{"id":4834,"date":"2014-08-06T11:53:43","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T16:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/?p=4834"},"modified":"2017-07-12T15:07:43","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T20:07:43","slug":"two-summer-experiments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dept.writing.wisc.edu\/blog\/two-summer-experiments\/","title":{"rendered":"Two summer experiments"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"What's<\/a>
What’s happening behind this door? Come visit us\u00a0this fall to find out!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Warm breezes waft down State Street, students linger on Memorial Terrace, and a thousand construction vehicles purr in the gravel-filled trenches that used to be our roads and sidewalks. It\u2019s August in Madison, and the Writing Center is open.<\/p>\n

Many of the\u00a0Writing Center’s programs continue over the summer\u2014instruction, Fellowing, outreach, and workshops, among others\u2014with a smaller staff and on a smaller scale.<\/p>\n

But great summers are about not<\/em>\u00a0doing the same things\u00a0you do during the rest of the year. Summer in the Writing Center is, for us, the perfect time for experimenting with new approaches to supporting student writers. This summer we piloted two exciting instructional programs\u00a0that really took off.<\/p>\n

Writers’ Groups<\/h1>\n
\"Leigh<\/a>
Leigh Elion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Leigh Elion,
\nCo-Director of the Summer Writing Center.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Several times per semester, we invite students to our writers\u2019 retreats, workshops where students gather for a four-hour block of structured time dedicated to putting words on the page. After each retreat, when facilitators ask for feedback, students always call for sessions to be offered more frequently.<\/p>\n

As we prepared for the 8-week summer session, one of the questions Mike Shapiro, Brad Hughes, and I asked ourselves was, \u201chow can the Writing Center better support UW writers during the summer months?\u201d We realized that writers had, in a way, already answered this for us.<\/p>\n

Although the retreats are often quite popular, I did not anticipate how high the demand for a weekly writers’\u00a0group would be; within moments of hitting \u201csend\u201d on an e-mail announcement, my inbox was flooded with messages from students looking for support and community over the summer.<\/p>\n

I assembled two groups of 13 writers each, comprised of undergraduates and graduates from several disciplines, working on a variety of projects: dissertation chapters, co-authored manuscripts, online course materials, conference presentations, an original screenplay. These writers have met weekly for the past two months on either Mondays, in a group that I led, or on Thursdays, led by the talented and experienced instructor Sarah Groeneveld.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The group’s time is structured into goal announcements, writing, and goal accountability.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Format-wise, the writers\u2019 groups were similar to the retreats. Each meeting began with a goal-setting exercise aimed at helping writers to set small, attainable benchmarks each time they sit down to write (a practice Writing Center instructor Rebecca Steffy-Couch has previously vouched for<\/a>). Writers share their daily goals with the group and conclude by reporting on their progress. Although Sarah and I made ourselves available for brief individual consultations, the bulk of the three-hour session was devoted to producing writing.<\/p>\n

These sessions differed from the retreats, however, in several key ways. In forming these groups, I not only wanted to offer support and structure to writers, but I had two additional goals:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. to promote writer accountability and help individuals develop productive habits for themselves<\/li>\n
  2. to foster community among a disparate group of students.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Pushing writers to set reasonable goals aims to change how they\u00a0think about the process of writing, transforming what can feel like an amorphous and open-ended set of anxieties, habits, and hopes into more practical, task-oriented, day-to-day work. Repeating the goal-setting process every week, however, means that others become aware of and invested in a writers\u2019 project. The regularity of meetings, too, seemed helpful\u2014one participant reports realizing that \u201cjust showing up\u201d has been crucial to productivity.<\/p>\n

    Perhaps more importantly, I was pleased to learn that these groups offered a space where the often individual task of text-production became a shared experience, something that can happen only on a limited basis during retreats. In our very first meeting, one writer shared that she was excited to join the group because everyone else who works in her lab was off doing field research for the summer, and she had felt lonely. Another writer reports that she was surprised at how beneficial the group experience was for her\u2014it turns out that many writers, regardless of field or the genre of the project, encountered similar stumbling blocks.<\/p>\n

    \"Writers<\/a>
    Writers look out over Lake Mendota this August. Photo by Sarah Groeneveld.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    The groups often brainstormed ways to overcome challenges like balancing academic and family life (whether that meant caring for a newborn or entertaining family visiting from another country), translating advisor or co-author edits into revision, and how to be productive even during short snatches of time. I, for one, am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to work with these writers on their projects and for their support and openness with the group.<\/p>\n

    During the last session, participants talked about ways that they could transport their writers\u2019 group experience into their home departments and everyday lives. Even though response to the groups has been positive, I wonder how to make them even more successful. How can the Writing center better foster productivity and community? How can we (or even can we?) support writers who want to form independent groups? What other structures, formats, or climates can we experiment with? What constitutes a successful group? In the coming days, I look forward to continued conversation with summer participants and to making plans for future developments.<\/p>\n

    Screencasting<\/h1>\n
    \"Mike<\/a>
    Mike\u00a0in North Bend, Washington.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    By Mike A. Shapiro,
    \nCo-Director of the Summer Writing Center.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

    This is the first summer we have been able to offer online instruction for students writing away from Madison this summer, whether they\u2019re working on research, coursework, or personal statements. To our usual online offerings of\u00a0email and Skype instruction we added\u00a0something new: the screencast.<\/p>\n

    A screencast is a video\u00a0that\u00a0records your voice and whatever\u2019s on your screen.\u00a0Many writing centers use screencasting, and we have been particularly influenced by our friends at the UW-Oshkosh Writing Center<\/a> and by Chris Anson\u2019s work in progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    As an example of what this looks like, here’s a screencast\u00a0I recorded\u00a0for a student writing a personal statement:<\/p>\n