twenty to twenty-five students and teachers, all or most of whom will be working on very different kinds of writing activities.For example, a typical class hour might include a home economics teacher composing a newsletter to parents on the Newsroom program, five to ten students typing various parts of research papers on Applewriter, a student or two making a cover sheet for a paper on Print Shop , three to five journalism students composing stories for the school newspaper, a student using the Sensible Speller to check a paper for misspelled words or to count the number of words in a contest paper, a student writing a paper for a political science class, a teacher assistant making a crossword puzzle on Crossword Magic for a vocabulary lesson, and the Writing Lab assistant updating Lab records on PFS : File .And while all these people are working, if no one is having problems, I may sit down at a computer myself to work on a grant proposal or to write an article. Getting StartedWe did not set out to have a computer lab.

At best it's hard work, often it's very difficult, and -to a great number of high school students -it's "boring," "stupid," and "impossible."But wait.Look down in the writing room.It's a bird.It's a plane.It's Super WANDAH : HBJ Writer, Faster than a speeding ballpoint, more powerful than a typewriter, able to leap tall essays in a single class period, Super WANDAH helps students produce writing that is clear, precise, and fun to read, writing that is an example of truth, justice, and the American way.Well, perhaps I exaggerate a tad.Maybe WANDAH can't do it all, or even most.But it's possible that we've given her a cape she wasn't supposed to be wearing.Is her real name Clark Kent?Or has Kryptonite robbed WANDAH of all power.Let's go back to the beginning, which occurred not on some distant planet but in some sunny corner of UCLA.WANDAH began life as a rather innocuous writing program to assist incoming freshman with their writing skills.At the same time, the head of Logan High's English Department had completed a course with the Utah Writer's Project.With a missionary's zeal, she sought to bring the entire department into the waters of process writing.Soon we were saved as well.But that didn't stop our department head.Something was needed to help the work along, something that could assist our efforts in converting uninspired writers from the darkest corners of the eleventh and twelth grades into born-again thinkers and writers, capable of heavenly composition."Could not that something be a computer, Time's Man of the Year?" reasoned our department head, and quicker than you can say "floppy disk," Logan High had sixteen computers, four printers, and WANDAH.

Published on 01/01/87

Published on 01/01/86

Although tutors are usually excellent students, they seldom have previous tutoring experience.For this reason, tutor training is an important aspect of any writing center program.A general training program -which includes two to three hours of orientation focusing on procedures, tutoring roles, responsibilities, and policies -is usually required of all new tutors.During their first semester of employment, additional training in study skills, communications, critical thinking skills, and interpersonal skills may also be required.In addition to this general training, tutors also need specific training in the tutoring of writing.Most tutors learned to write using the product method -a formal, grammatical approach with instruction beginning at the sentence level, moving to the paragraph, and finally culminating

Published on 01/01/85

In the basic writing program at The University of Akron, we have been using peer tutors as facilitators of collaborative learning in the classroom for two years. One day a week, each tutor has a group of six to eight students who are usually working on rough drafts. Recently, when I