Writing in the Disciplines: What We Know about Teaching and Learning

Writing in the Disciplines: What We Know about Teaching and Learning Professor Stephen A. BernhardtKirkpatrick Chair in WritingDepartment of English, UD

Guiding Questions • What is at issue in writing instruction? • What do we know about how students respond to writing instruction? • How have universities addressed issues of undergraduate writing? • What should we do if we hope to improve the writing of our graduates?

What should writing be? • Frequent and guided • Varied in purpose, audience, and situation • Short and long, planned and spontaneous, formal and informal, personal and objective, graded and ungraded, exploratory and determinate • To learn as well as to do; to perform as well as to demonstrate learning

Writing and Learning • Writing is a way of learning. • Writing is thinking made visible. (We don’t know what we think until we see what we say.)

A Lesson from WAC(Writing across the Curriculum) We want students to become good writers, but we also want students to be good learners. Faculty don’t necessarily need to be writing teachers—they can use writing to promote learning.

Is writing the best way to learn? • Not for broad recall of content--note taking and study questions do better. • Writing encourages selection, analysis, and transformation. • Writing tends to encourage students to pick out a subset of relevant connected bits and ignore the rest. Geisler, Cheryl. Academic Literacy and the Nature of Expertise

WAC or WID? • Writing across the curriculum stresses writing to learn, emphasizing learning logs, reflection and synthesis, and frequent, informal writing. • Writing in the disciplines works to help students become professional—to become members of a discipline. • Both make a lot of sense…

Why writing in the disciplines? • Writing constructs professional identity--writing is a way of being (and becoming) a civil engineer or an accountant. • Writing well means working within expectations and constraints of highly socialized genres. • Outsiders to a discipline are unable to say what is at issue—what the questions and concerns are that motivate the discipline.

What are we after? • Literate, critical, thoughtful readers and writers • Resourceful students, comfortable in various communication situations • People who can plan, manage, solve problems, and deliver results • Team players, collaborators, helpers • People who make good use of communication technologies

Even more . . . we want To see students engage with disciplinary knowledge To set students upon trajectories toward their chosen professions. To help students gain identity as members of a discipline or profession.

We succeed remarkably well with some students.

Why don’t we succeed well with many more students? With all students?

Prevailing myths • Crisis mentality: we are in a downward spiral of illiteracy • Transience: writing is a problem to be fixed by a remedial course or tutoring • Transparency: writing merely records what is already thought—writing is transparent transcription • Transference: Writing is a generalizable skill that ports easily to new settings.

Universities marginalize writing • Staffing: teaching relies on large staffs of part timers, adjuncts, TAs. • Structure: writing programs have trouble finding a home. • Economics: large lecture classes preclude working closely with students as they write. • Change: even well-conceived initiatives crumble over time.

Universities resist writing in the disciplines • Academic specialization is the strong force. • Reward systems run counter to demands of working with writing. • Faculty may not know how writing is practiced outside the academy. • Faculty unprepared to teach writing. • Faculty tend to reproduce themselves.

There’s something about research universities . . . • Average faculty salary negatively correlates with student satisfaction and learning • At schools with strong research orientations, students display decreased satisfaction with faculty and the overall quality of instruction, decreased leadership skills, and decreased self-reported growth in public speaking skills and other measures of student development. Astin, UCLA Higher Education Research Institute

Deep difficulties • Difficult to get students to engage with writing tasks and “service” courses. • Difficult to structure tasks in writing classrooms that have situational complexity. • Difficult to transfer—what is taught in writing courses does not seem to transfer to other classes or work situations.

Subversive or obtuse? • Sociology students did not enter the frame of original fieldwork: observation, gathering data—”just another paper” • Business students tended not to apply the specific evaluative criteria presented and discussed in class. Nelson, “This Was an Easy Assignment: Examining How Students Interpret Academic Writing Tasks” Walvoord & McCarthy, Thinking and Writing in College

Professionals-in-Training Students consistently had difficulty, across all disciplines: • gathering sufficient specific information • constructing the audience and the self • stating a position • using appropriate discipline-based methods • managing complexity and organizing the paper Walvoord & McCarthy: Thinking and Writing in College

Writing ≠ Writing “Even within one discipline, chemical engineering, different courses may represent distinct forums where different issues are addressed, different lines of reasoning used, different writer and audience roles assumed, and different social purposes served by writing.” Herrington, Anne J. Writing in Academic Settings: A Study of the Contexts for Writing in Two College Chemical Engineering Courses.

It is hard to perform in a classroom • Writing is evidence of work—a measure of performance—an end product. • Writing is a socializing activity—a way of a form of discipline and control. • In classrooms, the evaluative function is always present. Such forces work against clear, open, “normal” communication.

Communication in context • Difficult to provide real contexts for communication in classrooms • Even case studies go only so far • Need real audiences and purposes—real situations that call for writing

What do students say? • Writing is the one skill students most want to improve—mentioned >3X as often as any other skill. • Students are most engaged with courses that assign writing. • Writing increases the time students spend on the course, the extent to which they feel intellectually challenged, and their level of interest. • Writing instruction is best during junior and senior years—organized around a substantive discipline. Light, Richard J. Making the Most of College

NSSE: Student Engagement • Sp01; 880 UD students (44% response) • 300 institutions • Top: Beloit, Elon, Sweet Briar, and Centre colleges • UD quite comparable to peers • UD students enthusiastic about their experiences; respond favorably to academic emphasis at UD

Academic Challenge at UD

UD NSSE Findings(2) • Seniors tend to read, write, present, and participate more in class than freshmen. • Students relax and socialize a bit more than they prepare for class (11-15 hours/wk).

UD NSSE Findings(3) • Each year, UD students write a few papers of 5-20 pages and several short papers (very few >20 pages). • Students say they often work on papers and projects that call for integration, application, and evaluation of information. • UD students use email to communicate with profs with high frequency.

Harvard Class of 2001 • 13 papers first year; 17 sophomore; plus numerous response papers • Writing gave first year its depth—writing helped transition from high school • Freshmen: lots to say, no form, no discipline • 87% of freshmen: "detailed feedback" is the most important element of writing instruction. Sommers, The Harvard Writing Project

Harvard Class of 2001 • More writing in humanities and social sciences after sophomore year • Evident growth in argumentative skills • Juniors began identifying themselves more as scholars, as originators of ideas. • Need sustained approach in disciplines—need disciplinary tool belt Sommers, The Harvard Writing Project

Reading as a professional • From seeing texts as sources of information to be learned or memorized toward reading within rhetorical frames, where authors have purposes or motives, are taking action, and acting within a sphere of activity. • Students come to recognize intertextuality and the social dimensions of text. • Subject’s work in a lab situation alongside graduate students contributed to her awareness and ability to interpret journal articles. Haas, Christina. Learning to Read Biology

Writing within “Communities of Practice” • Formation of a disciplinary or professional identity • A tool kit: shared practices, ways of working, artifice, constructs, methods • Collaborative projects, research and problem solving

Establishing Communities of Practice • Intellectual apprenticeships • Legitimate peripheral participation • School to work trajectories Lave and Wenger, Situated Learning

Taking advantage of our university • Commitment to undergraduate education • Problem-based learning • Life, Pathways, Capstone courses • Mentored and collaborative research • Internships, community service, and field work • Rich communication technologies • The University as a work environment

Good practices in place • Well conceived First Year Comp: E110 • Established Writing Center • Innovative Writing Fellows • Strong student demand for advanced courses • Writing intensive courses in place • Supportive faculty and administration

Where is UD now? • Over-reliant on marginalized labor • Dependent on “fix by requirement” • Behind the growth curve of writing programs in rhetoric and professional communication • Under-resourced in the disciplines: few faculty with research interests in communication • Without resources committed to Writing in the Disciplines or Writing across the Curriculum

As a campus, we should . . . • Clearly identify the target outcomes we desire • Provide instructional support to faculty • Set disciplinary standards and develop tailored, discipline-centered approaches • Professionalize the teaching of writing • Assess programs and learning outcomes • Create formal institutional support

Writing in the Disciplines: What We Know about Teaching and Learning