Dartmouth College
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
Writing Program
Table of Contents
Thoughts from the Chair
Tom Cormen .......................1-2
Spotlight on Writing 2-3
Karen Gocsik .......................3-6
Readings on Writing
Laura Braunstein..................7-8
Writing Program at CCCC......8
Dickerson Prize Nominations .8
Summer Hours .......................8
A Closer Look at Faculty
Sara Chaney ......................9-10
Professional Development
Karen Gocsik ........................11
Faculty News........................12
What’s New at RWIT?
Stephanie Boone .............13-14
ESL News
Judith Hertog ........................15
NE Faculty Dev. Consortium .15
FYS Workshop ......................15
Dealing with the Fear of Writing
Zsuzsa Mitro....................16-17
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Thoughts
from the
Chair
H
ere I am, at gate A12 in the Raleigh-Durham Airport, where I am
waiting for a delayed jetBlue flight to depart. [Cheap shot alert:]
Considering that it’s jetBlue, I am grateful that I’m waiting in the airport,
rather than stuck in a plane on the tarmac.
U.S. airports have gotten a lot more interesting in the past ten years or
so. A walk through any one of most major airports now resembles a
stroll through a mall, with the occasional gate interspersed. With stores,
restaurants, and bars (and who among us doesn’t relish spending time at
an airport bar?), airports offer plenty of distractions. I have no need of a
restaurant at the moment, having recently finished off a superb lunch of
smoked brisket, hush puppies, fried okra, beans, and Texas toast at the
Q Shack in Durham. That should hold me until I get back home several
hours from now.
So here I am at gate A12, waiting. Even with all the distractions that the
Raleigh-Durham Airport offers, I see plenty of people doing one of two
things: reading or talking on their cell phones. And that reminds me of
the mission of the Writing Program: written and oral communication.
At this point, you probably have a pretty good idea of how the Writing
Program strives to improve written communication by Dartmouth
students. If you don’t, I encourage you to visit our web site, http://www.
dartmouth.edu/~writing/. You might not have known, however, that oral
communication is also part of our mission.
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
W e have started slowly—very slowly—in oral
communication. A handful of Writing 2-3
and Writing 5 sections include oral presentations
or debates. When I taught my baseball-themed
section a couple of years ago, our class had three
debates on topics selected by the students: Should
Pete Rose be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Was
Barry Bonds at the time (Winter 2005) the most
valuable player ever? Should the designated hitter
rule be abolished? I thought these were terrific
topics because the warrant
of each one was arguable,
“ The mission of the
along with whether the
facts fit the warrant. For
example, in the Bonds
debate, the students had Writing Program is to
to argue about criteria for
selecting the most valuable advance both oral and
written rhetoric.
player ever, and then about
whether Bonds fit these
criteria.
We also encourage, but
do not require, oral presentations in First-Year
Seminars. Our First-Year Seminar form includes
the question, “If appropriate, please describe the
component of your seminar in which students
make oral presentations.” Most of the seminar
forms that we receive indicate some form of oral
presentation. We don’t pressure First-Year Seminar
instructors to include oral presentations primarily
because we are still focusing on helping these
instructors teach writing.
How about Speech in a more formal sense? You
might recall our now vacant Office of Speech.
Speech will come back to Dartmouth, but housed
within the Writing Program. So this column is just to let you know that Speech
will be coming back, but not quite as soon as we had
Why the Writing Program? One answer is obvious: hoped. In the meantime, my flight is about to board.
the connection between oral and written rhetoric. I wonder how much tarmac time I’m about to get.
Another answer is less apparent. The new Speech
You can kiss your family and friends good-bye
and put m i l e s between you,
but at the same time you carry them with you...
Frederick Buechner
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
2
position is structured to have a component of
service to faculty and students across Arts and
Sciences. This service will comprise speech
coaching and professional development. Working
closely with DCAL, the Writing Program already
has an active program of professional-development
activities, and so it will be easy to add speech-
related workshops. Moreover, the Writing
Program already works with faculty across Arts
and Sciences by virtue of the First-Year Seminar
program. As I wrote in
a previous column, I
have met individually
with the chair of every
department and program
within Arts and Sciences.
So we already have good
connections to faculty.
”
I wish I could report
that our new full-time
Speech instructor will
be on board this fall,
but we started the search too late in the current
academic year to fill the position in time. Led by
Lindsay Whaley, Associate Dean for International
and Interdisciplinary Programs, we will resume
the search in 2007–2008, expecting to have a
Speech instructor in place by Fall 2008. Once
that happens, we will be able to offer a range
of Speech courses in introductory rhetoric and
public address, as well as courses in the history
of rhetoric and political communication. With a
little luck, we will be able to find instructors for a
Speech course or two in 2007–2008, before we
have our full-time Speech instructor.
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
3

Spotlight on Writing 2-3

Beyond the Basics of Writing
Karen Gocsik

T oo often, basic writing courses have the reputation of being

B ecause Writing unchallenging and dull—for students, and for instructors, too.
Dartmouth’s basic writing course, Writing 2-3, works very hard to
2-3 was one of
defy this stereotype. Those of us who teach Writing 2-3 believe that
the first courses I the basic writing classroom offers us the opportunity to do our very
best teaching. After all, when students are under-prepared for college
took at Dartmouth, it
writing, we instructors must think especially carefully about our course
became my standard design and methods. We must have a variety of pedagogies ready
for what a Dartmouth to assist students who continue to struggle. We must set very high
standards and fully expect our students to meet them. And we must
course should be. be especially aware of, and sensitive to, differences in our students’
While I found many learning processes.

courses intellectually This thoughtful, creative approach to teaching pays off. Each year,
stimulating, only a Writing 2-3 enrolls 105 students who come to Dartmouth unprepared
to meet the rigors of academic writing. Some of these students are
few really inspired international students, for whom English is a second language. Some
me or managed to come from school systems that are under-funded and so unable to offer
adequate writing instruction. Some simply have the bad luck of never
spark the excitement having had a writing teacher who insisted that they move beyond the
of discovery that true five-paragraph theme.
knowledge brings. My
Because of their lack of preparation, many students admit before
experience in Writing entering Writing 2-3 that they don’t like to write. Some declare
themselves “very concerned” about their ability to succeed at
2-3 is something to
Dartmouth. But over two terms in Writing 2-3, something happens.
which I will always Students write—and rewrite—their papers. They read—and discuss—
go back. extraordinary and difficult texts. They are introduced to the rigors
and complexities of research. In sum, they are challenged to master
the skills they need to succeed as members of Dartmouth’s academic
community.

A senior looks And they do succeed: Writing 2-3 alumni include a valedictorian, a
back at Writing 2-3 salutatorian, Phi Beta Kappas, and students who have gone on to win
a variety of coveted college awards. Clearly Writing 2-3 provides
students the preparation they need to compete with their better-
prepared peers. It also offers a place at Dartmouth where students who
are unsure about their academic prowess can find a supportive and
instructive community—a first academic “home.”

Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
4
The Basics of Writing 2-3 students, some of whom have dubbed the course
“the hardest course you’ll ever love.” Our students
At the Writing 2-3 Orientation Welcome, before are initially surprised by the rigor of the course—
classes begin, instructors promise their students after all, many basic writing courses are built on
that Writing 2-3 will be more than just a class; it the model of “slowed down” instruction. But we
will be an experience. And so it’s gratifying to hear who teach 2-3 embrace a different philosophy.
our students echo this sentiment, affirming that Following the model that Ken Bain outlines in his
we have, indeed, delivered on our promise. We important book, What the Best College Teachers
do so by adhering to certain principles of teaching Do, we put our students through a rigorous three-
writing—principles that we think are “basic” to step process: show them that their existing models
any successful writing course. fail; make them care enough to look for new
models; and support them while they do. This
Consider: method requires students to “unlearn” the models
for thinking, writing, and research that served them

1 Writing 2-3 instructors believe that in high school, and then to navigate the sometimes
the writing process (of pre-writing, writing, mysterious, always rigorous conventions and
and re-writing) is part of, and not anterior to, the expectations of academic discourse. The work
discovery of ideas. is hard, but our students care about the course
precisely because it’s so ambitious. As one
Many students arrive at college imagining that senior put it, “Writing 2-3 is an introduction to
writing is one part of a three-part linear process: everything Dartmouth.” A student who recently
first you read, then you think about what you’ve completed the course adds, “Writing 2-3 gave me
read, then you write your paper. But experienced an appetite for confusion, as well as the powerful
writers know that it’s best to write (and to think!) tools to transform this confusion into a better
as you read. Writing 2-3 instructors therefore understanding” of what it means to succeed at
advise students to read as writers, encouraging Dartmouth. By investing in the work of 2-3, then,
students to scribble up the margins as a way our students invest in the work of the academy—a
of entering into dialogue with the texts they’re defining moment in their academic careers.
reading. We often ask students to write discovery
drafts and response papers, in which they raise
questions and make observations that will serve 3
Writing 2-3 instructors teach writing by
employing a variety of methods, both
traditional and innovative.
the academic arguments that they’ll later write.
We read and respond to these drafts (though we
rarely grade them) in order to engage students In some college classrooms, writing instruction
in written conversations with us – conversations consists of assigning papers and responding to
that inevitably lead to further discovery. It’s only them. In Writing 2-3, we employ a variety of
then that we move students through a drafting and instructional methods. We regularly hold in-class
re-drafting process designed to help them shape writing workshops, in which student essays are the
and re-shape their arguments, making additional focus of collaborative analysis. In these workshops
discoveries in ongoing conversations with their we discuss student writing as closely and
teaching assistants and their peers. thoroughly as we would any other text, focusing
not only what the writer is saying but also how he/

2 Writing 2-3 Instructors design a course that she is saying it (in terms of organization, paragraph
is rigorous. structure, syntax, and style). We also create several
opportunities for peer critique—in class, outside
Students in Writing 2-3 complain (or brag) that of class, and on Blackboard—in order to make our
they are working twice as hard as their peers in students better readers and better writers. Because
Writing 5 and the first-year seminars. Indeed, we’ve found that composing together gives our
the rigor of Writing 2-3 is legendary among our students the opportunity to discuss and debate
the construction of an argument, we require
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
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group assignments—including group
presentations and collaborative papers—
and we work closely with each group in
conference to model effective analytical
and creative processes.

Moreover, because Writing 2-3 is a two-

term course, we have time to implement
innovative writing assignments.
For example, we give students the
opportunity to compose multi-media
compositions/short films, through which
we teach them how to analyze and how
to construct visual arguments. Students
find these multi-media assignments
particularly engaging, noting that the
lessons they learn from constructing short films
helps them to more carefully craft their written
“What do I want to say?”) And in that transference
texts. Students are also excited by the class
comes a transference of power, as these young
screening nights, in which their work finds a
authors take authority over their own prose.
public audience (something that their papers
rarely do).

5 Writing 2-3 instructors teach collaboratively.

4 Writing 2-3 instructors are committed to

the principles of active learning.
Writing 2-3 seeks to transform students into active
members of the academic community by using
teaching methods that empower students to take
charge of their writing educations. We reject
what Paolo Friere calls “the banking model of
education,” in which instructors deposit knowledge
in their students, who receive this knowledge
passively. Instead, we invite students to collaborate
with us in the teaching process, believing
that empowerment encourages responsibility.
Accordingly, we create opportunities for students to
lead discussion or to present materials (sometimes
of their own choosing) to the class. We also spend
time training students to critique one another’s
papers, thereby trusting some of the responsibility
for writing instruction to them. Some of us invite
students to participate in grading, asking students
to evaluate themselves and their classmates, with
the aim of defining and prioritizing the values
of good writing. These active learning methods
unsettle some students, who are used to writing
instruction in the imperative voice. (“Omit.” “Edit.”
“Be clear.”) But students are quick to embrace
writing in the interrogative. (“What am I saying?”
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of teaching
Writing 2-3 is that we don’t teach on our own.
In addition to inviting our students to participate
in instruction, each Writing 2-3 instructor has
a MALS graduate teaching assistant who works
with students “in the trenches,” customizing
instruction to meet each student’s individual
writing needs. Professors and teaching assistants
work very closely together, meeting regularly to
discuss students’ progress and to consider ways
that the course might be improved. But the 2-3
collaboration does not end there. We are further
privileged to have the support of First-Year Dean
Colleen Larimore, who meets weekly with the
teaching assistants and regularly with the faculty to
track and support students who may be struggling
with the demands of academic life. Writing 2-3
instructors also engage in very active teaching
partnerships with other professionals on campus—
specifically those at the Library, Jones Media
Center, and Academic Computing. This elaborate
instructional network enables the faculty to realize
the rigor of their course design and certainly
contributes to our students’ remarkable successes
in Writing 2-3.
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
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6 We go beyond the basics of writing to create a community
where students can find their first intellectual home.
What do students
As noted at the start of this article, students enter Writing 2-3
unsure about their ability to succeed at Dartmouth. And so it’s
have to say about
important that Writing 2-3 offers students an environment in
which they can overcome their anxieties and become excited
Writing 2-3?
about the rigors of academic discourse. We are fortunate in
Writing 2-3 to have students who choose to be there. (No student
is required to take Writing 2-3. Every student in the course has
elected to be there; in fact, we frequently have a waiting list of
students who want to get in.) Writing 2-3 students, though from “The best class at
diverse backgrounds, share a common aim: they understand that
they are not prepared for college writing, and they want to learn Dartmouth. Period.”
to write as well as their better-prepared peers. Because they share
the same anxieties and goals, students in Writing 2-3 are eager to
help each other. The design of the course—especially the use of
group work—along with the two-term structure encourages this “I truly wish that
ethos of cooperation. When students recall what they love about
Writing 2-3, they almost always cite this sense of community, everyone could
praising the instructors and teaching assistants who have worked take this class.”
so hard to create and sustain it.

7 Writing 2-3 instructors never stop innovating.

Writing 2-3 is designed to offer professors the opportunity and “Writing 2-3 is
the support to innovate. The two-term structure, the network of
collaborators, the frequent conversations among the program
not just a class;
staff (TAs meet every week; the entire staff meets 3-4 times a it’s an experience.”
term)—all of these elements encourage professors to continually
evaluate their methods and to try new things. For instance, over
the coming year we’ll explore new ways to teach writing with
technology. We’ll work with Jones Media to improve the way we
teach multimedia composition. We’ll work with the library to
“Writing 2-3 is an
determine better ways to educate our students about plagiarism, introduction to all
intellectual property, and proper citation protocol. And we’ll be
embarking on a project to look over our students’ research papers
things Dartmouth.”
in order to determine what writing skills Writing 2-3 students are
and are not mastering.

Traditionally, many of the innovations that we’ve piloted in “We are more
Writing 2-3 have gone on to become common instructional
methods in other writing courses. Writing 2-3 professors will
than a class; we
continue to use the privilege of our two-term system and the are a family.”
support of our teaching partners to try out methods that other
instructors, limited to a single term, don’t have time to pilot. We
will deliver what we learn to Writing Program faculty via the
program’s Professional Development mission. In this way, Writing
2-3 instructors commit themselves not only to teaching but also to
re-defining and re-envisioning the basics of writing at Dartmouth.

Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
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Readings on Writing
The Arguments of Style
In this column, English Language and Literature
Librarian Laura Braunstein reviews books on
composition studies from the Dartmouth College
Library’s collection.
Johnson, T. R. and Tom Pace, eds. Refiguring
Prose Style: Possibilities for Writing Pedagogy.
Logan: Utah State UP, 2005.
Baker-Berry PE1404 .R3824 2005
Laura Braunstein
individual expression. Critical pedagogy,
among the next set of “post-process” theoretical
approaches, configured writing instruction as a
means of resisting dominant discourse, in which
style too often languished as “a prescriptive set
of colonizing rules” (7). From this perspective,
as Rebecca Moore Howard argues in her chapter
on the politics of sentence-level pedagogy, Joseph
Williams’s Style (the Dartmouth Writing Program’s
recommended text) reinforces a restrictive regime

T his wide-ranging nineteen-essay collection

attempts to address two dilemmas that many
academic writing programs encounter: first,
of correctness and conformity under the guise of
imparting “clarity and grace.”

whether style is the province of composition
or of literary studies, and second, whether
emphasis on style empowers or restricts students
in developing their
own voices. In their
Where, then, is the place for style? Several
contributors to Refiguring Prose Style look to
reinvigorate the teaching of style in the history of
rhetoric, from Classical
models to the belles

“ How can writing teachers

thoughtful introduction,
the editors claim that
these oppositions have
“impoverished [the
field’s] understanding
of style” (ix). How can
writing teachers find a
balance between the
lettres movement of
eighteenth-century
find a balance between the Scotland. Other essays
contend that imitation,
elevation of originality in one of the principles
imaginative literature and the of traditional rhetorical
instruction, can expose
valorization of clarity in students to the variety

”
elevation of originality of prose styles in
in imaginative literature academic prose? order to develop their
and the valorization own voices, or as J.
of clarity in academic Scott Farrin puts it in
prose? How do we help his essay, “to make
students negotiate between their words and the that language part of them” (150). Chapters
language of the academy? In standard histories of on practical classroom techniques attempt to
composition, “current-traditional” rhetoric gave reconcile style with critical pedagogy, arguing
way to a process-oriented pedagogy in the 1960s with Nicole Amare on the one hand that “good
and 1970s. This new perspective associated style writing style is essentially linked to cultural
with a dry, usage-oriented view of language that capital” (155), while concluding with Lisa Baird on
took writing out of its social and educational the other that “writing instruction ought to make
contexts and foreclosed students’ authentic, a clear connection between students and their
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
8
lives” (178). An article by Jesse Kavadlo may have resonance for Dartmouth’s RWIT tutors and Writing
Assistants: although writing center pedagogy has historically emphasized the writing process rather
than the written product, “writers more than writing” (215), Kavadlo offers a useful strategy for tutors to
prioritize attention to style by breaking down the binary opposition of style and content.

In the end, Refiguring Prose Style contributes most meaningfully to the field by complicating this
opposition. M. Todd Harper speaks to the relevance of style for writing in the disciplines when he
concludes that the most important legacy of critical theory is that meaning does not exist outside of
language but is constructed and shaped by it. As Harper argues, “When a student is able to grasp this,
he or she is not only able to understand the importance of rhetorical and literary language in all the
disciplines, but also the manner in which style grounds our thinking” (266). To oppose style to content,
or originality to clarity, or the individual voice to academic discourse reinforces the false dichotomy that
this helpful and timely collection seeks to overturn.

The Dartmouth Writing Program Wanted:

at the CCCC Dickerson Prize Nominations

T his year, the Writing Program was pleased

to send Karen Gocsik, Terry Osborne,
Doug Moody, Stephanie Boone, and librarian
Laura Braunstein to the Conference on College
Composition and Communication in New York
City. The panel presented a collection of papers
entitled Composing Ourselves: The Dialectics
of Identity in a Transitional Writing Program.
This presentation, authored along with Shelby
Grantham and Nancy Crumbine, offered several
narratives—administrative, curricular, and
professional—that together tell the story of our
evolving writing program.
Sara Chaney also attended the conference,
chairing the session “Disciplinary Identities and
English Studies: Borderlines, Trespassers and
Frontier Marches.”
T he Writing Program is soliciting nominations
for the Albert I. Dickerson 1930 Freshman
Writing Prize. We award prizes to the best papers
written by students in each of three categories:
First-Year Seminars, Writing 5, and Writing 2-3.
The prizes come with cash awards.
Instructors of the above courses may nominate
one or more papers. The instructor is permitted to
make constructive criticism of the paper, and the
student is permitted to revise it before submitting it
for the competition. The instructor needs to obtain
the agreement of the student before submitting a
selected paper.
Each submission will be judged on four criteria:
organization, style, argument, and how well it
holds the reader’s interest. The latter criterion
counts half as much as each of the others.

Summer Hours An instructor who wishes to nominate a paper

The Writing Program should send a copy of the paper (electronic format
Office, Baker 204, is vastly preferred), along with a cover letter
is open part-time explaining why this paper has been nominated, to
during the summer. Tom Cormen, Chair of the Writing Program. The
most effective cover letters summarize how the
Mondays: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm paper meets the four criteria above. The deadline
Wednesdays: 8:30 am - 5:00 pm for submitting nominations is June 15.
Fridays: 8:30 am - 12 noon

Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
A Closer Look
An Interview with
Sara Chaney
F or two years, Sara Chaney has been a
committed member of the Writing 2-3 faculty.
We are pleased to have her on board. Finishing
her dissertation in Composition and Rhetoric
at Indiana University, Chaney is a terrific asset
to the Writing Program. She has already earned
a reputation as an excellent teacher and is a
regular contributor to the program’s Professional
Development mission.
In the following interview, Executive Director
Karen Gocsik poses some questions to Chaney
regarding her background, her methods, and her
passion for teaching writing.
KG: Tell us a bit about your background
in Comp Rhet.
SC: I spent six years in Bloomington,
Indiana working toward my Ph.D.
in Composition, Literacy and Culture. The
program (like most Comp Rhet programs) is
interdisciplinary in nature: My studies included a
range of rhetorical theory, composition pedagogy
and literacy history. I also completed a Ph.D.
minor in Feminist Critical Studies. While I was at
Indiana, I was able to take full advantage of one
of the program’s greatest strengths—its rigorous
teaching culture. Professors Christine Farris,
John Schilb and Kathy Overhulse Smith have
developed a fantastic composition curriculum
and training/mentorship program at IU. They have
created an environment in which the theory and
practice of teaching writing are really unified.
Under their direction, I had the opportunity to
design and teach a range of courses—including
first-year composition, basic writing, technical
writing, and service learning. During my last
year in the program, I took the post of Assistant
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9
Director of W131, IU’s first-year composition
course. During that year, I was part of a
committee that redesigned the W131 curriculum
and trained first-year instructors to teach it.
KG: What’s the topic of your dissertation?
SC: The focus of my qualifying
examinations was basic writing
and critical literacy, but my dissertation has
moved away from a narrow focus on basic
writing to deal with first-year writing curricula
and pedagogy more broadly. I am writing about
how the term “resistance” has been theorized in
composition scholarship, focusing on the way
the term has been used to obscure more than
it really reveals about how students express
their agency in the writing classroom. A lot
of scholarship on resistance focuses either on
the presumed conflict between students’ home
culture and school culture or on classroom
dynamics as the source of opposition. In brief,
I’m interested in complicating that binary by
looking more closely at the rhetorical spaces
students construct for themselves that are neither
entirely within the University nor outside of
it. My work looks more closely at what I’m
calling “student publics”—spaces within higher
education where students express a civic
voice (student newspapers, educational blogs,
professor rating sites). I’m theorizing how the
sense of public identity students develop in
these spaces impacts the way they approach
their literacy education (particularly in reference
to behaviors traditionally coded as “resistant”). I
really believe that we can learn a lot by taking a
closer look at the writing students do outside the
classroom.
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
KG: You’ve taught Writing 2-3 for the
Writing Program for two years now.
What’s your impression of 2-3?
SC: Being a part of the 2-3 teaching team
is a delight! If only the structure
of 2-3 could be available for all students. The
extended time and outstanding resources (and
of course, the terrific students) all serve to make
2-3 a dream course for me, as a teacher. I think
one of the many strengths of the program is the
entire term dedicated to research. I’ve learned a
lot from seeing how other teachers in the program
approach this task, and I think that the way library
staff is integrated into the curriculum is really
ideal. I also think that the 2-3 teaching assistant
program is outstanding. Students grow twice as
much with the attention of their tutors. It’s just a
very well-integrated and supportive program, for
both students and faculty.
KG: Can you tell us a bit about the
teaching philosophy/teaching
methods (you pick) that you use in Writing 2-3?
SC: In my current approach to 2-3, I was
inspired by some insights from Victor
Villaneuva (a prominent scholar of basic writing
and critical race theory in composition). Villaneuva
observed that non-traditional students (those less
familiar with/fluent in the discourse expected
in a college classroom, for a variety of reasons)
would benefit most from a dialectical approach in
the writing classroom. What that means, in brief,
is that I encourage students to use their writing
(particularly in the latter half of Writing 2) to
build a dialogue between the culture they know
well (their own, however they define it) and that
with which they are less familiar—what we could
loosely call the traditional (or canonical) literate
culture of higher education. In the first term, I’ve
started teaching a whole line-up of Greeks…
Gorgias, Plato, Aristotle, and so on. While students
struggle with this material, I simultaneously ask
them to build what I call their “rhetorical archive,”
a group of texts (verbal or visual) that they have
defined as rhetorically significant. In Writing 2,
their final paper is an analysis of texts from their
archive (that they select) in which they have to
use Plato, Aristotle or Longinus to make sense of
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
10
their selected texts. What makes this dialectical
is that both types of texts—the ones they already
feel more ownership of, and the ones they feel
most alienated from—are transformed (at least
potentially) by the writing process. I want them to
recognize the potential to exercise creativity and
agency as the architects of that dialogue.
We do a lot of other things throughout six months
in the classroom, but this assignment offers a pretty
good reflection of how I see the kind of literacies
we should be fostering in a class like 2-3. We
want these students to master academic discourse
conventions, but we don’t want to achieve that
in a way that forces cultural alienation on them.
On the other hand, we need to help students
move away from the personal as their sole source
of authority in writing (in other words, learning
to work properly with the ideas of others is key).
A dialectical approach encourages them to use
writing as a tool to bridge any perceived gap
between home culture and school culture, while
emphasizing key skills of analysis and source use
in the process.
KG: What’s the best thing about teaching
writing?
SC: What I love most about teaching
writing is the intellectual complexity
of the task. Literacy is a complex phenomenon.
It’s so much more than a basic skill. I like the
challenge of balancing the many social and
intellectual dimensions of a good writing
curriculum. It’s an all-consuming, exhausting, but
very rewarding task. I also think that what students
stand to learn in their first-year writing course
is just immeasurably important for their future
success. This is such a vital, foundational course. It
is very rewarding to be a part of it.
Sara Chaney, Writing 2-3 professor
M.A. English, Indiana University
Ph.D candidate, Composition, Literacy and
Culture, Indiana University
“Study of Teacher Error: Misreading
Resistance in the Basic Writing Classroom.”
Journal of Basic Writing, Spring 2004.
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
11

Professional Development
Karen Gocsik

Ken Bain Talks with the Writing Program

T his winter, the Writing Program was pleased

to offer its faculty the opportunity to spend
an hour with Ken Bain, author of the best-selling
book, What the Best College Teachers Do.
Professor Bain was invited to campus by DCAL to
present a public lecture in Filene Auditorium and
to work with faculty interested in Active Learning Brenda Silver, Aden Evans, and Laura Braunstein lead a profes-
methods. Writing Program faculty met with sional development workshop. Photos by Kawakahi Amina ‘09.
Professor Bain to discuss how to incorporate active Workshop Series
learning pedagogy more fully into our writing
classrooms.

Professor Bain has been the founding director

T his winter and spring, the Writing Program
was pleased to host the following professional
development workshops:
of three major teaching centers: The Center for
Teaching Excellence at New York University; • Teaching Style
the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at • Addressing Resistance in the Writing
Northwestern University, and the Center for Classroom
• Designing Research Assignments
Teaching at Vanderbilt University. All three centers • What’s In a Grade? A Workshop on
have become widely emulated and respected Assessing Student Writing
models for the advancement of university teaching • Writing Back: A Workshop on Responding
and learning. to Student Papers
• Teaching Cyberculture
What Can the Writing Program Do for You? If you have suggestions or requests for the
Fall Professional Development Workshop

T om Cormen, Writing Program Chair, hosted

an open discussion on What Can the Writing
Program Do for You? The participants, a broad
Program, please contact Karen Gocsik at
Gocsik@dartmouth.edu

spectrum of faculty from across Arts and Sciences,

talked about what they would like to see from the
Writing Program, as well as how to assess whether
the Writing Program is fulfilling its mission.

The Writing Program welcomes ideas from all Arts

and Sciences faculty members on what we can
do for you and how to assess how we’re doing.
Please feel free to contact Tom Cormen if you
would like to chat about these questions.
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
12

Faculty News
S pecial Kudos to Marlene Heck (Art History), who received
the Dartmouth Student Assembly Profiles in Excellence
Teaching Award, March 2007.
Congratulations, Marlene!

Faculty photos, from top to bottom: Colleen Boggs, Sara Chaney, Aden Evens,
Gary Lenhart, Kevin McCarthy, Doug Moody, Kim Williams.
Colleen Boggs (English) has a new book out: Transnationalism and American
Literature: Literary Translation 1773-1892, offered by Routledge this month.

Sara Chaney (Writing Program) was invited to create a module for McGraw-
Hill’s basic writing listerv. She’ll be authoring a piece on a critical issue in Basic
Writing and then fielding discussion for a period of three weeks. In receiving the
invitation, Chaney joins a group of established basic writing scholars, including
Edward White, Susanmarie Harrington, and Linda Adler-Kassner.

Aden Evens (English) delivered an invited lecture at the International Conference

on Gilles Deleuze, held in April at the University of South Carolina. Evens’ paper
was entitled “The Digital, the Virtual, and the Virtual.” Evens is also evaluating
and organizing proposals for the November annual meeting of the Society for
Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA). Evens serves as Program Chair for this year’s
conference, which will take place November 1- 4 in Portland, Maine. He is also
responsible for the design of the conference Website (visit: www.slsa07.com).

Gary Lenhart (Writing Program) has four poems appearing in The Hat, issue #7,
forthcoming.

Kevin McCarthy (Writing Program) was named Head of Screenwriting, a new emphasis
of study at the postgraduate Bennington Writing Seminars, Bennington, Vermont.

Doug Moody (Writing Program), along with Elizabeth Polli (Spanish and
Portuguese) and Otmar Foelsche (Humanities Computing), was awarded a $70,000
grant from the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning to develop
LanguageSpace.org, an interactive website for the teaching of languages. Moody
will be the manager of this project, which will partner with colleagues in the
Spanish departments at MIT and Harvard. Moody was also named a DCAL fellow
for the 2007-2008 academic year. (For more information on Moody’s DCAL
fellowship project, see http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dcal/news/).

Kim Williams (Education) presented at the American Education Research

Association (AERA) conference in Chicago a paper entitled “The Impact of the
Peaceful People Program on Students in an Urban Elementary School District Using
Comparison Groups.”
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing

?
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
Nik Primack and Susan Simon watch the screen-
ing of the RWIT video, which they produced.
Stephanie Boone, Laura Braunstein, and
Susan Simon present awards to RWIT staff.
Tom Cormen, Chair of the Writing Program, and
John Walters, President of the Class of ‘62, at
the RWIT Awards Dinner. The Class of ‘62 con-
tributes award money each year for Excellence
in Peer Tutoring and Writing Assistance.
13
What’s New at
Making Movies
Nik Primack, Special Projects
Coordinator for RWIT, and Susan
Simon, Academic Computing,
worked closely with a team
of student staff to produce an
informational and recruitment
video for RWiT. The video was
successfully screened at the annual
RWIT Awards Dinner in late May.
It’s red carpets from here for film
maker Nik!
RWIT Presents at NERCOMP
Liz Abernathey, Head Tutor, and Nik Primack joined librarian Laura
Braunstein and Academic Computing’s Susan Simon to represent
RWIT at NERCOMP, the Northeast Regional Computing Program
conference, in March. The RWIT team’s presentation featured the
center’s library and information technology services.
RWIT Staff Honored by the Library Bookplate Program
On behalf of the Library’s Student Library Service Bookplate
Program, Laura Braunstein has invited each of RWIT’s graduating
seniors to select a book. Each book will bear a bookplate that will
acknowledge the senior’s contributions to RWIT, and will become
part of the Library’s collection.
Student Art Exhibited in Berry 183
Berry 183, RWIT’s home in Baker-Berry Library, was one of the
installations sites for photographs and poetry from “Class Divide,”
an exhibit of student creative work, sponsored by the Hop.
RWIT Finishes Student Data Base
With the technical support of Steve Pierce and Susan Fliss, RWiT
launched its new database in the fall. Stephanie Boone, Director
of Student Writing Support, designed the database to document
RWIT’s expanding clientele. The database will enable RWIT to
track who comes to RWIT, for which classes, and for what kinds of
assignments.
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
14

Notable Endeavors

I n celebration of RWIT’s third year and its

graduating seniors, RWIT staff and friends
gathered for an awards dinner on May 23.
The Class of 1962’s President, John Walters,
presented Grace Chua ‘07 and Naomi Hein-
del ‘07 with the 1962 Award for Excellence
in Writing Assistance, and Lin Ruan ‘07 and
Adam Shpeen ‘07 with the 1962 Award for
Excellence in Tutoring. The Director of
Student Writing Support, Steph-
anie Boone, presented Liz Ab-
ernathey ‘07 and Nik Primack
‘07 with the RWIT Leadership
Award.

The evening featured RWIT’s

first recruiting video produced
by Nik Primack ‘07.

The Jr. Staff of ‘07s--Nik, Grace,

Liz, and Lin--greeted the new
RWIT Jr. Staff: Ying Cheng ‘09,
Special Projects Coordinator;
David Gorman ‘08, Head Writ-
ing Assistant; Rose Mutiso ‘08,
Head Tutor; and Nichola Tucker
‘08, Chair of Hiring.

Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
15

ESL News
Judith Hertog
English as a Second Language Specialist

J
udith Hertog, ESL Instructor for graduate students, reports that the ESL
discussion group is expanding. Because of increased interest, Judith
now holds two weekly meetings: Tuesday lunchtime (in Baker library 152) and Thursday evening
(International Office). Recent reading assignments/discussion topics have included: eating out/American
foods, the American Constitution and the concept of “freedom,” The Virginia Tech tragedy, the work of
Kurt Vonnegut, email etiquette, Anna Nicole Smith and tabloid culture, and plagiarism.
Judith usually combines a reading assignment and a short grammar or vocabulary lesson with discussion
topics that relates to American society.

Judith is also keeping busy with individual clients form various departments, working with several students
who are writing their doctoral theses and with MA students who are writing papers for classes. She is also
doing the ESL training for the RWIT staff, sensitizing tutors to the needs of international students.

New England Faculty Development Consortium

L aura Braunstein and Karen Gocsik delivered a

talk at the New England Faculty Development
Consortium entitled “Research Wiki: Constructing
Knowledge in a Group Assignment.” In the talk they
described how they used a wiki assignment to diag-
nose how first-year international students construct
knowledge, how they find and evaluate sources, and
how they make sense of material they’ve never seen
before -- all crucial steps in the learning process and
the development of information literacy.

Day-Long Workshop in Teaching Writing and Research Methods

The Writing Program, the Library, and DCAL are pleased to invite first-year seminar instructors to
attend a day-long workshop on teaching writing and research methods.
Date: September 12, 2007
Time: 9-4:30
Place: The DCAL Teaching Center
Lunch will be provided.
For more information, contact Karen Gocsik at gocsik@dartmouth.edu. Invitations will arrive via
blitzmail later this summer.

Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
16

Dealing With The Fear of Writing:

How to Make Young Writers Care
Zsuzsa Mitró
Teaching Assistant, Writing 2-3

W riting 2-3 is a rich and complex learning

experience shared by students, professors,
and TAs alike. One important goal is to teach
efforts to produce
better drafts.

students to create lucid academic writing without
losing their personal voice—a goal that requires
evolution not only in a student’s writing, but in her
thinking as well. Indeed, 2-3 professors claim that
2-3 “is not just a writing course,” noting that first-
year students are often unprepared for how much
their thinking changes in the class. Eventually,
of course, students benefit from the changes. To
be sure, this change depends on what methods
Writing 2-3 professors use to teach their students
to write better papers. Yet the ultimate mark of their
success is that students
To be sure, young writers arrive in the course
with a lot of anxieties. As one student put it at the
beginning of the fall course, “My biggest frustration
is the flow of the paper. The material is good, but
it’s not in the correct order.” This same student
had additional problems with run-on sentences
and grammar. His greatest fear, however, was “not
making sense.” Still, he was to overcome these
problems by the end of the second term half a
year later. And how was this going to happen?
According to my experience, most students shared
the assumption that if
they followed the syllabus

usually take away much
more from the course.
As a TA, I witnessed
students grow intellectually
within Stephanie Boone’s
class during fall and winter
terms. Stephanie’s syllabus
was my first encounter with
what 2-3 students might
experience while learning
to write better academic
papers. Her course
assignments were designed conscious acknowledgement of
“
Making young writers closely and did what they
were supposed to do, the
care is important not primarily rewards would naturally
because it guarantees them bet- follow. And this is exactly
where Stephanie’s syllabus
ter grades. It matters because put them to the test.
when students know how to After the first few weeks,
write well, they gain clarity of the question shifted from
“What am I supposed to
thinking, a good command of do to get a better grade?”
their own critical voice, and a to “How do I address
my topic in an effective,
meaningful way?” Focused

”
on the premise that putting
first-year writers in charge their readership. on the themes of trauma,
of first confronting and landscape, and memory,
then learning to manage Stephanie’s assignments
their own fears gradually first challenged students to
made them more mature, as well as more careful start thinking critically about their own personal
about the content and the style of their papers. In experiences. For instance, in the “The Place Essay,”
other words, once students forget their anxieties, she invited them to make a personal connection
clarity is likely to replace confusion. Similarly, as with the central themes of the course. Over the
the internal authority of young writers emerges, period of several weeks, the students produced
the external authorities of the professor and TA several drafts on the same topic. In this way,
successfully complement, rather than overwhelm, the final paper evolved from a familiar personal
narrative to their first argumentative essay.
Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing
Spring 2007 • Volume 2 • Number 2
17
This assignment had further productive outcomes. On the one hand, the students were challenged to
revisit something problematic in their past, and although they had to explore a personal experience with
fresh eyes, they could do so in the supportive environment of the 2-3 classroom. On the other hand,
the distance provided by time prompted new questions, and these young writers had to find meaningful
ways to answer them. While in their writing they initially investigated the personal, the students were
also gradually making connections to the broader context and larger themes of academia.
Whether or not a student becomes a successful academic writer depends, in part, on the student’s
trust in the professor-as-authority method. Yet when a young writer is invested in his or her own
learning process, a breakthrough necessarily follows. Making young writers care is important not
primarily because it guarantees them better grades. It matters because when students know how to
write well, they gain clarity of thinking, a good command of their own critical voice, and a conscious
acknowledgement of their readership.
In truth, my reason for becoming a TA was simple: I wanted to help young writers overcome their fear.
After all, I used to struggle with the awkwardness and frustration of not knowing how to make sense on
paper myself. However, since I was motivated to succeed, a breakthrough inevitably came.
And what was there for me in return for the care I wanted to provide? First, the experience of working as
a TA enhanced the quality of my own writing and made me a sharper reader and more thoughtful critic.
Second, I could make a connection with first-year students and find out how they thought and what
interested them. Finally, I could make sure that once our first-year writers found their own unique voice,
they were not afraid to write eloquently about what truly interested them.
Stephanie’s syllabus and methods made me appreciate the unique position that TAs are in. Writing 2-3
TAs indeed occupy a rich and complex space that mediates between instructors and students and, more
importantly, between the experience of teaching and learning. Furthermore, we get to mentor a group of
bright and hard-working students, and we ourselves are mentored as teachers and writers as well—and
not only by our professors, but by our fellow TAs and a program of faculty and administrators obviously
devoted to the challenges of teaching writing.

Nik Primack ‘07 The Writing Program Staff

Valedictorian!
The Writing Program, together
with RWIT, congratulate Nik
Primack, Valedictorian of the
Class of ‘07. Nik worked for
three years as a tutor, Special
Projects Coordinator, and Jr. Staff member at the
Student Center for Research, Writing, and Informa-
tion Technology (RWIT). Nik added to the Writing
Program’s Fall 2006 newsletter with his article,
“Winning the Battle: A Student’s Perspective.”
Those of us in the Writing Program and RWIT
enjoyed our association with Nik, and will miss his
presence in the Writing Program suite.
Tom Cormen, Chair of the Writing Program, and
Professor in the Department of Computer Science
Karen Gocsik, Writing Program newsletter edi-
tor, Executive Director of the Writing Program,
and Adjunct Associate Professor of Writing.
Stephanie Boone, Director of Student Writing
Support, which includes the Writing Assistance
Program and RWIT, and Lecturer in the English
Department.
Judith Hertog, English as a Second Language
Specialist.
Holly Barry, Administrative Assistant, and
graphic designer of the Writing Program news-
letter.

Dartmouth College Writing Program • 6250 Baker Library, Suite 200 • Hanover NH 03755 • 603.646.9748 • www.dartmouth.edu/~writing