Post by WIDboard on Nov 2, 2011 19:51:27 GMT -5
EWP #4: Writing To Learn[/u]
Welcome to the fourth installment of Essentials of Writing Pedagogy, the WIDboard original series on the teaching of writing. The information presented in each EWP post is simply one way to view an issue in writing pedagogy; it is not the only way. A single post cannot hope to cover the entire scope of the issue, but hopefully it can provide a solid base for further discussion or inquiry. Go ahead and read this post; take from it whichever ideas seem useful to you and bring them into your classroom. Without further ado, enjoy EWP#4: Writing to Learn.
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One of the most important considerations in designing a writing-intensive course, including a WID course, is to remember that there are multiple potential significant roles of writing instruction appropriate to an academic setting.
One potential role of writing instruction is to encourage, as the National Writing Project terms it, Learning to Write (NWP). Much like the name suggests, ‘Learning to Write’ is a goal that focuses writing instruction on teaching students how to write—how to compose drafts, how to develop their own writing process, how to adhere to certain academic conventions (formatting, research citations, etc.). Obviously, this is an incredibly important part of writing instruction, particularly in a WID course, wherein one of the essential course aims is to teach disciplinary conventions and expectations for writing.
A second major role of writing instruction, however—the topic of EWP for today, and a role often forgotten at the college level—is Writing to Learn.
What is Writing to Learn?
Writing to Learn is an approach to writing instruction that recognizes that writing is not just a skill set to be mastered or a way to display command of subject material. Surely, writing can and should be those things at certain times. Writing to Learn, however, emphasizes that writing can be more than just a skill set or a display of mastery—that writing can be a space for generating[i/] knowledge and learning, and for discovering ideas, not just for documenting them. Writing to Learn promotes what Peter Smagorinsky calls “Exploratory Thinking and Knowledge” (83). As Smagorinsky puts it, writing instruction is problematic when it “focuses on…final products without providing opportunities for students to engage in—and be rewarded for—the informal, tentative, experimental processes that lead to [more polished writing” (83). Writing to Learn, in essence, is an approach that uses writing as a useful avenue for generating understanding of content, not merely a method of performing an already-established understanding.
Implications for Assignment Design
So what does a Writing to Learn assignment look like? As National Writing Project and Carl Nagin, phrase it,
“An effective writing assignment does more than ask students to write about what they have read or experienced. It engages students in a series of cognitive processes, such as reflection, analysis, and synthesis, so that they are required to transform the information from the reading material in order to complete the writing assignment” (NWP 47).
In other words, Writing to Learn assignments will require students to think—to reflect/analyze/synthesize—when working with course content, rather than merely report it. This has important implications for two different ways to design assignments with Writing to Learn in mind.
When assignments are focused primarily on Writing to Learn
Generally, speaking, when the sole goal of an assignment is Writing to Learn, that assignment will be short, informal, and content-focused (“What is Writing to Learn”). To look more closely, Writing to Learn assignments will be:
Farther down on this post, you will find a list of example specific assignments that forefront Writing to Learn as a goal.
When larger assignments value Writing to Learn as an essential component
When Writing to Learn is considered a valuable aspect of writing in an education setting, larger, more formal assignments can still emphasize that value without sacrificing the demand for high standards of writing. Larger, more formal assignments, might emphasize Writing to Learn in any of the following ways:
Implications for Course Design
Instructors who work with the National Writing Project, which places high value on Writing to Learn, “make writing part of everything they do. Rather than treating writing as a separate subject, they see it as fundamental to teaching” (NWP 51). In other words, instead of using writing simply as an endeavor in and of itself, teachers who value Writing to Learn use writing as a tool of teaching and a means of learning. Though many of us in the WID program will not make writing a part of “everything” we do, we can nonetheless strive to make it a part of how we teach content, not just how we teach writing.
Does this mean I shouldn’t teach conventions and standards of writing for my discipline?
Writing to Learn is not about avoiding teaching conventions altogether. Conventions can be very important to some disciplinary contexts, and if that is the case in your discipline you would be doing your students a disservice not to teach those conventions. Writing to Learn, however, is about valuing exploration and thinking through writing, and incorporating informal, low-stakes writing as a means of accessing course material. Successful writing instruction must include both standards and subject area content. Appropriately, in a WID course some of your course content is expected to be writing standards, but Writing to Learn can still be valued as a means of learning those standards. Writing to Learn can target both main goals of writing instruction and can serve both “as a means to teach the student to master distinct forms and conventions of writing as practiced in diverse subject areas,” and “as means for the student to learn and retain content” (NWP 51).
Examples of Specific Writing to Learn activities
In Chapter 6 of Teaching English by Design, Peter Smagorinsky suggests each of the following “unconventional writing assignments” (Smagorinsky Ch. 6). They are suggested within the framework of an English class, but could easily be applied to many different disciplines, because they focus on manipulation of content. Smagorisnky’s activities are (Smagorisnky Ch. 6):
Welcome to the fourth installment of Essentials of Writing Pedagogy, the WIDboard original series on the teaching of writing. The information presented in each EWP post is simply one way to view an issue in writing pedagogy; it is not the only way. A single post cannot hope to cover the entire scope of the issue, but hopefully it can provide a solid base for further discussion or inquiry. Go ahead and read this post; take from it whichever ideas seem useful to you and bring them into your classroom. Without further ado, enjoy EWP#4: Writing to Learn.
________________________________________________________________
One of the most important considerations in designing a writing-intensive course, including a WID course, is to remember that there are multiple potential significant roles of writing instruction appropriate to an academic setting.
One potential role of writing instruction is to encourage, as the National Writing Project terms it, Learning to Write (NWP). Much like the name suggests, ‘Learning to Write’ is a goal that focuses writing instruction on teaching students how to write—how to compose drafts, how to develop their own writing process, how to adhere to certain academic conventions (formatting, research citations, etc.). Obviously, this is an incredibly important part of writing instruction, particularly in a WID course, wherein one of the essential course aims is to teach disciplinary conventions and expectations for writing.
A second major role of writing instruction, however—the topic of EWP for today, and a role often forgotten at the college level—is Writing to Learn.
What is Writing to Learn?
Writing to Learn is an approach to writing instruction that recognizes that writing is not just a skill set to be mastered or a way to display command of subject material. Surely, writing can and should be those things at certain times. Writing to Learn, however, emphasizes that writing can be more than just a skill set or a display of mastery—that writing can be a space for generating[i/] knowledge and learning, and for discovering ideas, not just for documenting them. Writing to Learn promotes what Peter Smagorinsky calls “Exploratory Thinking and Knowledge” (83). As Smagorinsky puts it, writing instruction is problematic when it “focuses on…final products without providing opportunities for students to engage in—and be rewarded for—the informal, tentative, experimental processes that lead to [more polished writing” (83). Writing to Learn, in essence, is an approach that uses writing as a useful avenue for generating understanding of content, not merely a method of performing an already-established understanding.
Implications for Assignment Design
So what does a Writing to Learn assignment look like? As National Writing Project and Carl Nagin, phrase it,
“An effective writing assignment does more than ask students to write about what they have read or experienced. It engages students in a series of cognitive processes, such as reflection, analysis, and synthesis, so that they are required to transform the information from the reading material in order to complete the writing assignment” (NWP 47).
In other words, Writing to Learn assignments will require students to think—to reflect/analyze/synthesize—when working with course content, rather than merely report it. This has important implications for two different ways to design assignments with Writing to Learn in mind.
When assignments are focused primarily on Writing to Learn
Generally, speaking, when the sole goal of an assignment is Writing to Learn, that assignment will be short, informal, and content-focused (“What is Writing to Learn”). To look more closely, Writing to Learn assignments will be:
- Short: If given in class, an assignment may be just a few minutes long. Out of class, it may be a paragraph or two at a time.
- Informal: An assignment will not be graded in the traditional sense; if credit is given, it will usually be for completeness or for strong thinking/questioning.
- Content-focused: As a consequence of informality, an assignment and the feedback on it will be focused on the student’s critical thinking and engagement with the content for the assignment, not on formal concerns of ‘proper’ writing—unless, of course, the content for the specific assignment IS a certain disciplinary standard (which it very well might be for a WID course).
Farther down on this post, you will find a list of example specific assignments that forefront Writing to Learn as a goal.
When larger assignments value Writing to Learn as an essential component
When Writing to Learn is considered a valuable aspect of writing in an education setting, larger, more formal assignments can still emphasize that value without sacrificing the demand for high standards of writing. Larger, more formal assignments, might emphasize Writing to Learn in any of the following ways:
- Require students to engage in informal prewriting activities to encourage critical thought.
- Allow opportunity for peer or instructor consultations throughout the process, including as informal strategy-sessions after early outlines or first drafts.
- Require that students analyze or synthesize information and content, rather than simply re-stating it. In other words, re-work the material, don’t re-port it.
- Emphasize discovery and research of new information, rather than adherence to course material already provided by the instructor.
- Ask that students complete a short reflection during the assignment (perhaps attached as an appendix, or emailed to the professor, or posted on the class blog). This reflection could respond to the task of writing, self-reflectively, or to the content therein: How did you go about the process; why did you make certain choices, how do you feel like you’ve furthered your understanding of the material; where are you still confused about the content; are there weaknesses in your paper that you’d like to address in future drafts; what would you change about the assignment in the future; what was the most difficult part of the assignment, and how can you better prepare yourself for similar tasks in the future?
Implications for Course Design
Instructors who work with the National Writing Project, which places high value on Writing to Learn, “make writing part of everything they do. Rather than treating writing as a separate subject, they see it as fundamental to teaching” (NWP 51). In other words, instead of using writing simply as an endeavor in and of itself, teachers who value Writing to Learn use writing as a tool of teaching and a means of learning. Though many of us in the WID program will not make writing a part of “everything” we do, we can nonetheless strive to make it a part of how we teach content, not just how we teach writing.
Does this mean I shouldn’t teach conventions and standards of writing for my discipline?
Writing to Learn is not about avoiding teaching conventions altogether. Conventions can be very important to some disciplinary contexts, and if that is the case in your discipline you would be doing your students a disservice not to teach those conventions. Writing to Learn, however, is about valuing exploration and thinking through writing, and incorporating informal, low-stakes writing as a means of accessing course material. Successful writing instruction must include both standards and subject area content. Appropriately, in a WID course some of your course content is expected to be writing standards, but Writing to Learn can still be valued as a means of learning those standards. Writing to Learn can target both main goals of writing instruction and can serve both “as a means to teach the student to master distinct forms and conventions of writing as practiced in diverse subject areas,” and “as means for the student to learn and retain content” (NWP 51).
Examples of Specific Writing to Learn activities
In Chapter 6 of Teaching English by Design, Peter Smagorinsky suggests each of the following “unconventional writing assignments” (Smagorinsky Ch. 6). They are suggested within the framework of an English class, but could easily be applied to many different disciplines, because they focus on manipulation of content. Smagorisnky’s activities are (Smagorisnky Ch. 6):
- Journaling: Students respond reflectively to prompts that relate to course content, in a way that encourages them to consider the content in an unusual or new way.
- Reading Logs: Students keep two-column notes, in which they take notes on content in one column, and pause to respond reflectively or inquiringly in the second column to their content notes. This forces students to think abut content as they take notes, not merely to copy it down.
- Dialogue Journals: A journal shared by two or more students, wherein they take turns writing analysis of and personal response to the content of a given lecture or reading. Each student must also respond to the points raised by the previous writer. This particular activity can be moved to web formats fairly trivially. In the university context, this method initiates at an informal level the same sorts of discursive patters (if not standards of formality and thoroughness) that are necessary for academic dialogue between scholars.
Other Resources and Assignments for Writing to Learn
Colorado State’s Writing Across the Curriculum program provides a fairly solid overview of Writing to Learn, including example activities.
wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop2d.cfm
Richmond also has a great selection of example writing assignments that could be very useful in choosing Writing To Learn assignments
writing2.richmond.edu/wac/wtl.html
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Works Cited
[NWP] National Writing Project, and Carl Nagin. Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in Our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Smagorinsky, Peter. Teaching English By Design. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2008. Print.
“What is Writing to Learn?” wac.colostate.edu The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University. 1997-2011. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.