The Speaking, Arguing, and Writing (SAW) Program is becoming an ever-greater part of campus life, and has ambitious plans for the next year or so.
SAW's overall goals, according to director Lee Bowie, include developing speaking, arguing, and writing courses in four categories: core courses, speaking-intensive and writing-intensive courses, minicourses, and speaking-enhanced and writing-enhanced courses. Students are particularly enthusiastic about the idea of credit-bearing minicourses, according to Bowie. Possible topics include gender differences in speaking styles, and the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in historical context.
The program also wants to increase the number of writing assistants, expand the writing mentors program that successfully debuted this year, and initiate a parallel program of speaking mentors; organize faculty workshops; and award a series of competitive course-development grants over the course of five years. In addition, SAW and the Center for Leadership and Public Interest Advocacy will join to establish a speaking center to enhance the quality of arguing and speaking at the College.
Much has been accomplished this semester. SAW has surveyed faculty to identify what's currently being done in speaking, arguing, and writing; results are being tabulated. Members of the SAW planning group are creating core courses and speaking-intensive courses by developing new courses or adapting existing courses. For example, Vinnie Ferraro will develop a core course in argumentation and debate; Lynn Morgan will make her seminar on The Anthropology of International Development speaking intensive; Don Weber will do the same with his seminar Richard Wright: Influence and Legacy; and Eva Paus is teaching a speaking- and writing-intensive course on international development.
Bowie wants to support creative ways of incorporating speaking into teaching. He found oral examinations effective in a seminar he taught last year. "You very quickly identify what a student doesn't know, and can spend time investigating in more detail what she does know," he explains. International relations Professor Vinnie Ferraro made class participation the sole grading criterion for one of his courses, which was organized around reading and discussion of topic questions. As part of the class, Ferraro built students' discussion skills.
Faculty workshops and other ways of "giving faculty the support and training they may need to focus on speaking as a way of teaching their material" are in the works, Bowie says.
Bowie and Center for Leadership and Public Interest Advocacy director Eva Paus are meeting with departments and students to discuss future plans and gather ideas. And work is continuing on a comprehensive World Wide Web site for SAW. (You can see the work-in-progress at www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/programs/saw/development.html.)
For the 1998&endash;99 academic year, plans include expanding the writing mentors program from thirty to forty-five courses, launching a more systematic faculty workshop series, issuing SAW grants for development of new speaking-intensive courses; training speaking assistants; providing speaking mentors for speaking-intensive courses; introducing minicourses; and moving the program into space developed specifically for SAW and the leadership center.
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