Does teaching to write eclipse writing to learn?

CARLINO, PAULA

Paris

Congreso; Writing Research Across Borders Conference III / Recherches sur l'Écriture Sans Frontiéres III; 2014

Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense e ISAWR

This paper was presented in the symposium "Writing Programs Worldwide: What do 40 distinct initiatives on 6 continents have in common, and what can they tell us?", based on the book "Writing Programs Worldwide: Profiles of Academic Writing in Many Places" (2012): http://wac.colostate.edu/books/wpww/       &        http://www.conicet.gov.ar/new_scp/detalle.php?keywords=Paula%20Carlino&id=20016&libros=yes               In this symposium, the five editors considered the more than forty profiles as an empirical object of study and made itvinteract with several theoretical interests and categories.  With each editor choosing a different lens and featuring a different group of chapters, they engaged in inquiry that sought similarities and differences -significant ideas they were able to abstract to give distinct portraits of the international phenomenon of writing program development.     My own presentation revised the book with a "writing to learn" lens and dealt with the question  "Does teaching to write eclipse writing to learn?", as is sketched in the remaining of the abstract. MY OWN CONTRIBUTION TO THE PANEL  Several chapters of  the book "Writing Programs Worldwide" report difficulties for an institution to adopt or sustain a WAC/WID program aiming to promote writing as a learning tool in the different subjects. This presentation examines challenges, struggles, and processes for  these initiatives. Without disregarding the situated nature of these efforts, special attention is put on their similarities. My analysis shows common features such as inadequate structural conditions and widespread assumptions about writing and learning to write against which these initiatives have had to fight. It also reveals the restricted functions attributed to writing. An hypothesis that emerged from the analysis is that programs depicted in the book respond more to the purpose of enhancing students´ written communication skills than to the purpose of increasing teaching and learning experiences across the curriculum in which writing is integrated as an epistemic tool, a process and not just a product. This analysis of programs contributes to WAC studies of "unsupported conceptions" (i.e., Carter, Miller & Penrose, 1998; Creme &Lea, 1998; Ivanic, 1984; Russell, 1990; Rose, 1985) that hinder the institutional enactment of an intertwined model of writing instruction (Carlino, Iglesia & Laxalt, 2010, 2013; Dysthe, 1996).