Expos Study Tracks College Writing Careers

Imagine a world in which Expos never ended.

For many undergraduates, the idea is akin to the seventh circle of hell, but Nancy Sommers, Sosland director of expository writing, is extending the Expos experience into four years for 422 members of the Class of 2001.

After 1993 senior survey results indicated that most seniors felt that first-year expository writing classes suffered from an "academic isolation" in the curriculum, Sommers and her team began the first-ever long-term study of college writing.

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and President Neil L. Rudenstine, the study is now beginning its fourth semester. The data on the transition from high school to college-level writing is in and analyzed, and results are just now coming in on the sophomores' adjustment to the writing demands of their individual disciplines.

"As one student put it, the freshman year was like `drowning in a swimming pool'--sophomore year is like being `immersed,'" says Kerry L. Walk, assistant director of the Harvard Writing Project.

The Harvard Writing Study

Sommers loves to talk about the "thrilling, exciting project" on which she has spent the last year and a half. Her excitement is tangible as she shows off the four large filing cabinets that span the length of her spacious office in the Expository Writing office, filled with the contents of dozens of sophomores' entire college writing careers.

Sommers says the study has a twofold purpose. The first is to critically look at the 127-year-old Expository Writing program. "We can do a better job if we know what writing at Harvard means," Sommers says.

The second goal is to collect the writing experiences of undergraduates in their own terms. Sommers says she wants to find the "defining moments that influence a student's writing each year" and examine how students use their writing.

Sommers plans to write two books with the results from the study. The first will be a scholarly book for academia and the second will be geared towards students.

Writing at Harvard "will try to take some of the mystery out" of writing says Sommers. She says it will include practical guidelines learned from the study.

In the fall of 1997 letters were sent to the class of 2001, inviting them to participate in the study. Twenty-five percent of the class--422 students--responded. They filled out a questionnaire available at the study's Web site at www.fas.harvard.edu/~wrstudy. For their efforts, they received a $5 coupon to Pizzeria Uno's or Toscanini's.

"At first the free gift factor seemed nice," says Jorge Alex Alvarez '01, a study participant. "But helping them figure out how to best help undergraduates develop, refine, and use their writing skills makes me feel as if I'm helping out future students and, more importantly, helping a Harvard that cares about how we express our knowledge."

The questionnaire collected demographic information and the student's views on their writing and the place of writing in their education.

The second questionnaire--asking them to reflect on their first year of writing--received responses from a phenomenal 95 percent of the original study participants. They will also fill out one questionnaire junior year and another senior year.

Sommers and her staff chose 65 students to study more closely. These students are interviewed twice a year and submit copies of all their writing.

"Doing an in-depth interview about my paper-writing process every semester forces me to put into words what exactly that process is, and even where I could make changes in the process to do better," says Shauna L. Shames '01, a study participant.

Last summer Terrence Tivnan '69, a lecturer at the Graduate School of Education, analyzed the results from the first survey.

Over the summer Walk and Laura Saltz, preceptor in expository writing, wrote profiles of the interview data analysis.

The profiles attempted "to give a sense of each student's personality, his/her experience of the freshman year and his/her strengths and weaknesses as a writer," Saltz says.

The Results Are In

Last summer's data show that first years write, and write a lot. The average is 13 papers in the first year, with 25 percent of the class writing 16 to 22 papers.

"Writing can be said to define a Harvard education," Walk says.

Sommers says that the results show that students feel "something more, something deeper" is required in college writing as opposed to writing done in high school.

Shames says she has perceived this difference between high school and college as well. "It was up to us to figure out connections in the readings, to draw our own conclusions. All this was very different from high school, where you were usually given avery clear question or argument to respond to."

Moreover, Saltz says, college writing proved tobe a form of self-discovery for first-years. "Formany students, learning to write at college wastantamount to discovering that they were someonewith things to say," Saltz says.

Sommers says that those students who wrote alot "had a sense of scholarly belonging" and thatthere were several examples of teaching fellowsand Faculty "who had made a difference."

Students who took moral reasoning or philosophycourses made especially large gains in theirwriting, something Sommers attributes to the "verydifferent kind of writing and topics" in thosetypes of classes.

"Students were inspired by their professors,who showed them a new way to think about subjects,including religion, that already meant a greatdeal to them," Saltz says.

The intellectual rigor of these disciplinesalso tended to drive first-years to refine theirwriting, she adds.

"Students must learn to close read and to arguea point, and our hypothesis is that these twothings--close reading and arguing--are important"in writing for philosophy and moral reasoningclasses, she says.

Moving On Up

Although Expos complaints echo annually throughAnnenberg Hall, the first-year dining hall, thestudy showed that most were "satisfied with theiroverall academic experience." Many cited Expos asa valuable class that taught them to read and edittheir own work critically.

Preliminary results from the sophomore yearshow that students who have completed thetransition from high school to college-levelwriting are now refining the writing tools neededfor their particular academic concentrations.

Students who are happy with their choice ofconcentration and who are enrolled in a sophomoretutorial generally express a "sense ofexcitement."

Students without a concentration or a sophomoretutorial usually characterize themselves in theinterview as "just taking the course without asense of belonging," Sommers says.

The study has also shown, she says, that theprocess of writing is directly related tolearning.

Students "don't just learn the material betterby writing; they also begin to take the materialon, to make connections that they hadn't seenbefore, to bring their own ideas to bear on whatthey're reading" Walk says.

"Doing this kind of critical, independentthinking is what a liberal arts educations is allabout," she adds.

Sommers says that she was surprised withstudents' passion for writing and its importanceto them--and with just how much students write.

She also says she was intrigued to note thatstudents' responses to new ways of writing wasrelated to the ways students resist and adjust tocollege life.

Students who tended to balk at changing theirwriting styles also tended to have a moredifficult transition to other aspects of collegelife. "They want to hold on to the methods thatgot them [to Harvard]," she says.

She adds that perhaps the biggest surprise camein realizing "how large a transition it is" tocollege and "how many new things students juggle.

Moreover, Saltz says, college writing proved tobe a form of self-discovery for first-years. "Formany students, learning to write at college wastantamount to discovering that they were someonewith things to say," Saltz says.

Sommers says that those students who wrote alot "had a sense of scholarly belonging" and thatthere were several examples of teaching fellowsand Faculty "who had made a difference."

Students who took moral reasoning or philosophycourses made especially large gains in theirwriting, something Sommers attributes to the "verydifferent kind of writing and topics" in thosetypes of classes.

"Students were inspired by their professors,who showed them a new way to think about subjects,including religion, that already meant a greatdeal to them," Saltz says.

The intellectual rigor of these disciplinesalso tended to drive first-years to refine theirwriting, she adds.

"Students must learn to close read and to arguea point, and our hypothesis is that these twothings--close reading and arguing--are important"in writing for philosophy and moral reasoningclasses, she says.

Moving On Up

Although Expos complaints echo annually throughAnnenberg Hall, the first-year dining hall, thestudy showed that most were "satisfied with theiroverall academic experience." Many cited Expos asa valuable class that taught them to read and edittheir own work critically.

Preliminary results from the sophomore yearshow that students who have completed thetransition from high school to college-levelwriting are now refining the writing tools neededfor their particular academic concentrations.

Students who are happy with their choice ofconcentration and who are enrolled in a sophomoretutorial generally express a "sense ofexcitement."

Students without a concentration or a sophomoretutorial usually characterize themselves in theinterview as "just taking the course without asense of belonging," Sommers says.

The study has also shown, she says, that theprocess of writing is directly related tolearning.

Students "don't just learn the material betterby writing; they also begin to take the materialon, to make connections that they hadn't seenbefore, to bring their own ideas to bear on whatthey're reading" Walk says.

"Doing this kind of critical, independentthinking is what a liberal arts educations is allabout," she adds.

Sommers says that she was surprised withstudents' passion for writing and its importanceto them--and with just how much students write.

She also says she was intrigued to note thatstudents' responses to new ways of writing wasrelated to the ways students resist and adjust tocollege life.

Students who tended to balk at changing theirwriting styles also tended to have a moredifficult transition to other aspects of collegelife. "They want to hold on to the methods thatgot them [to Harvard]," she says.

She adds that perhaps the biggest surprise camein realizing "how large a transition it is" tocollege and "how many new things students juggle.