After Winter in Expos, It's Sommers

For the first time in a long time, Nancy Sommers looks relaxed.

She has reason to be. The Marius Era in the Expository Writing program--a tortuous 15-year period which saw the program advance even as teacher morale plunged--is over. Sommers, the longtime associate director to Richard C. Marius, is now firmly in charge.

"She has been open and wonderful," gushes one Expos teacher, who had previously been a critic of the program. "Change comes slowly, but things are looking up."

Sommers is pursuing some reforms inside Expos, but many of her ideas are for the Harvard curriculum as a whole.

"I want Expos to be an anchor for students in their writing at Harvard," Sommers says. "It should introduce them to the common ground for what is considered good writing at Harvard."

Sommers wants to make writing a more important part of classes, and she has already convinced some professors to introduce writing assignments that resemble those used in the Expos program. Last year, she helped professors Joseph Koerner and Diana L. Eck incorporate more writing into their classes.

This year, Sommers is consulting with Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Gregory Nagy for his popular core course Literature and Arts C-14: "The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization." And her deputy, Gordon Harvey, is working with sophomore tutorials in government.

Nagy says he is ecstatic about the changes to writing assignments in "Heroes." The number of papers in the class has stayed constant--two--but now there are sequenced writing assignments, due each week in section, which lead up to each paper. In a way, it's just like Expos.

"The way a participant gets the best of the course is to hand in weekly writing assignments," Nagy says.

The professor also says he is changing the class so that paper topics follow directly out of lectures. Students will enjoy writing papers more, he and Sommers reason, if they are better integrated into the course.

Sommers is also hoping to make a public splash with her report on undergraduate writing at Harvard, which is scheduled to be released next week.

"My goal is to change students' writing experiences at Harvard from a series of fragmented assignments to one integrated experience," she says.

Towards that goal, Expos will be more standardized under Sommers. She wants the program to focus entirely on "writing about texts," which is a skill every Harvard student must have.

Sommers says she decided to focus the program in this way after collecting a volume's worth of paper assignments. "We're trying to find out what's common to Harvard writing assignments," she says.

In recent years, Expos teachers have described their program as an island, with little more than a footbridge connecting it to the rest of the curriculum. Students were expected to write one way in Harvard's first-year writing program and another way in their classes. Sommers says she wants to change that.

Changing Attitudes

Officials with interest in and responsibility for the curriculum have long recognized that writing is undervalued at the College.

"I'd like to see more interaction between departments and Expos," Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell said in an interview last fall. "The departmental programs, particularly tutorial instruction, could benefit from the systematic instruction in writing that the Expos people have."

Many professors have similar feelings. "I'd be very interested in seeing proposals to see more formal and articulated links between what goes on in Expos and others courses," Professor of Biology Andrew H. Knoll said last year.

Sommers' task is to somehow push the bureaucrats and the professors to do something about the problem. That will be difficult. The faculty committee best situated to help writing spread through the curriculum--the Standing Faculty Committee on Expository Writing--meets sparingly and is notoriously ineffectual.

"I think the objectives of committees like these are not to be a second sort of evaluation process but to think about goals and objectives," said Susan W. Lewis, director of the program and a member of the standing committee, in describing the committee's role last year. "I think it would be hard for a committee... to do anything implementational."

Making change is complicated by the attitudes many professors hold about writing. Howard M. Georgi III '68, chair of the physics department, last year explained the learning process for writing: "Someday you write a paper with someone who knows how to write and they beat on you until you know how to do it."

Expos teachers also feel that for Sommers to succeed, she must make it easier for them to communicate with the faculty. Under the Marius administration, many teachers in the program complained the Expos administration isolated writing instructors from the rest of campus.

Sommers says she recognizes that changing the way Harvard professors and administrators think about writing will be difficult, and that converts must be won one by one.

Working with professors like Koerner, a dedicated writer, is easy, Sommers says. She consulted with him last year on writing assignments for Literature and Arts B-42 "The Altarpiece," and met with TFs in the course.

"In one class, Koerner gave a spectacular lecture about how he'd write about an altar-piece," Sommers recalls. "Instead of just, say, writing about an altarpiece, you could write about a detail in an altarpiece and then you could go from a part to a whole."

'Active Interpreters'

While she can be shy, Sommers is an aggressive personality, Expos teachers say. She says she wants first-years to learn to be "active interpreters," not "passive reporters" in their writing.

She is making small but meaningful changes to the Expos schedule in order to give first-years a better opportunity to do that.

Before this year, Expos required four 8-10 page papers, and both teachers and students complained that was too much work for a short Harvard semester. For the Class of 1998, the first paper will be 3-5 pages, the second and third 5-7, and only the fourth 8-10 pages in length.

"One of the analyses we did of Harvard assignments showed that a lot of times students were only asked to write three to five page papers," Sommers says. "So we wanted to give them that experience in Expos."

One thing about the program will never change, Sommers says: its emphasis on revisions. She says students must learn to rewrite their own work. So Sommers is asking Expos teachers to spend more time in individual conferences with students in order to work out the kinks in different drafts.

The new Expos director also has a number of long-term projects at various stages of development.

The program is compiling a booklet on the use of sources in academic writing for dispersal throughout the College. Sommers and others in Expos are expanding their work as consultants for core classes and sophomore tutorials.

In Dunster House, Sommers and Suzi Naiburg, an Expos teacher and the new senior tutor, have arranged for a special non-resident writing tutor, Kerry Walk, to join the house staff. Sommers hopes that one day writing tutors, which have been a successful part of Yale's composition program, will be standard fare in the undergraduate houses.

"The idea is that we want someone close at hand to work with students on all phases of writing," Naiburg said this week.

Four-Year Rule

Sommers is non-committal on the most controversial subject amongst those who work in Expos: the four-year limit on teacher tenure.

Dozens of current and former teachers as well as some University officials blasted the rule in a three-part Crimson series last October. They said the rule forces good teachers to leave Harvard just as they are hitting their stride in the Expos program. And it distracts from the business of teaching.

"I don't think students are served by a four-year rule," teacher William Rice said like fall. "If there's a four-year rule, people will wind up going out on the job market before their time is up."

"I don't understand a system that forces people out after four years," James D. Wilkinson '65, director of the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, said last fall. "If good teachers want to stay around for 30 years, we should let them."

Sommers says she is more concerned with making teachers happy than with the limit on tenure. While teachers say she has considered extending the limit to five or six years, Sommers will only say the matter is likely to be discussed by the Standing Faculty Committee on Expos at some point this year.

For her, the four-year rule is not nearly as important as improving the quality of writing instruction at Harvard.

"It's wonderful to work in an environment where we have support to try these initiatives," she says. "Being director of the writing program at Harvard carries enormous opportunities.

Changing Attitudes

Officials with interest in and responsibility for the curriculum have long recognized that writing is undervalued at the College.

"I'd like to see more interaction between departments and Expos," Dean for Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell said in an interview last fall. "The departmental programs, particularly tutorial instruction, could benefit from the systematic instruction in writing that the Expos people have."

Many professors have similar feelings. "I'd be very interested in seeing proposals to see more formal and articulated links between what goes on in Expos and others courses," Professor of Biology Andrew H. Knoll said last year.

Sommers' task is to somehow push the bureaucrats and the professors to do something about the problem. That will be difficult. The faculty committee best situated to help writing spread through the curriculum--the Standing Faculty Committee on Expository Writing--meets sparingly and is notoriously ineffectual.

"I think the objectives of committees like these are not to be a second sort of evaluation process but to think about goals and objectives," said Susan W. Lewis, director of the program and a member of the standing committee, in describing the committee's role last year. "I think it would be hard for a committee... to do anything implementational."

Making change is complicated by the attitudes many professors hold about writing. Howard M. Georgi III '68, chair of the physics department, last year explained the learning process for writing: "Someday you write a paper with someone who knows how to write and they beat on you until you know how to do it."

Expos teachers also feel that for Sommers to succeed, she must make it easier for them to communicate with the faculty. Under the Marius administration, many teachers in the program complained the Expos administration isolated writing instructors from the rest of campus.

Sommers says she recognizes that changing the way Harvard professors and administrators think about writing will be difficult, and that converts must be won one by one.

Working with professors like Koerner, a dedicated writer, is easy, Sommers says. She consulted with him last year on writing assignments for Literature and Arts B-42 "The Altarpiece," and met with TFs in the course.

"In one class, Koerner gave a spectacular lecture about how he'd write about an altar-piece," Sommers recalls. "Instead of just, say, writing about an altarpiece, you could write about a detail in an altarpiece and then you could go from a part to a whole."

'Active Interpreters'

While she can be shy, Sommers is an aggressive personality, Expos teachers say. She says she wants first-years to learn to be "active interpreters," not "passive reporters" in their writing.

She is making small but meaningful changes to the Expos schedule in order to give first-years a better opportunity to do that.

Before this year, Expos required four 8-10 page papers, and both teachers and students complained that was too much work for a short Harvard semester. For the Class of 1998, the first paper will be 3-5 pages, the second and third 5-7, and only the fourth 8-10 pages in length.

"One of the analyses we did of Harvard assignments showed that a lot of times students were only asked to write three to five page papers," Sommers says. "So we wanted to give them that experience in Expos."

One thing about the program will never change, Sommers says: its emphasis on revisions. She says students must learn to rewrite their own work. So Sommers is asking Expos teachers to spend more time in individual conferences with students in order to work out the kinks in different drafts.

The new Expos director also has a number of long-term projects at various stages of development.

The program is compiling a booklet on the use of sources in academic writing for dispersal throughout the College. Sommers and others in Expos are expanding their work as consultants for core classes and sophomore tutorials.

In Dunster House, Sommers and Suzi Naiburg, an Expos teacher and the new senior tutor, have arranged for a special non-resident writing tutor, Kerry Walk, to join the house staff. Sommers hopes that one day writing tutors, which have been a successful part of Yale's composition program, will be standard fare in the undergraduate houses.

"The idea is that we want someone close at hand to work with students on all phases of writing," Naiburg said this week.

Four-Year Rule

Sommers is non-committal on the most controversial subject amongst those who work in Expos: the four-year limit on teacher tenure.

Dozens of current and former teachers as well as some University officials blasted the rule in a three-part Crimson series last October. They said the rule forces good teachers to leave Harvard just as they are hitting their stride in the Expos program. And it distracts from the business of teaching.

"I don't think students are served by a four-year rule," teacher William Rice said like fall. "If there's a four-year rule, people will wind up going out on the job market before their time is up."

"I don't understand a system that forces people out after four years," James D. Wilkinson '65, director of the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, said last fall. "If good teachers want to stay around for 30 years, we should let them."

Sommers says she is more concerned with making teachers happy than with the limit on tenure. While teachers say she has considered extending the limit to five or six years, Sommers will only say the matter is likely to be discussed by the Standing Faculty Committee on Expos at some point this year.

For her, the four-year rule is not nearly as important as improving the quality of writing instruction at Harvard.

"It's wonderful to work in an environment where we have support to try these initiatives," she says. "Being director of the writing program at Harvard carries enormous opportunities.