乐播传媒

Despite mediocre grades, a student gets fired up about African history and literature. She finds a mentor and becomes more socially grounded.

But another student drifts through college. She struggles with pre-med studies, misses high school and fails to connect with her professors.

Why does one student thrive and not the other? What kind of strategies can pull a drifting student back on course?

Such essential questions were on the agenda for the conference at 乐播传媒, sponsored by the Consortium on High Achievement and Success, of which 乐播传媒 is a founding member.

During a morning session, 乐播传媒 anthropologist Heather Lindkvist presented the two case studies described above, which are derived from longitudinal interviews with 250 students at 乐播传媒, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, Smith, Trinity and Wellesley colleges. The study began in 2006鈥�07 (the students’ first year in college) and will continue into spring 2010.

Befitting the writing focused theme of the conference 鈥� it was geared to humanities faculty and writing center professionals 鈥� Lindkvist and others explained how writing assignments can deepen a student’s academic engagement in unexpected ways.

“Engagement occurs around interaction,” Lindkvist told the roomful of academics in the Jarnryd Room of New Commons. Tactics to promote interaction around writing can include the obvious (writing comments on a student’s paper) and newer tactics, such as “staging” or “scaffolding,” in which writing assignments are broken down into a series of shorter tasks or components.

The longitudinal study is sponsored by the in collaboration with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. ( of three other cases from the NECASL study.)

Professors should more carefully explain how their discipline鈥檚 writing style differs from other styles.

Following Lindkvist, five current 乐播传媒 students explained how writing assignments have helped and hindered their own satisfaction at 乐播传媒. Because the conference sponsor, the Consortium on High Achievement and Success, seeks to understand the experience of underrepresented students, the panel’s composition reflected this thrust.

The five students agreed that professors should more carefully explain how their discipline鈥檚 writing style differs from other styles, and especially how college writing differs from high school writing, where the dominant style is the five-paragraph essay.

“I remember reading a research article in high school, and thought it was written by professionals,” said Anzela Niraula ’11 of Kathmandu, Nepal. “I didn’t realize that a 乐播传媒 student would write them too.”

Asked to describe one “unpleasant surprise” at 乐播传媒, Janelle Lyford ’13聽of South China, Maine, recalled the “blatant feedback” on her first 乐播传媒 paper. “I felt I had already failed the course,” she said. “I wish the professor had explained what he wanted.”

Desmond Mushi ’13 of Mwanza, Tanzania, got a laugh by saying that his unpleasant surprise was “that I would have to write!” He excelled in math in high school, and his guidance counselor told Mushi that he鈥檇 not have to write in college if he just stuck with math and science.

鈥淪ometimes students wait for a professor to make contact. But we can do it first, too.鈥�

At first discouraged by the writing and reading assignments in his course on the Cold War, yet intrigued by the topic, Mushi sought help from the Writing Workshop, from Emily Grady ’10 at the Peer Writing Project and from his politics professor, Jim Richter.

“After I did my reading but before I started to write, at first there was no one to talk to,” he recalls. “But then I found that my professor would talk with me. Emily would talk with me.

鈥淪ometimes students wait for a professor to make contact. But we can do it first, too.鈥�

Since it is, ultimately, a student’s responsibility to seek help, conference organizer Leslie Hill, associate professor of politics at 乐播传媒 and special assistant to the president, posed a key question: “How did you learn to ask for help?”

“Put your question into the context of what you are seeking.”

Kirsten Gavin ’12 of Lewiston noted that “a few professors seem naturally psychic鈥� and tend to anticipate student questions. But with others, Gavin learned not to ask generally about the writing assignment. “That will just result in a repetition of the assignment” from the professor.

Instead, she said, “put your question into the context of what you are seeking.”

A few students offered their own strategies for writing success. Angel Pena 鈥�13 of Providence, R.I., explained that 鈥測ou come up with new ideas when you read over your paper,鈥� he explained. 鈥淪o now I reread everything I write. Even my text messages.鈥�