Writing Across the Curriculum

I went to a meeting today expecting to be able to sit quietly without having to say anything. I plan on doing that until I get tenure (just kidding, but the thought had occurred). I was sitting there minding my own business when the "writing across the curriculum" came up. This was followed by discussion of the "disastrous state of student writing in the university"--veering toward the edge of apocalyptic. What I heard in the conversation was that clarity was more important than ideas, and that these teachers were spending a lot of time editing for grammar and sentence structure.

It was an interesting conversation, and my main point was that we weren't discussing writing as a way to learn and think (Emig, 1977 among others). I wanted to make the point that we ask students to write for reasons other than summative or transactional purposes. We can do that, but do we offer formative assessment before asking them to turn in that final paper? What are the purposes of the writing assignments we ask students to do? Is it to think and figure out the ideas in the discipline? Or is it a grammar test? This is not to say that students should not be required to polish papers in a final draft and make the paper ready for presentation.

But, why aren't students taking pride in the paper in the first place? I think we have to look at our assignments. What are we asking them to do, and why are students' having problems?
The great thing about writing across the curriculum programs is that teachers who don't have a background in writing instruction and research can be presented with writing to learn strategies.

The part that scared me about the conversation occurred when someone looked at me--the lone English person--and said, "So why aren't you teaching them grammar in English 110?" I think I handled myself well in the face of that, and I was forced to speak.

Bob Tierney's study of his science class showed that students who wrote frequent, informal pieces of writing retained more information and did better on final assessments, even months after the class ended. Bob's essay is a wonderful example of using writing as a process for discovery.

We're lucky in Missouri to have a pioneer in W.A.C. I admire her and her work, which is so influential.

I am worried about the state of W.A.C. after reading the interview. One part of the interview I do want to remember is this:

What advice do you have for The WAC Journal readers who may be asked to defend WAC pedagogy and/or assessment?

mt: Read the now-voluminous research. Talk to scholars at institutions that have WAC programs. Heed the findings of Richard J. Light in Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds (Harvard UP, 2001), who reports, “Students identify the courses that had the most profound impact on them as courses in which they were required to write papers, not just for the professor, as usual, but for their fellow students as well” (64). Heed the findings of Langer and Applebee in How Writing Shapes Thinking: A Study of Teaching and Learning (NCTE, 1987) who report, “there is clear evidence that activities involving writing (any of the many sorts of writing we studied) lead to better learning than activities involving reading and studying only” (135). And for those who require quantitative data, read Alexander Astin’s “What Really Matters in General Education: Provocative Findings from a National Study of Student Outcomes,” Perspectives, Vol. 22, No. 1, Fall 1992, pages 23-46, especially Table 13, “Effects of Taking Courses that Emphasize the Development of Writing Skills.”

W.A.C. Programs
University of Missouri

Back in the Saddle

When I began to write a dissertation about blogging, I could no longer face a blog. I just couldn't even go to the site. It was like I had to completely break myself away and focus completely on the task at hand--writing about blogs. I'll post another time about what I found, but right now I just want to focus on getting back in the saddle in terms of blogging myself.

I have a methods class for pre-service middle and high school teachers, and we have a blog.
We meet once a week, and it has replaced weekly handwritten responses which would only be returned with teacher feedback alone every two weeks or so.

An eighth grade class at a lab school invited us to visit their blog and respond to their stories, so my class is doing that right now as well. We also commented on Casey's students Senior Projects. They are researching, writing papers, and presenting to the community about a topic they have chosen. They work over a year on it.

If anyone should ever happen on to this blog, I want to point out my new fascination with Library Thing. I have a spot on my blog for it, and it's merely a way to catalog what you are reading. Here is my bookshelf. Please share yours. My friend from north Missouri shared her bookshelf with me. I don't see her much, but every time I do, I pick her brain about what she's reading. Now, I have her "bookshelf" online all of the time.

The weather is cold and nasty here, and I went to YouTube to look for a segment when Seinfeld is on Saturday Night Live. He's a history teacher leading a class discussion. It's a great segment to use with teachers to begin a discussion about discussions. While I was on YouTube, I decided to search for Taylor Mali's poetry slam on "What Teachers Make." I found those two items, and couldn't stop. He has a great poem (slightly dirty) called "The Impotence of Proofreading."

Something happened yesterday that I have to share. A good teacher friend and NWP Teacher-Consultant uses a blog, podcasts, and film in his Applied Communications class. On the blog, an anonymous person from his school district posted that the kids writing was terrible, and there was no way that blogging or podcasting could have any benefit. The major slam came when the person wrote, "I think elementary students could write better than you." All of the students responded, and one of the saddest things to me is that the students said, "Yeah, we're not very good writers, but we are a lot better than we were." This is sad to me because the only thing her comment did was make them say, "Yeah, we're not good." Now, on a positive note, those kids wrote some incredible responses to her comments. They can write well, and they just don't have confidence. They are learning. How could she put down those high juniors and seniors? Well, for what it is worth, I responded.

Well, this is a start. I won't wait another year to write.