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During the three years she spent working as a writing associate (WA) in the College Writing Program, Marquis Scholar Jaclyn Smith ’07 (Saugus, Calif.) noticed a gap in how she viewed her meetings with student writers and how they perceived the same sessions.
“As a writing associate, I always felt that I was doing my best to help students, and that our conferences together were productive and useful. At the same time, I was receiving a lot of negative press from my friends and peers about the WA program, such as students feeling obligated to meet with their writing associate or feeling the conferences were unhelpful,” says Smith, an English and psychology double major. “I didn’t understand how writing associates perceived conferences so differently than the students they were meeting with.”
The inconsistency inspired Smith to analyze the first-year writing experience in order to better understand how students handle the transition from high school to college writing.
Her honors thesis analyzes the struggles and growth of first-year writers and examines ways that writing associates and professors can facilitate the transition from high school to college writing.
Bianca Falbo, associate professor of English and co-director of the College Writing Program, served as Smith’s adviser for the project.
“Jaclyn’s expertise as a writing associate provides her with a unique perspective on the experiences of first-year writers at Lafayette,” says Falbo. “One of the most interesting things Jaclyn’s research demonstrates is that first-year writers come to college wanting to succeed and do well. By putting the students’ voices out there, her project opens the door for thinking about ways to encourage rather than simply discipline the development of college writers.”
Smith presented the results of her research at the 21st National Conference on Undergraduate Research at Dominican University of California in San Rafael in April. Approximately 2,200 undergraduates from more than 250 colleges and universities attended the conference.
She collected writing samples from and conducted interviews with six first-year students to learn more about the challenges, changes, and growth they experienced in their writing over the course of the fall semester. In addition to these case studies, Smith distributed written surveys to first-year students, questioning their writing habits, academic backgrounds, and sentiments regarding writing in college.
“First-year writing has long been a subject of inquiry among writing specialists, but first-year writers themselves and the texts they produce can sometimes be overlooked or underestimated,” says Falbo.
Smith’s research uncovered major trends in the first-year writing experience. She found that few students take their work as writers seriously and many struggle with interpreting the demands of their professors, using resources skillfully and efficiently, taking intellectual risks, welcoming constructive criticism and feedback, and making substantial revisions to their writing.
Smith also found these struggles underscore the often contradictory demands placed upon first-year writers. They are asked to write authoritatively in disciplines they are largely unfamiliar with, to take criticism openly when many still lack confidence in their writing abilities, and to participate in peer editing without seeing the peer as an authority.
Falbo is impressed by how much Smith learned from her peers in conducting her research.
“Her project really grew out of what she learned first-hand from other Lafayette student-writers,” says Falbo. “That is, she didn’t go into the project with a preconceived notion of what she would learn. She went in with the assumption that she had things to learn, and that could be learned only by talking to these students.”
“I’m thankful to the Writing Center and my fellow writing associates for allowing me to look into the work that we do there, as self-reflection is never easy, and to the freshmen who so generously contributed to my study,” adds Smith.
Falbo believes Smith took a very disciplined approach to the project.
“She set and met her own deadlines. She revised all along – not just in response to feedback from me, but out of her own sense for what she wanted to say and do,” she says.
Smith previously worked with Falbo on EXCEL Scholars research investigating trans-Atlantic literary relations from 1700-1800 for Falbo’s chapter-length entry in the 2007 edition of The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.
“Professor Falbo has been very helpful to me this year,” Smith says. “She has been a soundboard, source of encouragement, and editor for my work and has supported my project from the outset. I’m thankful to have her guidance as a composition specialist and she continues to push me toward being my most successful.”
After graduation, Smith will attend the School of Law at University of California, Davis. She is a McKelvy House Scholar and contributor to Writing Organization Reaching Dynamic Students and The Marquis literary magazine.
Smith is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the oldest and most respected undergraduate honors organization in the United States. She also has received the Class of 1883 Prize, awarded for excellence in English, and is a two-time recipient of the Gilbert Prize, awarded to students who demonstrate superiority in English.
Honors theses are among several major programs that have made Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. The College sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year; 21 students were accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.