Incorporating Writing in the Classroom

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Incorporating Writing in the Classroom

• Creating Effective Writing Assignments

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Dr. Rebecca L. Damron

• Director, OSU Writing Center
• ITLE
• September 20, 2007

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What are we asking our students to do?

• Are we asking them to learn information?
• Are we asking them to develop their critical
  thinking skills?
• Are we asking them to develop their writing
  skills Rhetorical? Grammatical?
• Are we asking them to write in the disciplinary
  community of which we are a part?

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Myths

• Students learn everything they need to know about
  writing in Freshman Comp
• Students acquire all writing skills in two
  semesters of Freshman comp
• They become better writers without writing
  practice
• They know what plagiarism is and how to cite in
  your field.
• Writing takes too much class time (it does take
  time, but is it worth the tradeoff?)

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Create a Writing Culture

• Let them know writing is important-e.g. include
  it on the syllabus
• Informal Writing Activities
• Formal Writing Assignments
• Encourage them to use resourcese.g. The OSU
  Writing Center!

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Writing is Important

• Evaluate the coursewhere can writing fit?
• Design the course with writing sequences more
  than one written assignment, or have them do one
  in stages etc.
• Give them opportunities to explore through
  informal assignments
• Provide models
• Try doing the assignment yourself
• Give different types of response e.g only
  respond to content, give checks instead of grades
• Praise

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Sequencing and Spiraling

• Consider the hierarchy of expectations, goals,
  means, objectives, philosophies
• Focus on course aims and means to
• Link each assignment to overall goals of course
• Build each assignment on previous tasks
• Bias for the best by incorporating
• Appropriate linguistic, contextual, rhetorical
  skills for each assignment
• A relevant writing scenario

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Spiraling

• Determine ongoing concept-to-practice problems
• Audience communication and persuasion
• Use of detail Types and amounts of evidence
• Use of Sources Citation and plagiarism

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Sequencing and Spiraling

• Spiral Cognitively more difficult skills in
• Different writing contexts
• Increasingly more difficult tasks
• Strive for
• Authenticity
• Student interest

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Animal Science 3903 Ag Animals of the World

• Language Awareness
• Religious Awareness
• Geographical Awareness
• Climate Awareness
• Cultural Awareness
• Political Awareness

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The Saltmen of Tibet
Discuss the global awareness factors in this film
and accompanying handouts and how being aware of
them helped (or failed to help) you understand
these people and their association with the
world. Write the paper in the first person.
Include each of the following topics in your
paper. Some questions/hints are provided to help
you get started but these should not be the end
of your observations. a. Geographical
awareness. (Might be a good idea to look at a
good topographical map to get a better sense of
this.) b. Language awareness. (In this film,
the salt language was very important. Discuss
what you think might have been its origins and
its value. Remember-this is a large region where
saltmen have historically traveled long ways to
reach the salt lakes. Also, why do you think
women are not allowed to learn or even hear the
salt language?) c. Religious awareness. (How
would you characterize the intensity of the
religious experience associated with this trek?
Can you think of a practical reason for the
religious/superstitious experience to be so
integrated into the salt trek? Were all the gods
and goddesses associated with Buddhism?) d. Clim
ate awareness. (In this case climate and
geography are very much associated with each
other. Be sure to make this link.) e. Cultural
awareness. (The number of examples you can
discuss from this film is nearly overwhelming so
I suggest you settle on some broad topics and
then use examples. Among other things, the role
of women in the society and their relationship to
the salt collecting is worth considering.) f. Po
litical awareness. (The Chinese have changed
Tibet profoundly. However, how much of this do we
see in this film?)
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Ausangate
Give examples of how this article helped with
each of the globalizing influencers. If there is
no example, write none beside the item
below. a. geographical awareness b. language
awareness c. religious awareness d. climate
awareness e. cultural awareness f. political
awareness
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Nuer
Using the film and accompanying handouts, write a
paper describing how this film helps in your
understanding of the Global Awareness Factors
in relation to the Nuer. Write the paper in the
first person. Include each of the following
topics in your paper. a. Culture.
b. Language. c. Geography. d. Political
awareness. e. Climate. f. g. Religious
awareness. g. When all the various villages
gather at the river for the great purification
ritual, it is easy to see how the modern world is
affecting some villages more than others.
Describe some of the things you saw.
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Informal Writing Activities

• Clustering
• Five minute writing
• Index-card Questions
• Question box
• Blackboard features discussion board etc.
• Cubing
• Describe, compare, associate, analyze, apply,
  argue

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Informal Writing ActivitiesJournals

• Open-ended have students write a certain number
  of pages a week. Free to write about course in
  any way
• Semi-structured guidance is provided e.g.
  Summarize from the preceding class or What
  confused you?
• Guided content-specific questions
• Double-entry Two columns, two dates
• Exam Prep Journals
• Reading Journals

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Responding to Informal Writing Activities

• You may have ungraded in-class writing
• Use a quick checklist
• Use a minus/check/plus system that adds up to a
  percentage of the total score for the class
• Incorporate them into the final grade toward the
  formal writing assignment
• Do pass/fail journal entries

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Formal Writing Assignments

• Review goals for the course when designing
  assignments
• Build in invention activities. Use informal
  writing activities, brainstorming, topic
  proposals etc. to get students focused on a
  topic.
• Build in time to have students do rough drafts
• Peer Workshops
• Self-assessment

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Formal Writing AssignmentsWriting the Assignment

• Task Explain what the student is supposed to
  write about, often presented as a problem,
  question, thesis to support , or rhetorical mode
• Role and audience Place students in a position
  of knowledge
• Format Specify length, font etc. also
  organizational pattern
• Expectations about the process
• Criteria for Evaluation

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Formal Writing AssignmentsExample
Engineering 1111 Airplane Design Challenge
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Version 1-Fall 05
Product/Process Design Homework/ 2005 YOUR NAME
______________________________________ GROUP
NAME _______________________________________ GROUP
LEADER ______________________________________ GRO
UP FACILITATOR__________________________________G
ROUP RECORDER____________________________________
Do the following in a few sentences each (in
Microsoft Word) 1) Describe your impressions
from the airplane group design activity 2) How
well did you group function together? 3) Describe
your groups product and process for
manufacturing airplanes 4) Give a definition of
product design in general 5) Provide a general
description of process design 6) What do you
think engineering is? What does an engineer do?
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Version 2-Fall 2006

• Prepare a 2-3 page double spaced 12 point font
  Microsoft Word document (paper/essay) that
  addresses the following. Be very clear in your
  document about which of the items you are
  addressing. Remember that all course documents
  are on blackboard. I will be adding more
  resources on Blackboard to help you understand
  product and process design.
• Your name your group name, and members.
• Was the airplane design challenge a good way to
  learn to understand the similarities and
  differences between product and process design?
  This is the main theme of your paper.
• Use documents provided in class, on Blackboard,
  as well as at least one other resource that you
  find to provide definitions and to support your
  claims for 2 above. Provide references to your
  sources.
• Discuss your groups product and process design.
• Describe how your group functioned together.
  Were they effective?
• Conclude by summarizing your key points (to
  support 2 mostly but others for 4 and 5
  as needed) and describing how important product
  and process design is in engineering.
• Provide a bibliography of your sources.

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Concepts for Version 3
A Checklist for Engineering Reasoning
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Encourage them to use resources

• Are there handbooks or writing guidelines from
  your field or department? Have them go to the
  library or purchase
• Library references
• OSU Writing Center-Green Brochures on the tables