Writing Coach

To help students get through these challenges and actually learn something about writing along the way, Paul Hagood, who teaches English at Linn-Benton Community College in Oregon, has devised a computer program called Writing Coach. Having worked with it for a month and a half, I've found it lives up to its name. Basically, the program gathers together practical heuristics for approaching a very wide range of writing tasks and reduces them to a series of reminders that encourage deepening of thought, structural clarity, and critical reflection, all in a very friendly, supportive way.

The program is really a series of macros designed to work within the most popular DOS, Windows and Macintosh word processors. Suppose you need to write an evaluative essay. Among its 67 worksheets and outliner options, Writing Coach offers one on evaluating. Call it up, and it appears as a series of on-screen prompts within the word processor you're used to using. You respond to the questions — which tend to be general and thoughtful, never sophomoric or machine-like — writing your thoughts in the free-form spaces provided. When you're done, a simple keyboard command caused the prompts and questions to vanish, and you often find you have composed a well-outlined first draft of the essay you wanted to write. Many of its worksheets take on writing tasks in less goal-directed and genre-limited ways. There are "brainstormers," "reader analysis worksheets," "organizers," worksheets on revising and editing and three levels of "integrated worksheets" which combine brainstormers, reader analysis, and organizing prompts. In addition, Hagood has included an "outline bank" offering help with a range of letter- and memo-writing tasks, business and technical writing assignments, and common academic and general writing assignments. And the program comes with an excellent user's guide which constitutes a small, genial course on writing.

"The program is classical and formalist to some degree," says Hagood. "I like structure and clarity." Hagood describes the theoretical base of Writing Coach as "an eclectic blend." Basically, he calls it "reader-centered." Its focus is on the audience and critical thinking about the task at hand. "Theories that focus predominantly on free writing may end up encouraging student writing with little structure and few details," he says, and there are lots of times when what you basically want to do is help the student get the job done in a formally clear way.

Grad students, who may not have thought critically about writing since their freshman year, and business people seem to find the program especially useful. "People tell me, almost as though they don't know whether to be angry about it or not, 'After I use this 10 - 15 times, I don't need to use it anymore,'" says Hagood. He's happy to think they feel able to write on their own without a coach. "[The program] helps them improve, but it doesn't do their thinking for them," he says. "It's basically like anything else: The more they put into it, the more prompts they respond to, the richer and more thoughtful their writing becomes."

At the same time, Hagood, who very much believes in encouraging writers to "find their own voice," admits, "My frustration with Writing Coach was that it tended to classical formalism in its emphasis on being 'reader-centered.' The brainstormers probably do the best job of freeing up the writer's imagination, but even there, they tend to promote critical thinking rather than totally unfettered original thought."

An avid journal writer and serious meditator himself, Hagood has addressed his frustration by creating an online meeting place for journal writers. His newly constructed "home page" on the Internet includes a "Memo from the Soul" to which anyone may contribute. It also offers an e-mail correspondence course Hagood has created called "Journal Writer." For a low monthly fee ($5), subscribers receive twenty new prompts to thought and reflection designed to help them enrich their practice as journal writers and — one hopes — as writers in general.

Contact:

Paul Hagood
Linn-Benton Community College
6500 S.W. Pacific Blvd.
Albany, OR 97321
Telephone: (503) 917-4570

For information on Writing Coach, contact:

WritePlace Software
2852 Willamette St., Suite 125
Eugene, OR 97405
Telephone: (800) 264-7936
Fax: (503) 686-3562
E-mail: wplace@rio.com
Hagood's World Wide Web site is located at http://surf.rio.com/~wplace/ Writing Coach is priced at $45 for students and academics.