ISSUE 2 SPRING 2014
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The Duke Reader
Project ….………….…...
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Fresh Voices: The
Family Story Project …..
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Towards a Legible
Anthropology ..............
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Duke
A N E W S L E T T E R O F T H E T H O M P S O N W R I T I N G P R O G R A M
Kristen Neuschel, Director of the Thompson Writing Program and Associate Professor of History
The “LAMP” is lit!
Last October, President Brodhead announced a generous gift from the Bacca Foundation to establish the Language, Arts and Media
Program (LAMP). The LAMP initiative will provide undergraduates with enhanced training in communication skills in both traditional forms of writing and oral presentation as well as in new media. That training will begin in undergraduates’ first year, in the Writing 101 courses all students take. In many sections of Writing 101, faculty already include composing in new media and developing speaking skills, and the
Thompson Writing Program (TWP) also sponsors the annual Critical Ink Conference, where undergraduates have the opportunity to deliver scholarly presentations. Our Humanities Writ Large lab,
Academic Writing in the Digital Age , has begun investigating further ways to enhance our teaching.
However, even as we build on our prior work, in advancing the LAMP initiative we will not merely do a bit more of what we already do. In the TWP, we practice evidence-based teaching. We identify goals for our students, plan assignments and activities with those goals in mind, and then collect data about what students have gained or missed. With the support of this gift, we have named three TWP lecturing fellows as Bacca Foundation Fellows. They have begun work under the leadership of Jennifer Ahern-Dodson,
TWP’s LAMP Director, to identify some of the most successful strategies for teaching multi-modal writing, communication in new media, and oral communication. Over the next three semesters, all instructors in the TWP will add these elements to their courses and a robust assessment plan will track their effects. In addition, the TWP will partner with Arts and Sciences faculty leaders to help develop a LAMP curriculum for upper-class students that builds on what we do in the first year. The goal will be for all students enrolled in these courses to come away with the ability to express opinions clearly and compellingly across all platforms—scholarly, professional, and in the public sphere. As President Brodhead notes,
"As technology creates new ways to communicate, the need to speak and write clearly is more important than ever." At Duke, we aim to cultivate students as critically reflective and civically-minded individuals who can communicate with a broad range of audiences and, in doing so, contribute meaningfully to the world around them.
Duke students at the 2013
Deliberations Colloquium
A TWP class on literacy, writing, and tutoring
● Writing 101: Academic Writing
● Writing in the Disciplines
● The Writing Studio
The TWP also conducts outreach with Duke faculty and students through workshops and conference experiences. Another TWP initiative supports international students using English as a second language .

In October, the TWP Writing
Studio held its annual
Halloween Haiku Contest.
Please enjoy these winning entries!
Halloween Haikus:
FIRST PLACE
I hear the doorbell
But I don't answer the door
I ate all the treats
-Neil Patel
SECOND PLACE
Wrapping up myself
In bathroom toilet paper
Yes, I am twenty
-Brendan Huang
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Now in its eighth year, the Duke Reader Project allows undergraduates to get feedback on class writing projects from a Duke alum or employee who has professional experience with the type of writing students are attempting. Because this feedback comes from members of the target audience—be it engineers, donors, or publishers—it can help students learn to anticipate the needs and expectations of readers and to revise their writing to make it more effective. By participating in the Reader Project, members of the broader Duke community can play a direct role in helping our students develop the communication and reasoning skills that are so important for success in both professional and civic life.
Here are just a few examples from last semester highlighting the wealth of experience our volunteers have to share: In the course Conserving the Variety of Life , students were given the unusual task of preparing a five-minute congressional testimony on a current species conservation issue. One student's Reader Project volunteer is the former Executive Director of the House Republican Conference; another works on issues related to biodiversity and stewardship, having previously testified before Congress about fisheries and oil and gas issues; another once held a position on a Senate committee on biodiversity conservation and spatial planning, much like the one the student would be preparing testimony for.
While the majority of our student participants are upper-level undergraduates, some students are fortunate enough to get this experience within their first couple of years at Duke. Last semester, three first-year writing courses and an introductory mechanical engineering course were enrolled in the Reader Project. One student in the writing course The Science of Food
Choice was paired with the director of the Environmental Defense Fund's sustainable seafood program, while a student in the engineering course received feedback on his design proposal from an electronics designer who holds 10 US patents. This semester, over 20 sophomores are participating in the Reader Project through Political Analysis for Public Policy-Making —the first core course for Public Policy majors.
As of last semester, over one thousand students have participated in the Reader Project in over 70 different courses across the Trinity, Sanford, Nicholas, and Pratt schools. In the fall term alone, 194 students worked with 128 volunteer readers drawn from our pool of over six hundred volunteers. Some courses, such as News Writing and Reporting , Current Issues in
International Trade and Development , and Graduation with Distinction in Chemistry have been enrolled in the Reader Project every year since 2007. New courses lined up for next year continue to span the disciplines from Visual Perception and the Brain to Judaism through Film .
In addition to the "regular" Reader Project, we're experimenting with other ways to bring Duke students and readers together. For the past two summers, our volunteers have read and commented on blogs written by students participating in Duke Engage. We’re collaborating with the new Forum for Scholars and Publics—connecting graduate students in Arts and
Sciences with volunteers who can help expand the audience for their writing beyond traditional academic audiences. Finally, this spring we're piloting another offshoot of the
Reader Project as part of this year's Duke Writes events. In these Reader Project "One-Offs," students will be able to sign up for a single face-to-face meeting with a volunteer who has expertise in their field and receive feedback on a draft.
For more on the Duke Reader Project, see our website at dukereaderproject.org or read about the project in one of these publications:
“The Duke Reader Project: Engaging the University Community in Undergraduate Writing
Instruction.” Liberal Education, 97(3/4), 2011.
“Reader Experts Help Students Bring the Write Stuff.” The Chronicle of Higher Education,
March 27, 2011.

The “Compose Yourself: Writing for Change” exhibit opened on October 15 in Perkins Library. It included 100 responses to last year's National Day On Writing query about how something students had written made a difference to themselves or others.
● The TWP celebrated the National Day on Writing on October 21
with special activities hosted by the Writing Studio and a
multidisciplinary Faculty Writing Retreat led by TWP Director of
Outreach Jennifer Ahern-Dodson. ●
At the Deliberations Colloquium on October 25, eight student authors presented their Writing
101 final projects. Their articles were all published in the 2013 edition of Deliberations:
A Journal of First-Year Writing at Duke University .
The TWP co-sponsored a conference hosted by the Center for African & African-American Research, the Dance Program, and Latin American & Caribbean Studies on “ Lucumí Music: Singing, Dancing, and
Drumming Black Divinity .” Held on November 7 and 8, events included scholarly panels and roundtable discussions as well as music and dance workshops, which were organized by David Font-Navarrete.
David is a TWP Lecturing Fellow as well as a Lucumí priest and expert drummer.
Students in the Writing 101 class Laughing Matters: Interpreting and
Contextualizing Modern Caricature presented a second exhibit in Perkins Library titled “Reading
Between the Lines: Comical Interpretations of the Nineteenth Century.” The exhibit opened on
November 15 and the caricatures displayed, the curatorial arrangement of the exhibit, and the explanatory labels were all produced by first-year writers in Kathryn Desplanque’s class.
● The Faculty Write Program Fall schedule included workshops and writing sessions for Duke faculty, such as: Goal Setting and Project Planning, Writing (in) the Academy, Writing Feedback,
Revising your Writing Space, and Understanding Writing Blocks. ●
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make
Author Marianne Khoury
Marianne Khoury is a junior from Orlando, Florida who is pursuing a Neuroscience major with minors in
Chemistry and French. She aspires to be a physician with an inclination towards neurosurgery and is the
Undergraduate Student Coordinator for the Duke-Ronald McDonald House Family Story Project. Denise
Comer, of the Thompson Writing Program, is the founder and executive director of the Family Story
Project, which is funded by the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation.
The Family Story Project : a simple enough name, but a program that encompasses the complexities of a multidisciplinary approach to community outreach and attests to the power of writing. The Family Story
Project, in collaboration with the Ronald McDonald House of Durham (RMHD), Duke University’s
Thompson Writing Program, and the Duke Center for Civic Engagement, serves to bring attention to the families who stay at the Ronald McDonald House. These guests all share one common thread: a child in their family is currently seeking treatment at Duke University Hospital. Through the Family Story Project, undergraduate writers and photographers from Duke visit with families at the RMHD and listen to their stories. These interviews are compiled at the end of each year with the aim of providing a voice to these families, recognizing the impact of the RMHD on their lives, and raising awareness about medical narratives.
As a writer with the project for two years, I have found this program to be a valuable outlet for all parties involved. I firmly believe that through the documentation and creation of a narrative, families experience the catharsis of having their story told. These families endure a stressful time while staying in Durham. They are many miles from home and in addition to coping with the diagnoses, treatments, and care of their child, they must consider the additional burden of finding lodging, food, and ease of access to medical care. Oftentimes, family members feel overwhelmed in a sea of medical jargon, drowning in medical appointments and eventually experience a loss of control.
To say that my experience writing for the Family Story Project is an “eye-opener” is an understatement. I could not believe the openness of the families I interviewed as they sat across from me—a complete stranger—sharing personal details and emotional struggles. The family members’ persistence through the difficulty of vocalizing the emotions felt while their child was in the hospital enduring tests and suffering pain reflects a profound level of personal disclosure. In my eyes, recording their stories was not about writing for an audience with an intended purpose. I wrote for the family. So much was offered during my time with these families that I sometimes wondered how I could do them justice with a simple story. I wrote in an attempt to capture their emotions, their essence, and the rawness of their situation on paper. Participating in the Family Story Project truly provided an insight into the patient’s perspective, and I consider it a great honor to have had these families briefly incorporate me into their world.
As students aspiring to become physicians, my peers and I sometimes don’t appreciate that we are still young and somewhat naïve. Many of us do not know suffering nor have we experienced the intense fear that comes when presented with serious health problems concerning a loved one. Listening to these families’ descriptions supplied a glimpse of the hardships of being a patient and affirmed that medicine truly calls for a humanitarian approach. In return for this lesson, I believe that the illness narratives produced through
the Family Story Project help to raise awareness, offer
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support, and provide an outlet for families in difficult
situations to be heard.

2013 Deliberations authors and editor : (top row left to right) Byung Cheol
Lee, Chris Lee, Parth Chodavadia, Alex Hish, Mack Yi, Lee Anne Reilly ;
(bottom row left to right) Lei Zhang, Natalie Ritchie, Emilie Melvin
The Deliberations Colloquium is an annual event to celebrate
the work of Writing 101 authors published in Deliberations: A Journal of First
Year Writing . This year the event was held at the Washington Duke Inn on October 25, during Family Weekend.
The eight student authors presented their work in a poster session format, allowing for informal discussions among authors and audience. The published papers represented disciplines including natural science, social science, and humanities, and included topics ranging from the genetics of invasive species and the health impacts of caffeine to friendship, beauty, music, and architecture.
The Colloquium was well attended by Writing 101 faculty, students, family members, and others. The theme of the 2013 issue of Deliberations was reflection, so conversations during the Colloquium focused not only on the topics and issues raised in the published projects, but also on the writing process itself. Current Writing 101 students had the unique and valuable opportunity to speak one-on-one with authors about their experiences with the writing process, struggles and all, from project conception to finished product. Students reported coming away from those conversations with the comforting realization that, while writing can be difficult for anyone, projects will evolve and improve over time through careful reflection and revision.
The student authors began their journey to publication six months to a year before the event, during the Fall 2012 or Spring 2013 semesters of Writing 101. What began as class projects became exemplary pieces of writing, selected by the Board of Editors from over 180 fine submissions. While those selected papers were already outstanding, student authors continued to work hard through the summer of 2013 to revise, refine, and polish their projects to prepare them for publication for the Duke Community.
Below are the selections published in the 2013 edition of Deliberations :
1. Eurocentric Beauty Ideals as a Form of Structural Violence: Origins and Effects on
East Asian Women by Lei Zhang
2. The Mammy Myth: Mattie Mooreman’s Story by Natalie Ritchie
3. Java for Expecting Mamas? Can the debate on coffee consumption during pregnancy finally be put to rest? by Emilie Melvin
4. The Invasive Advantage:
Characterizing Functional Modifications
Leading to Adaptation by Alex Hish
5. A Tale of Two Nations: Analyzing the Kashmiri Conflict by Parth
Chodavadia
6. Frozen Music and Molten Architecture in The City of Mosque:
Religious Spatial Formation in Djenne, Mali by Interaction Between
Sound and Built Environment by Byung Cheol Lee The 2013 Deliberations Colloquium
7. The Reality of the Reflection: Edgar Allan Poe’s Microcosm of the Divided American Mind by Chris Lee
8. Playing the Odds on Friendship: Developing a Less Risky Conception of the Greatest External
Good by Mack Yi
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Inspired by the inaccessibility of anthropological writing to those outside my discipline, I set out to create an installation of two quilts that would challenge anthropologists to confront the all-too-common disconnect between our work as writers and the communities we study.
In the Words-We-Write quilt, I stitched commonly (over)used anthropological jargon in black and grey letters on a white background. The words in this quilt came from a compilation of ten years’ worth of article titles from the journal
Cultural Anthropology , as well as from several conversations with anthropologists in the process of writing their dissertations. In the second quilt, titled World-We-Write-In , I spelled out realities of the world around us in brightcolored letters on a black background.
The quilts were exhibited at the 2013 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Chicago, where passersby were invited to contribute to a clothesline by adding their own writerly frustrations—anthropology’s “dirty laundry”—in the form of scribbled haikus or six-word stories. Some of their contributions are pictured below, along with the quilt-making process. You can visit http://sites.duke.edu/towardsalegibleanthropology/ for more information and photos. The quilts are on display for the duration of Spring semester in the Anthropology Department in the Friedl Building.
Arranging letters...
6 Stitching on the letters...
So much pressure to be clever
More people read my tweets than my papers
Alienating disciplinary silos; non-anthropologist @ AAA
Coin a term, create a dynasty

Jim Naughton and Rebecca Wilson led a two-day public scholarship series at Duke focused on taking academic research into public domains. These Faculty Write workshop events were co–sponsored by the Thompson Writing Program , Forum for Scholars and Publics , and Duke
Libraries. The following are Jim and Rebecca’s top 10 questions to ask yourself when considering whether and/or how to represent your academic work online and in social media:
Rebecca Wilson discussed the
nuances of social media
1. What do you want to happen as a result of participating in public scholarship?
2. What conversations are happening that you want to join? Where are these conversations happening?
3. Who are the participants in the conversation? Who is the audience for it?
4. What content or experience in your own life and work do you want to draw from?
5. Is the media already interested in your subject, or do you need to find ways to make it relevant and current?
6. What’s your voice? How is it distinctive when compared to the other voices speaking about your subject?
7. In what medium are you most comfortable? Long-form writing, short-form, social media, video, photography,
mixed media?
8. Do you enjoy the give and take of public debate? How much audience interaction/conversation do you want to
undertake?
9. How much time do you have and what is your highest priority for public scholarship?
10. Dorothy Parker wrote, “I hate writing, I love having written.” What will you love having written?
Jim Naughton is a veteran journalist who has worked for The New York Times , The New York Daily News , and The
Washington Post . His free-lance writing has appeared in publications and Web sites as disparate as Beliefnet , Slate , ESPN the Magazine , and the Guardian . He has written three books, including a novel for young adults and a profile of a Catholic parish at odds with the Vatican.
Rebecca Wilson (Trinity ’88), is a veteran communications consultant whose experience includes developing strategic communications for non-profits, public sector organizations, and progressive interest groups. She works extensively with scholars in both the United
States and Africa. Rebecca has also led public information and non-partisan ballot issue campaigns for public schools, public libraries, and mental health treatment. She holds a
BA in English from Duke, an MA in English from Kent State, and specializes in advocacyoriented communications.
Jim Naughton answered questions about building an online presence
E
I
TWP
A Collaborative Partnership between DPS and the TWP — The TWP received a 2013-14 Duke
Center for Civic Engagement Studio Grant to create an immersive space to explore the possibilities for long-term local partnerships centered on literacy and writing with Durham Public Schools (DPS).
Join the group for a public presentation of their work on Tuesday, May 6 from 7-9pm (details here ).
Transforming Academic Writing in the Digital Age — The TWP also was awarded a 2013-14
Humanities Writ Large Emerging Networks Grant to examine how digital rhetoric, public audience, and multimedia composition can be assessed and incorporated into what we understand to be
“academic writing.”
The December meeting of the TWP,
DPS, and other experts on education
Exploring MOOCs — Denise Comer, Director of First-Year Writing for the TWP, will co-lead a
Gates Foundation-funded study analyzing peer-to-peer interactions in introductory writing and chemistry Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
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April 16 — Critical Ink 2014 — This year, the TWP’s undergraduate conference of first-year writing will be held at the
Franklin Humanities Institute in Smith Warehouse. In concert with the technological possibilities available in the new space, an updated Critical Ink will showcase student scholarship and invite engaged audience participation through multimodal compositions, TED-like Talks, roundtable panels, and posters. Abstracts can be submitted here.
For more information, please contact Aria Chernik at aria.chernik@duke.edu
and follow the Twitter conversation at #dukecriticalink.
April 24 — National Poetry Month — On this day, the TWP celebrates
National Poetry Month with “ Poem in Your Pocket .” We invite you to select a poem you love, carry it with you throughout the day, and share it with co-workers, family, and friends.
Spring Semester — Faculty Write-on-site Sessions — The TWP’s Faculty Write Program invites all Duke faculty to bring a computer or tablet and any materials needed to work on a specific writing project and write side-by-side with other faculty in a quiet space. If you can’t join in person, follow the conversation on Twitter at #facultywrite or contact
Jennifer Ahern-Dodson for more information about the Faculty Write Program. Session dates are as follows:
March — Thursdays: March 6, 20, 27 from 1-3 in Perkins 218 / Fridays: March 7, 28
from 10-12:30 in Perkins 218
April — Thursdays: April 3, 10, 17 from 1-3 in Perkins 218; April 24 from 1-3 in Perkins
118 / Fridays: April 4, 11, 18 from 10-12:30 in Perkins 218; April 25 from 10-12:30 in
Perkins 118
May — Thursday: May 1 from 1-3 in Perkins 218 / Friday: May 2 from 10-12:30 in
Perkins 218
Duke University
Campus Box 90025
Durham, NC 27708 www.twp.duke.edu writingprogram@duke.edu
The Thompson Writing Program promotes excellence in teaching with a focus on active learning and writing as a means of critical inquiry. It is widely acknowledged to be one of the premier academic writing programs in the country. Our instructional model is imitated and the leadership of the program are in demand as consultants for writing and general education curricula .
Newsletter Editor/Designer: Jennie Saia To subscribe electronically, email Jennie at: jennie.saia@duke.edu