Learning about Writing, Thinking about Teaching

Abstract

A student's story and our participation on a general education renewal project prompted us to learn more about writing. In the process, we discovered the writing activities developed by psychologists, the strategies for assessing writing used by colleagues in other disciplines, and the means used by departments and universities to develop effective writing programs. The theme of this article is that learning about writing led us to think more about our teaching and about how our students learn.Five years ago, one of our department's outstanding undergraduate students told this story. After 52 semester hours of psychology, she had written only three papers; two were for the first author's Psychology and Religious Experience course during her last semester at the university, the third was a formal research report for Experimental Methods. When she took an elective literature course in her senior year, the English faculty member took her aside after review. ing her initial papers and inquired about her writing experience. His assessment of her deficit stunned her. Fortunately, she had found in this faculty member a splendid mentor who began a crash course in bringing her to a college senior level of literacy.As we came to find out, her story was not unusual. But her story prompted us to learn about writing and to think more about our teaching. The next year, in a Seminar in the Teaching of Psychology, the two of us began to read the literature in composition journals and texts on writing practices and student learning. With others in the seminar, we agreed to add writing components to our courses. It was an eye-opening year with many trials and many errors. After this seminar, both of us continued to read, to teach, and to assign vvriting tasks in our courses.Since 1986, we have been involved in a university-wide project on the definition and assessment ofgeneral education. Of special interest is the work of the writing team. Six faculty from different disciplines and professional schools, working with the two of us, completed an evaluation of writing intensive, upper division courses. Teachers were interviewed, 300 students were surveyed and tested, portfolios were developed, and postsemester evaluations were completed. 'Two writing-across-the-curriculum scholars, Arthur Young and Barbara Walvoord, came to campus as consultants. They expanded our understanding of our students' writing, evaluated our university program, and recommended alternative strategies for faculty development and program evaluation. Our university is now developing upper division writing programs in a variety of major fields and professional schools.Our efforts to understand students' writing began, therefore, with a response to one student's story. First, we learned about writing with others in the psychology departmen.t; then, we continued with colleagues throughout the university. We learned to conceptualize student writing as a complex means to achieve several ends. We also learned that thinking about writing forces us to think more carefu...

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