1

Initiatives on educating writers in Colombian Higher Education: reading ethnographically their

websites as a pre-fieldwork

Elizabeth Narváez-Cardona

Abstract

Writing in higher education in Spanish-speaking countries is an emerging field of social sciences in Latin-

America. An ongoing project aiming at mapping current initiatives in the region have revealed that in the

Colombian case, one of the less frequent initiatives undertaken seems to be the writing centers.

Consequently, exploring what counts as "writing centers" in the Colombian case might provide insights

upon conceptions on educating writers from this specific institutional site as well as understandings of the

small presence of this type of initiative. To this exploratory project the websites publicizing the writing

centers are “pieces” of a larger everyday phenomena related to such initiatives. Therefore, I have deemed

this project an effort in starting the pre-field work, particularly, in reading ethnographically two websites

of Colombian writing centers. Ethnography involves an ongoing inquiry process in which the

ethnographer slowly grasps meaning from the community while acknowledges what could be an

interesting focus of analysis. To pursue a dynamic view of the writing centers, this preliminary project

requires gathering more information in the actual fields in which such initiatives have been undertaken in

the Colombian universities. Especially, what is not ordinary and problematic should be investigated given

that the information provided by the websites is not enough to talk about these aspects of the everyday

life in writing centers.

Introduction

Writing in higher education in Spanish-speaking countries is an emerging field of social sciences

in Latin-America (Figure 1). The scholarship led by the Chairs of UNESCO for reading and writing in Latin-

America (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico), has advocated since 90´s to educating writers for

citizenship (Ortiz-Casallas, 2011). This means educating readers and writers able for self-learning, and as

thoughtful consumers of the abundant information provided by mass media, technological

communication, and commercial discourses (Martínez, 2001 & 2004).

Different tendencies have emerged from these initiatives. One movement has argued, until 2006

approximately, that incoming university students bring shortcomings as writers; thus, writing has been

taught in freshman courses (Murillo, 2010). A recent movement, mostly influenced by the leadership of an

argentine scholar, has advocated in the last 6 years that academic writing is a disciplinary practice learned

exclusively in higher education (Carlino, 2001; 2006; 2008). Consequently, it is expected that universities

provide diverse, intensive, and sustained specialized settings to encourage writing developments of

undergraduate and graduate students (Murillo, 2010).

Regarding public policies, the Colombian government has mandated since 2010 a compulsory

undergraduate assessment in the last year of the programs. The assessment on writing abilities in Spanish

is one of the components of this public policy.

2

Figure 1

The benchmarks of the Colombian field on higher education writing

An ongoing project called “Initiatives on reading and writing in higher education, ILEES, Latin-

America” 1

has collected information through an online survey applied to about 67 scholars in Argentina,

Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. Among other issues, these scholars have provided information about the

initiatives led by their universities or other universities, up to 10 institutions, in their countries.

In the Colombian case, one of the less frequent initiatives seems to be the writing centers along

with initiatives undertaken in foreign languages, and programs in charge of integrating the initiatives as

freshman courses, disciplinary writing after the first year, and writing across the curriculum, or graduate

writing courses (figure 2).

1 This project started in summer 2012 as part of my doctorate experience, which has been developed along with a

Chilean colleague and by the guidance of Professor Bazerman of the Department of Education in University of

California, Santa Bárbara.

The government mandated the large scale

assessment (writing abilities in Spanish)

Pruebas del Saber PRO

2010

1999 2006

UNESCO for reading and writing

movements in Latin-America for

educating writers for citizenship and

self-learning

Scholar movements advocating

freshman courses to remediate student

shortcomings

Theoretical frameworks: textual

linguistics, discourse analysis, genre

studies, psycholinguistic, and didactic

of mother tongue (Spanish).

2006 2012

Argentine influence (Paula

Carlino/Phycology )

Scholar movements advocating “academic

literacy” to educating faculty members and

graduate students as disciplinary writers

Theoretical frameworks: sociocultural

psychology, new literacy studies (literature

in Spanish), and WAC and WID

movements (literature in English)

2009

Emerged the first generation of writing

centers in the country

3

Figure 2

Tendencies of the initiatives in the Colombian case

Exploring what counts as "writing centers" in the Colombian case might provide insights upon

conceptions on educating writers from this specific institutional site as well as understandings of the small

presence of this type of initiative displayed by the outcomes of the online survey applied in the ILEES

project. Further, conducting micro-ethnographies upon such initiatives might be useful in understanding

their local meaning-making processes.

This paper is organized in four sections. The first one presents the theoretical framework assumed

thus far; the following section deploys the process of data collection and analysis of the pre-field work

that I have conducted in reading ethnographically two websites of Colombian writing centers; and finally,

the third section proposes further research efforts from an ethnographic perspective.

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Theoretical framework

The academic field on higher education writing has addressed different disciplinary and research

approaches, which have been strongly configured by the features of the local university systems and the

home-based public policies in education. Consequently, researching on higher education writing has

aimed at exploring two sites. On the one hand, the expectations of the governments through their public

policies and of the university directives; and, on the other hand, the historical accounts about how and

why writing in higher education has become either a pedagogic goal or a research focus. Identifying both

types of accounts are useful and necessary in guiding further research agendas regarding how and why

pedagogies on writing might impact higher education.

Theoretically speaking, this field has framed writing as an intertwined practice within university

contexts and disciplinary epistemologies (Lea y Street, 1998; Carlino, 2008). As a result, writing is

conceived as a historical and ideological practice and thus highly cognitively specialized (Bazerman, 2006;

Kalman, 2008). Consequently, literacy practices of students and faculty are part of a specialized knowledge

associated with epistemological and institutional contexts of higher education (Lea y Street, 1998).

Accordingly, theoretical developments in the field have claimed that becoming a writer is a complex

phenomenon highly configured by the conventions and expectations of their practitioners; however, since

such conventions and expectations are mostly a tacit knowledge, the access and practice of writing in

higher education are embedded in a struggle process for newcomers (Soliday, 2011; Thaiss & Myers,

2006).

Under this assumption, students´ shortcomings as writers are not interpreted as lacking of

grammar knowledge. Rather, these difficulties are seen as evidence of a complex process of

acknowledging, using, and accessing to literacy practices affected by the own personal histories

(Herrington y Curtis, 2000), and by institutional and disciplinary requirements and expectations,

particularly, from academic and university cultures (Hall y López, 2011).

To sum up, in this project the writing difficulties of students or faculty are not seen as deficits

(Ganobcsik-Williams, 2004). Rather, writing is understood as a specialized learning and practice for

participating within academic contexts (Carter, 2007); therefore, writing is an intellectual challenge and a

struggling process whereby writers build their own identities as members of disciplinary and university

communities (Herrington y Curtis, 2000; Castelló, 2007).

The figure 3 displays an attempt in summarizing and integrating visually some of the categories

involved in the theoretical framework presented.

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Figure 3

Depiction of the theoretical categories

6

Methodological approach

To this exploratory project the websites publicizing the writing centers are “pieces” of a larger

everyday phenomena related to such initiatives. Despite the websites have been designed by other

professionals not necessarily involved directly with the initiatives, these websites’ designs have been

approved by the leaders of the initiatives; thus, inferences might be drawn from such online information.

Accordingly, I conducted an online search by Google under the key words in Spanish “Centro de

escritura en Colombia” to identify writing centers´ websites. The figure 4 displays the geographic location

of the four writing centers identified by the online search. These writing centers belong to private

universities located in the capital of the country, Bogotá D.C. (# 1 # 3), Santiago de Cali (# 2), and

Barranquilla (# 4). These three cities might be deemed as urban centers in economic terms. This first

approximation enabled me to frame ethnographically the first question: What counts as writing centers in

the Colombian case?

Figure 4

The Colombian writing center websites appointed by the Google search

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A first attempt in turning “reality” into texts

The first attempt in exploring meanings of the community that can be seen as a writing center, I

started making detailed written descriptions from the websites. This first attempt in turning what has been

stated by the websites into texts confirmed me that the huge challenge in analyzing ethnographically is

controlling ethnocentrism (Emerson, Fretz, Shaw, 1995). Accordingly, I conducted carefully a grand tour

observation to describe a website as well as using emic terms and taxonomies of the cultural grammar

pertain to the phenomenon analyzed (Green, Dixon, & Zaharlic, 2003).

I started to analyze the website of the writing center # 1 given this initiative belongs to the most

important private university in the country, Universidad de los Andes2 (Figure 1). To start my gran tour

observation, I decided to read the information available in the home page of the website, but aiming at

describing process and practices that could be inferred from the information deployed by the website3.

Figure 1

A snapshot of the home page of the website of the writing center #1

2 Universidad de los Andes has been deemed as the best private university based on a Colombian ranking, which took

in consideration the number of international publications produced by the faculty members and the number of

research groups. Additionally, the ranking place took in consideration the amount of master and doctorate programs

offered by the University and that have been approved by the Ministry of Education in the institution. This information

has been retrieved from:

http://www.guiaacademica.com/educacion/personas/cms/colombia/articulos_de_expertos/2012/ARTICULO-WEB-

EEE_PAG-11598041.aspx 3 The website is available at: http://programadeescritura.uniandes.edu.co/index.php/centro-de-escritura

8

I used a rubric with three columns in which I arranged texts, descriptions of cultural process or

practices, and my interpretations or glosses (Table 1). I have called “texts” to those sections in the website

that were clearly delimited graphically in the website design, because were envisioned as meaning units or

messages to interact with website´s readers. The figure 2 illustrates graphically the segmentations of the

texts in the case of the website of the writing center # 2.

Table 1

First analytic rubric designed

# Text Inscribed cultural process/practice My interpretation or gloss

1

¿Qué es el Centro de Escritura?

--------------------------------------

El Centro de Escritura es un lugar al que los

estudiantes de todas las carreras pueden asistir para

recibir tutorías que los lleven a mejorar sus habilidades

de escritura para enfrentar exitosamente los retos

académicos de la vida universitaria. Los tutores del

Centro trabajan con los estudiantes para mejorar sus

textos, no con los textos.

University students could ask for the

services of an university site called: a

writing center to succeed in their

programs

In doing so, the student can set an

appointment with someone called

“tutor” to receive assistance in

writing assignments

What counts as writing

assignments for the

participants?

This tutor will be a graduate student

During the appointment the tutor

will work with the student who set

the appointment, not with his/her

texts

What this mean? What is the

difference between working

with the student rather than

working with his/her text?

Students could practice their

reading and writing skills according

to their needs

What counts of those for the

participants (tutor and

student)? Especially, what

would be a need?

Student should bring to

appointments the instructors´

prompts and the text

Why?

Figure 2

Graphic depiction of the segmentation of the website pages by texts

Text 1

Text 2

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After having detailed descriptions in the rubric, semantic relationships were identified to categorize

the cultural grammar emerging from the data translated from the website (Spradley, 1979). The table 2

deploys an example of this analytic procedure.

Table 2

Rubric to analyzing semantic relationships

Relationship Form Example Comments/gloss

Spatial X is a place in Y A writing center is a place (is

part of) in the Universidad de

los Andes

Cause-effect X is a result of Y Succeed in the programs is the

Universidad de los Andes is a

result of attending to the

writing center

Rationale X is a reason for doing Y Having writing assignments is a

reason to setting appointments

in the writing center

If it so, the entire student

population should attend to

the writing center, because

writing assignments are the

most common means to

evaluate students

Attribution X is an attribution

(characteristic) of Y

Being a graduate student is an

attribution of being a tutor

Since I realized that I had not been consistently systematic in making visible the cultural

knowledge (e.g., beliefs, views the world, rights, and obligations), the following analytic rubric (Table 3)

10

has been designed to pursue such aim (Green, Dixon., & Zaharlick, 2003). For this second analytic attempt,

I explored the website of the writing center # 2 of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Santiago de Cali.

Table 3

An analytic rubric to make visible cultural knowledge

No. Texts What is

happening?

First

impressions/questions

Actors Routines Meanings

for the

actors

Membership

1 Bienvenido al Centro

de Escritura Javeriano

La Pontificia

Universidad Javeriana

se pone a la

vanguardia de las

universidades de

Colombia lanzando el

nuevo Centro de

Escritura Javeriano.

Este es el primer

centro de escritura en

Colombia, y uno de

los primeros en

América Latina, que

ofrece servicios de

tutorías de escritura,

de manera gratuita, a

los miembros de su

comunidad

académica.

This university

unit is giving

welcome to

others

This university

unit deems

itself as an

innovative

initiative,

because it is

first writing

center in the

country and

one of the first

in Latin

American

region

The university

unit offers free

writing

tutoring to

members of

the academic

community

Who could be these

others?

The writing

center

Members of

the

academic

community

Free

writing

tutoring

The

university

unit is for

members of

the

academic

unit (?)

Members of

academic

community

(?)

Finally, I re-read the translations I had been done thus far, and I decided to conduct more

consistent efforts to describe ethnographically the website of the writing center # 2 of the Pontificia

Universidad Javeriana in Santiago de Cali. This website seems to be more complete in providing

information in contrast to the website of the writing center # 1, of the Universidad de los Andes. In doing

so, this final analytic attempt pursued to describe the information relied on the basic questions to start

ethnographies in education (Green, Skuskaikate & Baker, 2012). The table # 4 illustrates the rubric used in

doing such analysis.

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Table 4

Describing the website from ethnography in education questions

Texts What is

happenin

g?

What is

being

accomplis

hed?

By whom? With

whom?

What

counts as

disciplinar

y

knowledg

e in this

particular

group?

What

roles are

constructe

d by and

afforded

members?

What

relationshi

ps are

constructe

d by and

afforded

members?

What

norms are

constructe

d by and

afforded

members?

What

expectatio

ns are

constructe

d by and

afforded

members?

What

rights are

constructe

d by and

afforded

members?

What

obligation

s are

constructe

d by and

afforded

members?

What

counts as

HE

writing?

Comment

s

Screensh

ot 1

The WC

offers

resource

s for

students

and

universit

y

teachers

Offering

resource

s

the WC ? Knowing

how to

write

WC,

students,

and

universit

y

teachers

WC is a

kind of

help to

universit

y

teachers

and

students

WC

offers

resource

s

WC has

the

answers

Students

and

universit

y

teachers

can ask

WC

should

answer

students

and

teachers

question

s

Somethi

ng that

WC

knows

and

universit

y

teachers

and

students

do not

know

The analysis conducted thus far enabled me to pose provisional answers upon what is ordinary

and predictable in the daily life of a writing center (Green & Zaharlic, 1991). For instance, a writing center

counts as a university site in which the students could ask for free writing tutoring to succeed in their

programs. In doing so, the student can set an appointment with someone called “tutor” to receive

assistance in accomplishing their writing assignments. This tutor will be a graduate student. During the

appointment the tutor interacts with the students and not with their texts. The students should bring to

the appointments, the instructors´ prompts and the actual texts written as part of their writing

assignments.

Furthermore, regarding the conceptions on educating writers, the preliminary analysis might

reveal that writing in writing centers is conceived mostly to support writing assignments to fulfill faculty

expectations; thus, students are provided by guidelines offered by the websites to support, among other

issues: a) citation strategies; b) strategies to understand and decipher the instructors’ expectations with

the writing assignments; and, c) strategies to incorporate language instructor patterns and specific

discourse style into writing assignments. The table 4 summarizes the semantic relationships identified as

part of a preliminary domain analysis conducted in which I relied to create the prior descriptions

(Spradley, 1979).

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Table 4

Semantic relationships

Further research efforts from an ethnographic perspective

Ethnography involves an ongoing inquiry process in which the ethnographer slowly grasps

meaning from the community while acknowledges what could be an interesting focus of analysis (Green,

Dixon, Zaharlick, 2012). To pursue a dynamic view of the writing centers, this preliminary project requires

gathering more information in the actual fields in which such initiatives have been undertaken in the

Colombian universities. Especially, what is not ordinary and problematic should be investigated given that

the information provided by the websites is not enough to talk about these aspects of the everyday life in

writing centers (Green & Zaharlic, 1991).

Ethnography in education is a field enabling to doubt upon common senses regarding learning,

knowledge, success, and effectiveness in formal educational settings (Green & Bloom, 1997). Accordingly,

further fieldwork from a diachronic approach is useful in pursuing to explore the actual literate practices

configured by a daily life of the Colombian writing centers (Heath, 1982). Any attempt in understanding

the tensions of the competing values between specific institutional sites, as the writing centers, and the

larger university missions allows boosting the Colombian debate of the scope of educating writers in

higher education.

Relationship Form

Spatial WC is a place within universities

Cause-effect To succeed in higher education, writing assignments might be accomplished with the

support of WC

Rationale Having writing assignments is a reason to set appointments in WC

Since WC provides resources to understand and decipher writing assignments, obtaining

appointments in WC is useful.

Students has the right to not knowing how to start, develop, and finish their writing as well

as not knowing different types of documents

Location for action The WC is place offering strategies upon how to start writing assignments

Function Writing prompts are used to understand and decipher assignments

Sequence Understand and decipher faculty expectations is the first step in fulfill the assignments

Getting the prompt for the assignment is the prior step to set an appointment in the WC

Means-end Underlining specific demands in the prompts is a way to decipher the assignments.

Writing paragraphs and sections following the specific topics, questions or points written

by faculty in the prompts is a way to accomplish the assignments

Identify specific language patters and faculty discourse style is a way to accomplish faculty

expectations

Attribution Being a graduate student is an attribution of being a tutor

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Given that members of groups and communities do not hold roles and points of views evenly,

further efforts includes creating data from the perspective of the different members of the community in

writing centers, namely, chairs of these initiatives, tutors, students, faculty members, and university

directives. Conducting interviews and collecting maps and representations provided by the participants

upon how they represent the daily-life of the events involved in the writing center practices might be

useful (Green, Dixon, Zaharlick, 2012).

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