Graduate Writing Fellows Program Promotes Organization, Revision

An experimental program designed to promote better writing in sections and tutorials may eventually become a College-wide policy, administrators said last week.

Nine tutors and section leaders were chosen last year to participate in the Graduate Writing Fellows program begun this semester. The fellows, who receive a minimal stipend, were required to attend a two-day workshop in September that focused on teaching writing technique and giving helpful feedback. Last week, participants held the first in a series of follow-up meetings designed to follow the progress each tutor is making.

The project comes in the midst of a national education effort to establish "writing across the curriculum." A similar program is in operation at Yale, said Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education David Pilbeam, who oversees the Harvard program. Pilbeam's office awarded the program a start-up grant because "writing is one important facet of the training of analytical skills," he said.

Sue Lonoff, an expository writing teacher who runs the experimental pilot, said she was concerned that students are not often encouraged to improve their writing. Lonoff said the University decided to award the grant because some alumni have recently complained to President Bok that their Harvard education did not prepare them for the writing necessary in their careers.

Although the pilot will run only through this semester, Pilbeam said he would like to see it extended and expanded, saying that the program might be "generalizable."

Any spread, however, is likely to be gradual and "is dependent on funds," Pilbeam said. Although the program is "clearly of educational merit," he said that it was also labor intensive.

The writing sections and tutorials that the fellows teach aim to help Harvard students with noticeable problems in organizing and presenting clearly their writing, according to administrators and fellows.

"The level of writing [among Harvard students] is often atrocious," said William Braverman, an assistant senior tutor at Mather House and graduate student in history. He said that although most Harvard students have very good ideas, they often have difficulty expressing their ideas in writing.

Teaching fellows in the experimental program said they emphasize revision. Many said they have students outline their work after it is completed to find organizational faults, while others rely on in-class writing exercises. Braverman said that since the one course he was a section leader for had no paper, he would spend time in section teaching students how to write for exams.

Lee-Fang Chien, who teaches a section of Historical Study A-14, "Tradition and Transformation in East Asia: Japan," said she stressed the opportunity for peer review at the WritingCenter. Chien said she is "hoping to get morethought, more thinking ahead, [and] more planningabout the argument" in her student's papers.

Students have said the writing intensivesections were not more work and were helpful inimproving their writing.

Ian D. Highet '88 said Braverman, who is histhesis adviser, had him outline his thesis afterwriting it, has given precise comments and takenthe time to work closely with him.

Kristine A. Puopolo '90 said she appreciated anin-class assignment in her section of Literatureand Arts B-16, "Modern Art and Abstraction,"noting that her teaching fellow's comments werelonger than her essay. And, she said, theintensive writing sections, "help assure thatpeople do the reading.