I was especially intrigued, however, by the answers we received to four interrelated questions:
What do you see as the main use of writing in your classes?The answers we received to these questions indicate that for many faculty members writing is not only an essential communication vehicle, but perhaps more importantly, a sophisticated tool for helping students to learn skills and theories, to gain a broader critical perspective, and to solve problems. Although I'm grouping these faculty remarks into four separate categories for the sake of clarity, in reality the categories overlap and build on one another.Do students have to learn to think in ways that are new to them?
Can writing help develop these thinking skills?
What key concepts or learning objectives would you like your students to learn through writing?
Stephen Grantham, Chair of the Mathematics and Computer Sciences Department, says that precision in writing is also necessary in mathematics:
"Mathematical writing doesn't have to be profuse or long-winded. There's the notion of elegance in math-- the more precise the better . . ." He wants his students to understand the conceptual as well as the mechanical aspects of mathematics, and so he has them explain how they arrive at their answers. He then shares well- written responses as models.Writing is also viewed as essential for communicating effectively within the scholarly community. Some faculty emphasize writing as a way to teach students to compose valid arguments and perform meaningful research. Robert Marsh, Criminal Justice Administration Department Chair, wants students to be able to write on both sides of an issue and then give a supported opinion. Students of foreign languages also need to learn how to compose an argument, narrow a topic, do research, and write a research paper, according to Steven Loughrin-Sacco, Chair of the Modern Languages Department. Jerry Dodson of the Psychology Department uses writing assignments to teach students the accepted rules of evidence and logic in their field of study.
Skip Knox of the History Department says much the same thing about his field; doing historical research involves finding and organizing information and then communicating it. The writing must be clear, analytical, and persuasive. It must, according to Dr. Knox, combine "a scientific attention to evidence with a sensitivity to literature."
Florence Moorhead-Rosenberg, Director of the Spanish Program in the Modern Languages Department, encourages Spanish faculty members to assign as much writing as possible at every ability level. She feels that "intelligent connections take place on the page." Even beginning Spanish students write journals and frequent short response papers. More advanced students must be able to write effective persuasive essays in Spanish.
Dr. Loughrin-Sacco agrees. To enhance his French students' learning, he uses a portfolio grading system. Students accumulate points in many ways, all involving writing; at 3000 points, a student earns an A. Students earn points with E-mail messages, summaries, arguments, discussions, journal notes, and formal papers. "They have to make a million mistakes in order to get an A. Zero mistakes equals an F," he says. In other words, they write in order to learn the language; the more they write, the more mistakes they will make along the way, but the more they will learn.
Many of the professors interviewed spoke of writing as a means of helping their students achieve a better understanding of their subject. Richard Baker of the Sociology Department says he has his students write in order to "grasp the essential ideas" of the field, such as the concept that groups may influence individual behavior. Holly Anderson, Interim Chair of the Foundations, Technology, and Secondary Education Department, sometimes has students write down the main ideas they have learned during the class period. She says it's a good way to help both the students and the teacher find out what has been learned.
The "crystallizing" image used by Grantham is a useful one, conveying metaphorically the ideas of clarity and facet-building. Jeanne Belfy of the Music Department also talked about the use of writing to build and clarify concepts. Her music students know intuitively how to work with symbols and tones, she says, but often "have not articulated what their discipline is in any conscious way." Learning to talk about music in verbal ways is a new skill for them. Tonality, for example, is a difficult concept to verbalize; but after students shared their brief in-class written responses with each other, Dr. Belfy noticed "how much clearer and widespread the understanding of the concept was."
To master a subject, students need to be able to analyze and synthesize information from a variety of sources. As Dr. Wollheim succinctly puts it, "Some need to learn to think. Period." He feels strongly enough about writing and learning to add, "There should be no classes with no writing on campus." He uses writing as a means of helping his students learn to extract information, summarize, outline, respond, compare, analyze, and synthesize.
Two nursing faculty members expressed similar opinions about going beyond basic factual knowledge. Margaret Leahy says that nurses must move quickly beyond the basic rote knowledge level into analysis, synthesis, and application. Judith Murray agrees. Traditionally, nurses spent their training memorizing information. Now the field is changing so fast, she says, that nurses must "learn to pull the information out, and to think and compile it." The nursing faculty works together to coordinate writing assignments so that students write every semester.
Over and over instructors emphasized the need for students to go beyond the simple approach of learning textbook facts. Lamont Lyons of Teacher Education finds that students are often inexperienced in reflecting on their reading. He has designed a series of linked writing assignments that addresses this issue. First, the student writes a simple story about a personal experience that connects in some way to the course content. In a second essay, Dr. Lyons asks the student to reflect on and analyze the story--to ask "So what?" Finally, the student in a third essay brings in ideas and theories from professional sources and writes about the connections between the personal story and the educational issues raised in the course.
Other professors emphasize the importance of helping students achieve a more informed perspective on the world outside their discipline. Mike Samball of the Music Department believes that music is connected to all other disciplines in life, and he uses writing to help students "connect music to the big picture of society today."
In a similar vein, Todd Shallat of the History Department uses writing to help his students evaluate the culture they are immersed in. He says, "I want to empower students to think independently. . . . I try to teach them to be critical of the political culture around them. . . . And I think writing allows them to do that." Shallat believes that some academic disciplines tend to be focused more on "lumping"--that is, theorizing or finding "commonality between events"--whereas other disciplines focus more on "splitting"--finding uniqueness in a particular event. Discerning the difference between theory and case is one key concept in history that would be "very difficult to learn without writing." Writing in history, he says, "is the art of telling a unique story in a context that relates to broader issues."
Pam Gehrke's community health nursing students also deal with these "political realities" by taking on some "cross-boundary" writing assignments. They must couple their nursing knowledge with knowledge of the wider community in order to write grant proposals, policy statements, and agency assessments. For example, students write a legislative or policy-making paper on "a real community health issue, addressed to a real person."
Dr. Grantham says that often his math students don't understand that "to solve a problem, they might have to follow a bunch of ideas that might run into dead ends . . . " He tries to get across the idea that in working with mathematical equations, "solving the problem is a process." Grantham believes that writing fits into this process: "Part of the process of critical thinking is thinking clearly enough about things to put the ideas down correctly and precisely in writing."
Dr. Edmundson emphasizes that the field of health administration demands creative thinking, problem solving, and the ability to arrive at new conclusions using concrete data.
Marie Hoff of the School of Social Work reiterates this idea. Her students often want to be taught a rote interview pattern. She teaches them that because every case in social work is unique, they have to learn to apply abstract theory to concrete situations. One of her writing assignments requires students to critique the strengths and weaknesses of a particular community agency or volunteer organization. Students must interview, summarize, interpret, and evaluate--all interactive high-level cognitive skills.
After pondering the responses to our survey, I wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Wollheim that "there should be no classes with no writing on campus." However, it is not that simple to incorporate writing into every class. Many faculty members expressed concerns about the effects that large class sizes, budget cuts, administrative duties, and perhaps most ironically, the need to spend their time getting their own writing published might have on their ability to make writing assignments integral to their teaching objectives.
Despite these legitimate concerns, many professors at BSU believe the gains in student performance are worth the effort. They are holding on to a vision of higher education that includes writing as an important mode of learning in their classes. As some pointed out in their interviews, even writing activities such as short in-class responses can help students focus on important concepts and make critical connections. I hope that the ideas shared during their interviews will encourage these faculty members and others to keep working toward their goal of providing a high quality education for the students at Boise State University.