In thinking about creating a learning community focused on basic writing courses and students, it will be helpful for faculty, instructors and administrators to refer to specific examples of learning community models and learn what they are doing that is working for their BW students. This information will include specific curricula, as well as program and classroom practices that focus on the BW component of the program.
North Central College requires a program called Freshman Seminar, which offers an interdisciplinary approach and links a writing course with a course from another discipline. This class includes first-year students who do not place into the “accelerated” version of the composition class. One example of this course is called “Writing and Photography” (Leahy 3). In this class, instructors plan, teach and assess as a team, and they share the goal of helping students gain “…confidence in their ability to grapple with visual and textual sources…” (5). The students write three essays, sequenced very specifically, including a photo essay, a research essay, and an interpretive essay. The instructors found that conferencing and workshopping were extremely useful practices that helped them to “…address confusion (or panic) that might stem from the very perspectives and approaches [they] intend will liberate” (8). The class includes activities such as:
- reading and discussion
- analysis of photographs, artwork, poetry and other short readings
- writing activities such as summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting, developing paragraphs, openings, transitions and conclusions, planning and writing essays, reflecting, and editing and revising individually and with peers
- taking photographs (11–19).
Anna Leahy and Deborah Rindge, the developers and instructors of the course, found that the exercises in the class pushed “…students to articulate their own responses with increasing clarity and to think both/and” (6). Additionally, they felt that the proper sequencing of written assignments helped students to learn from the feedback they receive and apply this knowledge to later writing assignments (7). Student evaluations showed that students often “…felt uneasy making decisions for themselves about writing…,” which led the instructors to note the need for continuing to reflect on and alter the instructional methods for future student cohorts (8).
Other LC programs mentioned previously also offer several examples of course content that may prove beneficial for BW students:
- In the Synergy Program, students read, conduct primary research, write an editorial essay, a rhetorical analysis, an argument essay, an ethnography and develop a web portfolio, and discuss key issues pertaining to identity, acculturation and success.
- The integrated reading/writing program as SFSU works to meet its stated objectives using many methods. Students read “…a wide range of materials…written from different points of view” (Goen 98) and work with several idea-generating strategies such as KWL+, which is “…a four-step procedure intended to help teachers become more responsive to helping students access appropriate knowledge when reading texts” (99), freewriting and prereading. They work on all aspects of the writing process and on strategies to improve reading rate, comprehension and interpretation. They write informal reading journals and double-entry journals, and learn that “…readers construct the meaning of texts they read by degrees in the same way writers gradually construct meaning in the texts they write” (99–100). The reading and writing the students do focuses on current social issues and the courses incorporate community-building activities (100). Finally, the students participate in student self-assessment through writing a self-reflective essay about what they have learned, what changed for them as a result of the course, and what they still need to work on (100–1).
- The program at Murray State asks students to, for instance, discuss writing and speaking topic ideas, prepare outlines, draft essays, deliver speeches about their essay topics, write and revise essays, discuss rhetorical methods used in the composition process, and analyze unfamiliar vocabulary (Phillips 5–6). Students also work on reading and test-taking skills, audience analysis and library research skills (6–8).
- Students in Rachelle Darabi’s LC study practice peer review of student writing, do reflective writing, study groups, receive training in library research, learn test-taking skills, give speeches that are directly connected to writing assignments, participate in a team game that focuses on diversity and discuss work being done for one class in the other classes, such as discussing a writing assignment in their communication class (60).
