Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts · Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II...

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Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts 4 th International Conference on Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II Washington DC, 2011 Roger Graves Director, Writing Across the Curriculum Professor, English and Film Studies University of Alberta Edmonton, AB [email protected] Susan Chaudoir WAC Research Assistant PhD Candidate University of Alberta Edmonton, AB [email protected]

Transcript of Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts · Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II...

Page 1: Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts · Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II Washington DC, 2011 Roger Graves Director, Writing Across the Curriculum ... genre

Writ ing assignments in discipl inary contexts 4 t h I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o n f e r e n c e o n Wr i t i n g R e s e a r c h Wr i t i n g R e s e a r c h A c r o s s B o r d e r s I I Wa s h i n g t o n D C , 2 0 1 1

Roger Graves Director, Writing Across the Curriculum Professor, English and Film Studies University of Alberta Edmonton, AB [email protected]

Susan Chaudoir WAC Research Assistant PhD Candidate University of Alberta Edmonton, AB [email protected]

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 With one or two exceptions, no required first year writing course

 Writing historically taught through the study of literature

 Wide range of writing centres; perhaps the closest point of comparison with US context

 Disciplinary support for writing more common—not across the curriculum but in the discipline

Canadian context: a primer

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 WAC programs that support faculty members are few and far between

 WAC programs more commonly support students (“How to write a psychology paper” workshops for students)

  Research: writing “inventories” to describe how departments use writing now (baseline data) and to inform discussions of how to expand, direct, or improve the use of writing for learning

Canadian context: a primer

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 Graves, R., Hyland, T. & B. Samuels (2010). Undergraduate Writing Assignments: An Analysis of Syllabi at One Canadian College. Written Communication 27 (3): 293-317

  This study collected 485 assignments from 179 syllabi at a small liberal arts college in Ontario

 We have continued this work to include six (6) follow-up studies in Alberta:   Faculties of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Physical Education

and Recreation;

  Geography and Political Science departments; and a

  Community Service-Learning program.

Previous study

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  Today we will discuss the following five (5) studies:   Liberal Arts College;

  Faculty of Nursing;

  Geography Department

  Political Science Department; and

  Community Service-Learning Program.

  Faculties of Pharmacy and Physical Education and Recreation are in process.

Today’s presentation

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 What range of genres of writing assignments are students asked to write?

 Does this range vary over the 4 year program?

 Do these assignments get longer in the upper years of the programs?

  How frequently do instructors scaffold writing assignments within a course?

Research questions

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 We gathered copies of course outlines and assignments that were given to students

 All assignments and documents were coded by the researchers

Syllabus Nursing 390

Methods: Assignments

  course year level   source documentation

  genre   provision of feedback

  word length   method of assessment

  value (percentage of mark)

  audience

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Number of writing assignments

Percent of courses with writing assignments

Liberal Arts 485 79%

Nursing 157 86%

Political Science 198 100%

Geography 186 77%

Service Learning 163 100%

Who isn’t assigning writing?

Page 9: Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts · Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II Washington DC, 2011 Roger Graves Director, Writing Across the Curriculum ... genre

First number is total number of assignments. Second number is average number of assignments per course.

Number of assignments by year in program

Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service- Learning

Geography Nursing

Year 1 34/1.5 7/1.4 42/10 15/3.8 17/3.4

Year 2 225/2.5 39/2.3 12/4 40/2.2 33/5.5

Year 3 189/4.1 40/2.4 35/6 24/1.85 50/4.2

Year 4 56/3.0 112/4.2 74/6.7 107/3.5 57/4.4

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Number of assignments by year in program

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service learning

Geography

Nusring Nursing

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Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service-Learning Geography Nursing

Papers 20 32 22 25 18

Reports 18 30 12 Essay 27 21 12 Summary Self-evaluation 24 Handouts 11 Presentation 15 17 13 Journal 10

Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.

Genres vary across the disciplines

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Nested writing assignments

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Length of writing assignments

Length

in pages

Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service-Learning

Geography Nursing

under 2 31 5 16 18 0

2 - 4 26 27 39 34 74

5 - 6 12 15 14 19 2

7 - 10 17 23 14 18 18

11 - 12 8 11 6 5 0

13 + 6 19 11 6 6

Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.

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Audience of writing assignments

Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service-Learning

Geography Nursing

Instructor or peer 90 92 91 100 99

Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.

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Feedback on writing assignments

Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service-Learning

Geography Nursing

14 21 41 12 96

Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.

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Rubric for writing assignments

Liberal Arts

Political Science

Service-Learning

Geography Nursing

30 25 13 20 60

Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.

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WAC, writing assignments, and disciplinary contexts

  Light (2003) noted student engagement correlated to frequency of writing:   how we use assignments to engage students is perhaps best

answered within specific disciplines.

 Melzer (2009) reported WAC-associated courses contain more writing assignments than non-WAC courses:   Would WAC initiatives increase the amount of writing done

throughout the university as Melzer observed?

  Our data considers the disciplinary context in Canada:   Do we really want CSL students writing more than 10

assignments in 12 weeks?

  What is the upper limit?

  Who decides?

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WAC, writing assignments, and disciplinary contexts

  Haswell (1991) argued that student efficacy requires sequential composition over the student’s entire college career:   How does this happen sequentially over a student’s career within a

discipline? Without first-year composition?

  Consider how disciplinary programs implicitly or explicitly structure assignments (over the course of the entire program) to maximize student engagement and efficacy   For example, we can show the structure of writing assignments in

the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta

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WAC, writing assignments, and disciplinary contexts

  The writing inventory in our study provides a tool for instructors and administrators to:   examine the kinds of writing students are doing across and

within the disciplines;

  evaluate the extent of student writing required in disciplinary curriculum;

  review curricular goals and outcomes.

Page 20: Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts · Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II Washington DC, 2011 Roger Graves Director, Writing Across the Curriculum ... genre

References

Bridgeman, B., & Carlson, S. B. (1984). Survey of academic writing tasks. Written Communication, 1, 247-280.

Britton, J., Burgess, T., Martin, N., McLeod, A., & Rosen, H. (1975). The development of writing abilities (11-18). Urbana: NCTE.

Dias, P., Freedman, A., Medway, P., & Pare, A. (1999). Worlds apart: Acting and writing in academic and workplace contexts. Mahwah, NJ/ London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Dias, P., & Pare, A. (Eds.). (2000). Transitions: Writing in academic and workplace settings. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Graves, R., & Chaudoir, S. (2009). [Writing assignments in the Faculty of Nursing, Department of Political Science, Department of Geography, and Community Service-Learning program]. Unpublished raw data.

Graves, R., & Chaudoir, S. (2010, May). What assignments do university professors ask Nursing students to write? Paper presented at the Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing, Montreal, Québec.

Graves, R., Hyland, T., & Samuel, B. (2010). Undergraduate writing assignments: An analysis of syllabi at one Canadian university. Written Communication, 27(3), 293-317.

Page 21: Writing assignments in disciplinary contexts · Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders II Washington DC, 2011 Roger Graves Director, Writing Across the Curriculum ... genre

References

Haswell, R. (1991). Gaining ground in college writing: Tales of development and interpretation. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press.

Kelly, G. J., & Bazerman, C. (2003). How students argue scientific claims: A rhetorical‐semantic analysis. Applied Linguistics 24(1), 28-55.

Light, R. J. (2001). Making the most of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Light, R. J. (2003). Writing and students’ engagement. Peer Review, 6(1), 28-31.

Melzer, D. (2003). Assignments across the curriculum: A survey of college writing. Language and Learning Across the Disciplines, 6(1). Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/archives.cfm..

Melzer, D. (2009). Writing assignments across the curriculum: A national study of college writing. College Composition and Communication, 61, W240-261.

Paltridge, B. (2002). Genre, text type, and the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) classroom. In A. Johns (Ed.), Genre in the classroom: Multiple perspectives (pp. 73-90). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.


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