Possible Solutions From Other Programs

The problems of curricular isolation and teacher morale that some see at Harvard are the same difficulties all universities with writing programs must face.

If Harvard's system is not always effective, as critics charge, perhaps the answers lies in other institutions' attempts to address those problems:

Stanford administers its writing requirement through the English Department, using a mixture of graduate students, professors and lecturers to teach it, says Joyce Penn Moser, associate director of the Program in Critical Thinking.

But the university uses a Writing Across the Curriculum program to tie all parts of the faculty to the teaching of writing.

The program introduces discipline-specific writing skills to reinforce the broader lessons of Stanford's first-year program, says Claudes M. Reichard, lecturer in English and training consultant in WAC. Eighteen departments and 40 courses are currently involved, he says.

Stanford professors who have taught WAC classes in their departments say the experience has been valuable both for undergraduates and for those who teach them.

Stephen Chiu, a Stanford professor of physics who has taught the department's writing-intensive course, says undergraduates in science need to learn how to write in their discipline before graduate school.

"Scientific writing is something that's very important," Chiu said. "Most of the time graduate students learn about writing when they are graduate students and writing papers."

And, says Stanford Associate Professor of Art Michael J. Merriman, teaching a writing-intensive class is "both instructive and eye-opening" for professors more used to expounding on a topic than teaching a skill.

At Princeton, students can take a writing-intensive seminar offered by a professor or a lecture course in a variety of different departments with specially trained graduate students offering writing-focused sections.

Also, the majority of students take writing classes from professors and graduate students working under a lecturers are hired as well, says Marvina White, who is acting director of the Princeton Writing Center.

The lecturers are a mix of academics and professional writers, she says, and they can be hired for up to six years at a salary about $5,000 higher than what Harvard offers its Expos teachers.

The advantage of the Princeton system, says White, is that it integrates itself into the rest of the faculty and curriculum. It is overseen by a Council for the Humanities made up of professors from a number of disciplines, and professors from all parts of the faculty teach under its auspices.

At Duke University, graduate students from a variety of different departments teach the writing classes required of all first-years.

More significantly, the school has an extensive training and mentoring program in place to add to collegiality and coherence, according to Professor of the Practice of Rhetoric George D. Gopin, director of writing programs.

New teachers get three full days of training in the spring and in August, Gopin says. And for each nine new teachers, a "veteran assistant," who has taught in the program for two or three years, serves as a guide for curricular and teaching concerns.

Each group uses the same syllabus in "lockstep," he says, and each "rookie" teacher meets with the veteran assistant at least once a week to discuss concerns.

At Dartmouth College, the basic introductory writing class is taught through the English Department, and all first-year students must take a writing-intensive seminar offered by a faculty member, says David Wykes, director of composition and of the first-year seminar program at Dartmouth.

At the University of Pennsylvania, says Peshe C. Kuriloff '69, director of Writing Across the University there, students can choose between a seminar offered by a professor or high-level graduate student and writing-intensive sections in two courses anywhere in the curriculum.

In this case as well, Kareloff points out, there is a close tie between curriculum, faculty and writing program as members of all departments are involved with administering the writing requirement.

"I find no intelligent reason why writing should not be taught in all subjects," she says.