Two years ago,  professor Francyne Huckaby had noticed a consistent problem among the students in her early childhood education courses. The majority of them had trouble developing basic ideas and writing about them clearly. “Sometimes the problem was structuring an argument, and other times the difficulties were a variety of grammatical challenges,” Huckaby said.

 

 

Although the TCU Office of Admission requires prospective students to submit a 300-to-500 word essay in their application to the university, the struggle for students to write coherently is a problem many professors encounter.  “The main thing I see that I think a lot of other professors see is that we draw a very specific student to TCU in terms of SAT scores,” said Travis Mann, who teaches first and second year English composition. “A lot of students come to college prepared to write for high school, but in many cases they’re not really prepared to write for the college level.”

 

 

For three years, however, Mann has helped provide an avenue for professors like Dr. Huckaby to address the problem. In 2006, former English department chair Dan Williams submitted a grant proposal for the creation of TCU Writing Associates, a program that would hire undergraduate and graduate students to serve as tutors for specific classes during the course of a semester. The proposal was accepted, and has been funded by TCU’s Vision In Action program since 2006.

 

 

Mann, who has served as the program’s manager, hires students with an affinity for writing to serve as associates. After completion of training, the students are assigned to courses of professors who have requested to use the program. The courses are typically designated as writing emphasis or have a significant number of writing assignments.
Writing associates meet one-on-one with students as papers are assigned.  An associate’s task, according to Mann, is to teach students to treat writing as an investment and long-term process, developing their skills over time.

 

 

The program was first implemented in fall 2007 with 18 writing associates. Since then, it has expanded to include 27 writing associates placed in all academic disciplines at TCU. The program has tutored an average of 350 students per semester and reached more than 700 students in the 2008 - 2009 school year. Mann estimated that in 90 percent of these classes, the program has been successful. “All of these professors, without fail, say that this is a great program, that it has really helped their students, and that they can focus more on the content of a student’s paper as opposed to teaching writing,” Mann said.

 

 

While it has expanded in the last two years, the program is seeking additional funding to remain viable. The Vision In Action grant will run out at the end of this academic year, and without a source of funding the program’s future remains uncertain.  Mann says, however, that he will remain positive and continue to recruit professors and expand the program in the spring semester. “Professors and instructors who have writing emphasis classes or classes that have a heavy writing load could really benefit from having a writing associate,” Mann said. “The program serves faculty in myriad disciplines, and the more variety our associates can experience, the better.”
Huckaby, who has used writing associates in her courses since 2007, said she would recommend the program to other professors.

 

 

“Since I’ve used the program, few student papers are submitted with structural or organization problems,” Huckaby said. “Through their work with the associates, students can push the development of their writing a bit further.” The program’s benefits have not been limited to the professors involved. Mann says that teaching writing is one way to become a better writer, and the students who are hired often become better writers themselves. Jordan Cohen, a former writing associate who graduated in 2009, said the program gave him powerful writing practice.

 

 

“The experience of teaching writing facilitated noticeable progress in my own,” Cohen said. “As a teacher, the more I worked with students, the more I recognized ways I could mature in my own writing and the more natural the process became for me.” Senior interior design major Amanda Quillen has been helped by writing associates in political science and interior design courses, and attributes her improved organizational skills to the program.  “My writing associates have been able to take my jumbled thoughts and help me to organize them in a sensible way,” Quillen said. “I have not received below an A on any of my papers, and I think this is greatly due to the outside assistance I have received through the (Writing Associates) program.”

 

 

The Writing Associates Program offers the same one-on-one tutoring services as the TCU Center for Writing, but Mann believes the benefits differ. “The Center for Writing is fantastic at what they do,” Mann said. “But with us, the student-tutor relationship can be built over a semester. And that relationship helps students and Writing Associates begin to focus on writing as a process, a skill that takes time to develop.”

 

 

Although Writing Associates aims to help students in all aspects of writing, Mann cautioned that the program should not be viewed as an editing service. “A lot of people,  unfortunately, still think of the Writing Center, and our program to a degree, as a place to fix commas and grammar,” Mann said. “And while we will talk about those things, that’s not what we’re about. We want to teach students that writing is a process, and that what they go through in that process is extremely important.”

 

 

Professors who are interested in using the program this semester should contact Travis Mann at travis.mann@tcu.edu, or visit www.wa.tcu.edu for more information.