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Senior English majors Lindsey Harkness (Boulder, Col.) and Heather Bastian (Hamburg, Pa.) are gaining insight into the writing process this summer through an EXCEL Scholars project with Bianca Falbo, assistant professor of English.
The students are researching how Lafayette Writing Associates reflect on their writing before and after an annual summer workshop. Experienced and skilled writers and editors, Writing Associates (WA’s) assist fellow students with writing assignments. WA’s are assigned a specific course and meet with each student in the class at least four times a semester in conferences of approximately 30 minutes. Lafayette’s Writing Program helps integrate writing into courses throughout the curriculum.
“Lindsey, Heather, and I are conducting a study of what we call ‘literacy narratives’ by Writing Associates,” Falbo explains. “Every year, in preparation for their summer workshop, WA’s have to compose a biographical essay in which they reflect on their history as readers and writers.”
“We are looking at how participation in the College Writing program shapes Writing Associates’ perceptions of themselves as readers and writers. These literacy narratives, which we’ve been collecting since the program began in 1987, constitute a valuable archive of the literacy habits of our students,” she adds.
As a Writing Associate herself, the two students have a special interest in the project and would like to help the program through this research.
“Throughout the past two years I have developed a deep concern with bettering the College Writing program,” says Bastian. “I did a lengthy investigation into the program’s past in order to better its future and presented that information at this year’s National Conference for Peer Tutors in Writing. This EXCEL work is an ongoing extension of the interest and dedication I have placed in a program that I feel is important and necessary for maintaining high standards at Lafayette.”
“I have been a Writing Associate for the past year and have been rehired for the 2002-2003 school year, as well,” says Harkness. “During this time, I have dedicated a great deal of time and energy to the Writing Program in hopes that it will be more widely used and appreciated for the academic support it gives the Lafayette student body,” says Harkness, who minors in government and law.
Bastian, who hopes to become a high school English teacher, finds many benefits to this project.
“This research will help me become more familiar with students and their approaches to writing,” she says. “Anything concerning students will help me be a more effective teacher. Also, I am doing an honors thesis with William Carpenter, assistant professor of English, this fall concerning writing, so this project also helps prepare me for the intensive research I will be doing for my thesis.”
Bastian and Harkness plan to author an academic paper on the role of writing tutors and present their findings at the National Conference for Peer Tutors in Writing this October in Kansas.
Harkness plans to forge a career in magazine publishing and editing and feels this project will be an asset in that field of work.
“Having two years of experience as a Writing Associate will help me greatly,” she says, “for from it I have obtained an eye for critical reading and critiquing written work. Furthermore, the EXCEL research will open my eyes to how others think of this job and what strategies they find useful. This research will also help me become more familiar to different approaches to writing.”
Harkness and Bastian plan to author an academic paper on the role of writing tutors and present their findings at the National Conference for Peer Tutors in Writing this October in Kansas.
Bastian has tutored neighborhood school children in reading and math with the America Reads Program and is a disc jockey for WJRH, the campus radio station. Harkness is a member of the Republican Club.
Heather Bastian ’03 investigated how Lafayette’s student Writing Associates reflect on their own writing in an EXCEL Scholars project with Bianca Falbo, assistant professor of English.