Student Writing as Classroom Text (SWACT) in Application

    The truth is that using student writing as classroom text (SWACT) is nothing new.  Sure, Bartholomae and Petroksy highlight it in Fact, Artifacts and Counterfacts by featuring in a published anthology of student autobiographies, and William Coles, in The Plural I, designs his entire curriculum on whole-class readings of weekly compositions, but this is nothing particularly novel.  After all, we’ve all had experiences with this methodology in more modest forms beginning with reading book reports aloud in fourth grade, for example. 
    What’s different and, I think, truly empowering is the integrated reading/writing approach to SWACT.  Reading Sally Smith’s book report of Mike Mulligan’s Steam Shovel offered few of the same benefits of such a program because the writing was not used to consciously model the advantages and/or disadvantages of such a text as exemplary to that genre.  In the B & P or Coles models, by contrast, the SWACT is included within a writing workshop context; the result is a meaningful motivation to revise, as well as a deeper grasp of audience, purpose and style because of the benefits of immediate feedback.  At the same time, readers hone their critical analysis, which contributes immediately to their own writing.
    By not discussing or writing Sally Smith’s book report, we miss a valuable opportunity to inspire an entire class through what Krashen calls a “meaningful” environment.  Krashen, quoted by Gee, explains that the best acquisition “happens in natural setting which are meaningful and functional . . .” (Gee, 539)  Thus, compared to the sometimes weak impact of the cold page of a book, a class full of your peers responding to your writing could impact a reader exponentially greater.  In fact, it might be argued that hearing, say, ten positive responses and ten negative freeform responses might feel like a more fair consensus than single peer response or even a teacher’s solitary commentary. 
    The meaningful aspect of SWACT cannot be over emphasized.  When students know they’re about to come under whole-class inspection, or that one day their “number” will come up, their focus and interest is heightened dramatically.  While this adds to the “fun” aspect of the class, ultimately this leads to increased student engagement.  And this engagement gives rise to a desire to succeed, paying attention, then, to elements that constitute good writing without ever being dictated from the teacher “the rules” of good writing.  As B & P write: “They begin to make decisions about what is interesting and what is banal, what passes as an idea and what does not, what forms of an argument work and what don’t.”  The social impact can be potentially electrifying because the stakes are high for avoiding disappointment, and for gaining positive “strokes”:  B & P point out that “the phrase makers and the idea people soon become centers of interest in each class.” (30)  SWACT makes the lesson “real” in a way that few other lessons can, outside of a workshop or laboratory setting.  By comparison, as Kutz et al point out, traditional writing instruction presents writing as as “an assemblage of structures and removes it from a socially constructed context.” (Kutz, Groden and Zamel, 30)   
    In terms of writing skills, SWACT pays off in spades.  As students learn to express their ideas and make their points through this process of public trial and error, they benefit chiefly because of their immediate comprehension of audience.  B & P note that students in a SWACT class learn how to “become (and imagine) both audience and participants in such a discussion.”  As critiqued writers gain instant understanding of the people they want to reach, those listening also develop as readers, sharpening their mental and oral skills of critique, moving beyond “yeah” toward “yeah” with substantial justification, using cues in the text. (31)  In this way, SWACT augments what Louise Rosenblatt calls “authorial writing,” that is, re-thinking a writing with the “virtual audience” in mind -- except that, in the case of SWACT, students are increasingly familiar with their audience, which helps them more precisely custom-fit their thoughts.
    A few possible obstacles might arise in implementing SWACT.  Some students, especially FYC students, could be intimidated by such a potentially embarrassing process.  Some deft maneuvering is in order if sensitive students’ feelings are to be spared.  While some students might be paralyzed by a whole-class critique, observers might fall silent, fearing that they might incur any harsh critiques themselves. How, then, to placate such fears and motivate discussion?
    In What Is “College-Level” Writing?, Sheridan Blau offers some ideas that might help.  He points out that, in our endeavor to initiate young writers to academic discourse, we might do more harm than good unless we take great care.   Ironically, he notes, where writers of academic articles already know their audience pretty well -- some of the audience personally, in fact -- FYC students usually have no such connection to audience.  Clearly, as we’ve seen, teaching SWACT is an ideal approach to overcoming this problem.  Still, in critiquing student papers, how do we avoid alienating people?  Blau’s suggestion is to read a model paper with an eye toward defining this genre first.  That is, imagining that we’re teaching a class of confused students, we imagine their questions.  For example, one might be, What’s an essay?  What are its parts?  What are its goals?  I would posit that using Blau’s “definition” discussion might be the ideal kick-off for a new SWACT writing classroom, putting many nerves at ease, beginning with a model and free discussion, then introducing critiques of student papers afterward.
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