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Since coming to Western in 2003, I’ve been
encouraged and supported by a lot of people
here on campus whose jobs are to support
writing at Western.
Particularly important and encouraging to me
has been Roberta Kjesrud, who is the director
of the Writing Center, who has helped in both
my lower and upper division classes
in bringing writing instruction to the students
and facilitating writing assignments
in both classes.
For example, in the lower division classes,
in the big surveys, she and her writing
assistants have facilitated the discussions
that take place on the online discussion board.
So, having that kind of assistance,
having a writing center in and of itself,
is so important to instructors to support what
we’re doing for trying to integrate writing,
especially into these large classes.
Now, in the upper division Roberta and her
writing assistants will often come into
the classes and conduct workshops on
how to go about coming up with an idea
for a research paper, how to construct a thesis,
which is very difficult to do if you haven’t
been asked to do that before.
Also, just coming in and helping students
think about how they’re going to organize
their ideas once they’re already launched
on a project, how do you go about putting
the pieces of the puzzle together?
Now, we might have been working on that in
other formats in looking at readings and
disentangling the ideas in readings,
getting a sense of how these various authors
organize their ideas, as a manner of
preparation for the students
writing their own work.
But having the ability to have the writing
center actually come into the class,
and someone with Roberta’s expertise
come into the class, and instruct students
specifically in writing techniques is a real
asset in the classroom.
In these classrooms that are, for the most part,
my classrooms are focused on art historical
studies, so the subject matter is art history
and yet I’m asking them to work on these
skills that are, you could say, outside of the
substance of the courses and this is where
having someone with specific expertise
in the writing field is really essential.
I want to make sure that I communicate
how important it is, as an instructor, to feel
the support of your immediate community,
for example, my art department colleagues.
Especially my colleagues in the art history
area have been incredibly interested in the
kinds of writing assignments I’m introducing.
We talk about our assignments,
we share assignments, we think about how our
assignments integrate with one another’s
assignments.
So that: creating, having that community
of support, is essential to having the confidence
to continue to introduce new ideas.