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Writing initiatives in Latin-American countries: Tendencies emerging from websites

of writing centers and writing programs

Introduction

Context of the data collected, analyzed and presented in this paper: The project “Initiatives

of reading and writing in higher education, ILEES Latin America”.

Objectives of the ILEES project:

a. Describing tendencies of teaching and researching initiatives on tertiary writing in

some Latin-American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, México, Puerto Rico,

Venezuela), and Brazil1.

b. Describing an account of the state of art for the Latin-American field that will be

relied on perspectives of the regional leading scholars.

c. Exploring narratives of some teaching initiatives on tertiary writing to learn upon

their achievements and challenges.

This presentation will only present tendencies of teaching initiatives, especially related to

writing centers and writing programs.

Methodology

Stage 1

Designing, analyzing, and conducting and online survey applied to an intentional sample

comprised by Latin-American scholars in two moments: July 2012 in Argentina, Chile,

Colombia y México; and January-May 2013 in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Brazil.

Description of the sections of the survey2:

1. Institutional information of the participants

2. Teaching initiatives known by the participants in their universities and in other

institutions up to 10 universities.

3. Authors, journals, books, and data bases used as resources, as well as publication venues

from Latin America and Spain to publish and disseminate the work; titles of publications,

oral communications, and research projects developed by the surveyees.

4. Other scholars who might be interested on responding the survey: Snowball technique.

Stage 2

Designing, analyzing, and conducting semi-structure interviews to “regional leading

scholars”

1 El proyecto se inició como parte de la formación doctoral de Elizabeth Narváez Cardona y Natalia Ávila

Reyes, bajo la orientación del profesor Charles Bazerman de la Universidad de California en Santa Bárbara;

posteriormente han participado otros investigadores, Vera Lúcia Cristovao,

Universidad del Estado de Londrina, Mónica Tapia, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Ana

Valeria Bisseto y Francini Correa, Universida del Estado de Londrina. 2 Puede accederse a la encuesta a través del siguiente link

https://ask.survey.ucsb.edu/index.php/survey/index/sid/745432/lang/es

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Explaining the category “regional leading scholars” for ILEES project (selection of

scholars most mentioned as authors, journal editors and initiatives´ leaders)

Designing a website to disseminate the results

Further we will define criteria to explore deeply some programs and projects in the region

Qualitative exploration for reading websites of the writing centers and writing programs

reported by the surveyees:

- Data collected based on the survey reports regarding universities running writing

centers and programs

- Rubric in excel to organize website information as possible and when available:

country, university, university type (private/public), academic unit, name of the

leader scholar, e-mail address, initiative name, link of publications, year of the

publications, historical information of the initiative, initiative objectives, target

audiences, initiative website, researcher comments/observations.

Tendencies

Freshman courses and courses after second year are the most frequent type of initiatives,

whereas writing centers and programs articulating differing initiatives are less frequent in

Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico.

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2

4

6

8

Argentina Chile Colombia México PuertoRico

Venezuela

Privadas

Públicas

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3

3,5

4

4,5

5

Argentina Chile Colombia México PuertoRico

Venezuela

1-3 años 4-6 años 7-10 años más de 10 años

Regarding qualitative exploration of the websites, the following quantitative tendencies

were identified:

Public universities have led projects on writing centers and writing programs except from

the Colombia case where private universities seem have undertaken such type of initiatives

In the Colombia case, writing centers and programs seem to be more visible initiatives

through websites in contrast to other countries

Colombian initiatives seem to be youngest (1-3 years)

Argentine and Chilean initiatives hold more tradition (4-6 years)

A Puerto Rican initiative seem to be the oldest in LA region (more than 10 years)

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Regarding qualitative exploration of the websites, the following tendencies were identified

relying on grounded analysis:

Initiative origins

Framing in public and institutional reforms in higher education:

- PLEA in Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: strategic institutional plan

(2000-2005) and institutional large-scale assessment on writing abilities3 (p. 538-539).

Institutional requests asked by academic units outside of the language or writing

departments:

- Programa de desarrollo de habilidades de lectura y escritura académica a lo largo

de la carrera (PRODEAC) in Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento,

Argentina: collaborative work between engineers and language scholars4.

Leadership of language and composition scholars: writing centers or programs that were

embedded as “products” of research projects:

- Centro de escritura académica de postgrado (CEAP), Universidad de

Buenos Aires5 (p. 1).

UNESCO chairs for reading and writing in LA as leading units in developing writing

centers and programs:

- Centro de Redacción Multidisciplinario in Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto

Metropolitano

- Escritura Académica in Universidad Central de Venezuela

- Centro de escritura académica de postgrado (CEAP) in Universidad de Buenos

Aires

Services

The most frequent services according to the website information available are:

a) Consulting and tutoring6 on writing for undergraduate and graduate students

individually or collectively

b) Pedagogical consulting for disciplinary professors

c) Consulting and tutoring for professors on scientific publishing

d) Writing courses offered by language specialists (some as curriculum requirements

of programs and others as elective)

3 El artículo original puede ser consultado en: Ávila Reyes, N., González-Álvarez, P. & Peñaloza Castillo, C.

(2013). Creación de un programa de escritura en una universidad chilena: Estrategias para promover un

cambio institucional. Revista Mexicana de Investigación Educativa, XVIII (57), 537-560. Disponible en:

http://www.redalyc.org/pdf/140/14025774010.pdf 4 Información disponible en: http://www.ungs.edu.ar/prodeac/?page_id=30

5 Información disponible en: http://www2.udec.cl/catedraunesco/10VASQUEZ.pdf

6 Consulting has been seen as designing and posting formats, guidelines, explanations, and protocols by audio,

video or writing, and links posted on websites, as well as forums and chats to discuss doubts and answer

questions, whereas tutoring has been understood as personal encounters to discuss specific texts.

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Asesorías a estudiantes de pregrado

Asesorías pedagógicas para profesores

Asesorías a profesores como escritores

Cursos específicos de escritura orientados por especialistas enlenguaje (oferta curricular obligatoria y flexible)

Asesorías a estudiantes de postgrado (para publicaciones yescritura de tesis)

Desarrollo de proyectos de investigación sobre la misma iniciativao relacionada con estudios de la escritura en la educación superior

Edición de textos para publicar por estudiantes y profesores

Asesorías en más de una lengua

Asesoría de personal administrativo de las instituciones

Less frequent services:

e) Researching on the issue

f) Editing texts

g) Consulting or tutoring in more than one language

h) Consulting and tutoring for administrative staff

Initiatives´ sustainability

i) The writing centers and programs have bounded their scopes through two strategies:

running as pilot projects and as disciplinarily oriented initiatives

Pilot projects:

Centro de escritura, Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile7.

Programa de Enseñanza de la escritura académica, Universidad Católica

Argentina: the project plans implementation through 3 years8.

7 Información tomada de: http://www.uta.cl/centro-de-escritura-uta-recibe-asesoria-en-implementacion-de-

laboratorios-de-escritura/web/2013-07-10/121841.html 8 Consultar el proyecto en:

http://www.uca.edu.ar/uca/common/grupo18/files/Programa_Escritura_Academica_julio_2009.pdf

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Disciplinarily oriented initiatives:

Centro de escritura, Universidad Minuto de Dios (Uniminuto), Colombia:

communication sciences (advertising, graphic design, social communication, and

journalism)

Programa de Enseñanza de la escritura académica, Universidad Católica

Argentina: Department of education

Programa de desarrollo de habilidades de lectura y escritura académica a lo largo

de la carrera (PRODEAC), Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento,

Argentina: concept of team-teaching between disciplinary professors and language

specialists

ii) The writing centers and programs start and keep running relying on south-south

regional cooperation and north-south collaboration

- Consulting services from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Cali and Bogotá,

Colombia towards Centro de escritura, Universidad de Tarapacá, Chile (UTA).

- Consulting services from Programa de desarrollo de habilidades de lectura y

escritura académica a lo largo de la carrera (PRODEAC), Universidad Nacional

de General Sarmiento, Argentina towards Centro de escritura de la Universidad de

Tarapacá, Chile (UTA).

- Jennifer Craig9, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) towards Pontificia

Universidad Católica de Chile10

9 CV disponible en: http://aeroastro.mit.edu/faculty-research/faculty-list/jennifer-l-craig

10 Información tomada de: http://www.uc.cl/es/la-universidad/noticias/11204-academica-del-mit-dicto-charla-

sobre-escritura-academica

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA → Universidad

de Tarapacá (UTA), Chile

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Bogotá → UTA, Chile

Pontifica Universidad Javeriana Cali ← UTA, Chile

Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Argentina ← UTA,

Chile

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Justifications of the importance in undertaking teaching writing in tertiary levels

The following justifications were inferred from the following sections of the websites´

information: mission, vision, objectives, history, services, and resources: two or more

justifications could have emerged from the very same initiative.

Most frequent justifications:

1. Writing centers and programs are important for developing and offering guidelines

and formats for writing assignments, writing assessment rubrics, and/or supporting

writing processes of academic genres. Examples:

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Desarrollar y ofrecer formatos de tipos de textos relacionadoscon tareas de escritura, rúbricas de evaluación y/o guías del

proceso de escritura de géneros escritos en la educación superior

Desarrollar las habilidades de lectura y escritura para aprenderen la educación superior

Desarrollar competencias para la escritura en las disciplinas yprofesiones

Favorecer la publicación científica de profesores y estudiantes

Apoyar la escritura de la tesis en el postgrado

Enfrentar los problemas de los estudiantes como escritores

Formar especialistas en escritura

2. Writing centers and programs are important to promote developing reading and

writing skills for HE learning:

- Different types of resources and explanations offered to write the following genres:

academic essay, reading report, oral communications, research protocol, case study

reports, thesis project, thesis report, and citation formats (APA and MLA)

3. Writing centers and programs are important to develop professional and disciplinary

writing competences:

- Disciplinary professors became target audiences not only as scientific writers but

also as potential leaders in incorporating disciplinary writing in professional

subjects (team work, writing fellows, and intensive writing courses)

Less frequent justifications:

a. Supporting scientific publishing of professors and students

b. Supporting thesis and dissertation writing

c. Facing the students´ weakness as writers

d. Training the future composition specialists (student-tutors)

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Emerging hypothesis from the tendencies

Relying on the categories labeled as initiative genesis, services and justifications that have

been described previously, it is striking that writing centers and writing programs in Latin

America have developed their local and regional identities within the contexts of higher

education reforms and needs in the region.

Although most of the writing centers and programs seem to be initiatives initially based on

US developments, it is also striking that, according to the initiative origins, services and

justifications identified previously, the Latin-American projects have found their own local

and institutional identities. This has been a re-contextualization process of international

initiatives as those developed by the US scholarship.

The existence of writing centers and programs implies designing online platforms,

guidelines and formats. New ways of online interaction for tutoring seem emerging through

forums and chats. Further research on the issue could be conducted.

A flexible curriculum offered by writing centers and programs (i.e., writing courses for

non-university audiences or elective courses in undergraduate and graduate programs)

seems to be ways of getting financial resources to make sustainable the initiatives. Next

research stages could confirm this hypothesis.

Strategically speaking, it is noticeable the leadership of some initiatives articulating

services and research projects. Collecting and analyzing data from the type of practices

developed on the writing centers and programs might be efforts to promote collecting

evidence of the initiatives´ impacts while scholars and practitioners develop knowledge for

the field (books and handbooks), and resources for the target audiences (videos,

guidelines). Furthermore, the regional cooperation between the initiatives could be on short

term an important opportunity to develop an exchange program of visits and interregional

research to boost the developments achieved thus far.

As this report shows, the justification related to the students´ weakness as writers is still

used as part of the importance of these types of initiatives. This deficit discourse is not

negative itself, if we consider that "minimum writing expectations in HE" could be an

"evidence" related to a) the emergence of a more plural higher education systems in LA,

which means that more student population from underrepresented communities are

accessing to HE; and b) the need of a debate upon how transition from high school towards

higher education is understood.

Theoretically speaking, it might be interesting to discuss conceptions of academic writing

(as a generic/homogeneous concept) vs. disciplinary writing that emerged from the

initiatives analyzed.

It is striking that the most common services and justifications concur with the goal of

offering formats and guidelines that seem to promote the idea of homogeneous academic

writing practices (i.e., writing a summary or academic essay or steps for planning, drafting

and editing any writing assignments as a generic genre and using such writing process

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regardless the discipline); however, most of the initiatives simultaneously advocate for

promoting disciplinary writing in interdisciplinary team work with professors. One could

think that the latter justification should advocate for designing formats, genre and processes

guidelines according to the disciplines and learning moments. This case was identified in

two writing centers: writing in Biology: how to write a lab report, genres for writing in

Accounting, or writing assignments in History.

This emerging interpretation also might posit the theoretical debate of what could/should be

the boundaries among academic, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary writing; in other words,

what types of reasoning related to writing could share or not disciplinary fields and what

new ways of reasoning related to writing could have emerged from a new higher education

global model. This might be the case of professionals who regardless their disciplines

would be able to face with global issues, as the use of sustainable resources or public health

problems, either relying on their own specialization or on multidisciplinary approaches.

Regarding this latter debate, the idea of developing pilot writing centers and programs

disciplinarily orientated and relying on research projects might be important possibilities to

boost such theoretical debate; however, these types of initiatives will be more expensive

and slow projects to run and in turn hardly justified before the administrative staff and

university directives.