Presented at the North Carolina Symposium on Teaching Writing: Writing Outside the Classroom February 15-16, 2013 This presentation tells the story of a cooperative effort between the English department and the Law School in creating a writing center: how the Center came to be, how and why it is staffed with graduate students from the English Department, and the practices that equalize the strengths of these two programs across the campus. Specifically, I will explore how our Center balances the best intentions of “writing in the disciplines” with the avoidance of potential danger zones that can come with collaboration. It is my contention that while compositionists should continue to build bridges beyond the English Department, we must ensure that these relationships value the specialized knowledge we bring to the table, and that the power structures inherent in the system are balanced across the gap.

1. The Weight of the
Writing World:
Balancing Composition on the Scales of Justice
Tabitha Martin
The University of Akron

3. Founded in 1921
2008:
•Expansion of the LARW program
•Changes in what/how legal writing
is taught (⇏ “legalese”)
•Law Writing Center:
Staffed with English GAs
Funded by the Law School

4. Well-defined
guidelines for
students at the
Akron Law
Writing Center

5. Workshops

6. What we have in Common
Law practitioners
ARE writers
Compositionists are
writers & experts in
the teaching of
writing
Share many ideas
about the links
between writing &
thinking

7. But there
are
difficulties

8. Law School Pedagogy
Socratic method
Teacher-focused
Honor Code/no
collaboration
Focused on “form” &
conventions

9. Composition Pedagogy
Teacher as writing coach/
editor
Student-focused
Individual conferences,
small-group
workshopping
Focused on content &
process

10. Teaching
Teaching
writing
writing
LARW
Teaching
Teaching
law
law
Teaching
Teaching
analysis
analysis

11. English Dept. Concerns
That our knowledge & expertise
wouldn’t be valued
That form-based concerns (grammar,
etc.) would overwhelm the attention to
composing
Power and $$ issues

12. It Can Be Done!
Law
Comp

13. We must own our expertise
Often we feel protective of what we
have “scraped up” into a discipline
Can’t be afraid to share it
Be confident in our knowledge to
“loan” what works to other disciplines
and let it be adapted as needed

14. What We’ve Learned
Building bridges out to the
larger world is a balancing act
Our knowledge is distinct but
applicable in other fields
As long as we don’t it let it be
subsumed in other disciplines

15. Thank You