WAC in Practice – Writing Across the Curriculum

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024

The Challenges and Rewards of Revision

When it comes to writing intensive courses, oftentimes, students are not excited to write in the first place. They are either taking a required English course, such as Composition or a writing intensive first-year literature course, or they are writing longer pieces for the first time in the courses of their majors. One of the most frequent errors is not in the students’ abilities in approaching critical analysis or building strong arguments, but in the time they are devoting to developing their writing. In particular, there is the challenge of switching from a writer’s perspective to a reader’s perspective that keeps students from revising their work, in addition to the difficulties that arise with a screen-based format, as opposed to working with a hard copy of their work (Bean 34).

Often, where drafts or first submissions falter is in the structuring of the essay, in that students have not spent enough time on this. Scaffolding activities that encourage spending plenty of time planning in order to give their ideas space to flow better on the page are often helpful for this. Therefore, there is a strong case to be made for devoting more class time to developing each written assignment, and as a result, students are learning the process of developing stronger pieces of writing, the skills for which they can apply across their studies. Given that students do not always delve fully in to the revision process, perhaps only changing a few sentences or grammatical errors pointed out in their feedback, there exists the need to engage and encourage receptiveness to developing and revising their drafts. Additionally, concerning resubmission of work, it is beneficial to include some requirements that accompany the resubmission.

Some suggestions for improving the revision process that have been particularly helpful in my own writing and literature courses are the following[1]:

Having students come to class prepared with a guiding question for that session’s reading in which to direct the class discussion. This encourages active learning, critical thinking, generative topic discussion, and leads into how they develop their major written assignments through independent planning and groupwork.
Scaffolding writing assignments to allow for extra writing and revision time, including one-on-one conferences which they attend prepared with an essay plan to discuss, active peer reviews, and writing days to address specific challenges in their individual writing processes.
Enabling more active participation in peer reviews. Rather than students simply reading through their group’s essays and commenting here and there, it is generative to provide a worksheet that asks them to address specific elements of the work they are critiquing. These sheets are then uploaded to a shared folder that both their instructor and the members of their group can access.
Implementing a resubmission policy that requires students to attend a writing center appointment to discuss the instructor’s feedback and write a new cover letter that addresses what they have changed about their essays.

Ultimately, the goal of good writing is to develop good thinking, and this is something that we can achieve in teaching thinking through teaching revision. An important idea is that “for expert writers, the actual act of writing causes further discovery, development, and modification of ideas” (Bean 29). It is therefore beneficial to spend even more time planning and revising work during class. In the era of instant gratification and ever-evolving technologies and AI, students are shown to be less inclined to spend enough time on each step of the assignment. There is a lot of value in slowing down and learning and relearning the process.

[1] For more examples, see p. 36 of John C. Bean, Dan Melzer, Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom, third edition, Jossey-bass, 2021.

November 7, 2024November 7, 2024

Storytelling : an engaging and reflective practise for students of all fields

Writing-Intensive classes have the advantage of enabling learners to use writing as a communication tool in a variety of ways, regardless of their field of study. Storytelling emphasizes the essentially narrative aspect of writing and reading. As a result, it highlights various layers of meaning in a text, and among others ‘subjectivity’. In this post, we will look at examples of informal assignments that encourage students’ engagement and self-reflection through their own narratives and some storytelling writing activities.

Analyzing material using exploratory writing lenses
WAC pedagogy not only promotes writing as a pedagogical practice, but it also underlines its importance in everyday life. As communicative beings, we all write, whether through texts or emails, to express ourselves first and foremost. Making writing directly related to daily issues in its most spontaneous form in class can enhance individual commitment to a course. To that aim, here is an exhibit that can help students engage by articulating their perspectives on a reading in a creative way, as well as an exhibit designed to stimulate students’ interest.

Exhibit 1: A freewrite or exploratory writing activity to identify an argument addressing an issue.
Consider these steps:
Start organizing the reading’s major point by idea mapping on a draft.
What are the key reasons and evidence presented to support that position? As you develop arguments and evidence, you are likely to discover gaps. Where could this argument be strengthened with more evidence such as statistics, examples, and expert testimony? Where and how will you do research to fill these gaps?
2. How can you respond to these objections and counterarguments? Take them one by one and brainstorm possible responses.
3. Also explore again why this issue is important. What are its broader implications and consequences? Why does it matter?
4. Work with a peer to free write a dialogue demonstrating arguments and counter-arguments. Consider the following setting:
Where: a specific context where a debate could possibly take place ;
Who: individuals or experts in the subject who address the reading ;
When: when this conversation occurs ;
In that order, write down each other’s parts: a) background; b) character assertions and examples; c) counter arguments and examples; d) broader implications.
5. Finally, when role-playing with a peer, recount that dialogue, starting with the claim’s eventual threat to the writer’s beliefs and ending with the audience’s potential counterarguments.

Exhibit 2: A freewrite based on a title or a single element that engages students’ imagination.
This type of writing might take several forms, such as the title of a novel or an essay, an initial image, or a piece of artwork. As a warm-up exercise designed to encourage students’ intellectual exploration, ask them to:
1. Generate a list of ideas and imagine a brief prompt with just a single opening element (title, image, artefact, etc.). What do you suppose the topic will be? Can you guess the backstory of that element?
2. Write down the plot that most inspires you in a paragraph (or the story related to an object in the case of an artefact).
3. Present that story to the class and find out how many of you had similar ideas.

The benefit is that both exhibits 1 and 2 can be used as in-class exercises at any point during the semester. They also follow a minimal marking pedagogy and don’t require any particular grading, which might be helpful in reducing a teacher’s workload. That being said, it is worth mentioning that any written activities that engage a sense of intellectual engagement and critical thinking regarding class material can be considered constructive scaffolding tasks that facilitate students’ journey toward a final formal assignment.
Exhibit 1 can serve as a brainstorming tool for a formal assignment on « Processes » rubric (refer to Bean’s book, exhibit 5.3) for the final assignment criteria. Revising and informal writing overall could be included in this rubric. Exhibit 2 can be incorporated into any introductory session of a class or used as a first step of a bigger project. It may, for example, be transformed into a teaser in the style of a movie trailer. For more multimodal scaffolding activity ideas, check out Derek Bruff’s book Intentional Tech.
Whether part of a final project as a scaffolded assignment or an in-class stimulating exercise, storytelling writing tasks contribute to creative learning. While the exhibit 1 assignment fosters critical thinking on disciplinary-specific issues and encourages collaborative projects that promote a sense of community among students, the exhibit 2 assignment aims to engage students through their own imagination and subjectivity, thus expanding their sense of implication. Taking into account their own stories would be an additional step in committing to what they learn. In other words, a self-reflective way to introduce storytelling into class is to make it personal.

Recentering student engagement through life stories
Writing assignments that disclose personal experiences not only acknowledge students as individuals, but also enhance their sense of belonging in the classroom. Why are they here? What brought them to that college, discipline-specific field, or course? Giving students the opportunity to reflect on their own life stories through an informal storytelling assignment can lend meaning to what they do.The Meaningful Writing Project investigated what constitutes a meaningful writing assignment based on college students’ and teachers’ reflections. According to surveys and interviews, three strong patterns appeared in the writing activities that students believed most meaningful:
« The assignment gave students agency to pursue a topic that they were passionate about or that they found especially relevant.
The assignment required students to engage with the instructor, peers, and the disciplinary content of the course.
The assignment made a connection for students: connecting to previous experiences, connecting to a student’s passion, connecting to future aspirations and identities. »
To that end, exhibit 3 is a module meant for students to reflect on their own life narratives. This assignment is intended to provide a space for self-reflective practice that fosters students’ sense of connection to their own experiences, identities, and sense of self, in relation to the course’s disciplinary content.

Exhibit 3: A personal metacognitive free writing.
Guide students on journaling a part of their life story by asking them to identify at least two of these points in a two-page reflective free writing essay. The latter can be part of a diary or a scaffolded assignment included as an annexe to the final project:
1. What motivated you to embark on your professional path? Under what life circumstances did it occur? What drew you to this particular subject?
2. How does what you learn at university relate to past experiences, a passion, or future goals?
3. Why do you want to research that final paper topic or project? Whether a problem/issue/social conflict prompted you to look into a question?
4. Feel free to share any personal anecdotes that brought significant meaning to that class or exemplified something you have learned about.

Overall, storytelling as a pedagogical tool allows students to engage in writing assignments and reflect on their personal narratives. As a result, they are more likely to understand how knowledge can be an empowering tool. In WAC Pedagogy, students are encouraged to be lifelong learners and critical information consumers by actively interacting with consistently critical content, as well as reflecting on their own subjective biases. Educators like Bell Hooks reminds us “the personal is political », whereas Gianni Rodari advocates storytelling as a teaching method “for all those who know the liberating value of the word.” Whether it is a historical event, an idea, a people’s struggle, or an aspiration, there is always a story waiting to be told…

References:
John C. Bean, Dan Melzer, Engaging Ideas : The Professor’s guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom, third edition, Jossey-bass, 2021, p.113 ; p.65.
Derek Bruff, Intentional Tech : Principles to Guide the Use of Educational Technology in College Teaching. First edition., West Virginia University Press, 2019.
Eodice, Michele, et al. The Meaningful Writing Project. Utah State University Press, 2016.
Bell Hooks. “Sharing the Story.” Teaching Critical Thinking, 1st ed., Routledge, 2010, pp. 55–58.
Gianni Rodari and Jack Zipes. The Grammar of Fantasy : An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories. Teachers & Writers Collaborative, 1996.

May 20, 2024October 25, 2024

Re-thinking Writing

Reflecting on my over 19 years of teaching, I realized that over time I have relaxed my expectations on student writing assignments. The WAC sessions have actually helped re-enforce that. I now know and actually apply the separation of professional writing from informal thought and opinion blurbs. Weekly opinion pieces in 3 -4 sentences about current events and industry trends encourage critical thinking and allow for students to engage and discuss with each other in a safe space. It adds significance and relevance to my lectures, for sure.

Of course, I still require proper business writing for the bigger research assignments as it is an expectation in their future careers. It is, however, made easier with practice accorded by their weekly blurbs. I find that my students are more comfortable putting words on paper (or electronically, as is more the rule these days) with the regular exercises in class which, again, the WAC meetings supported.

My focus has shifted from correcting grammar, spelling and punctuation to nurturing the thought processes more important for students to develop. We are, after all, educating the next generation of leaders.

May 19, 2024October 25, 2024

Making COMD 1127: Type and Media Writing-Intensive

Reflection

Lyubava Kroll

Integrating Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) principles into COMD 1127: Type & Media has been a transformative experience, emphasizing the deep connections between writing and typography.

Type & Media presented a unique opportunity to teach students, for whom this is their first exposure to typography, that the study of letterforms goes hand-in-hand with writing and communication. Typography is not simply about arranging letters on a page, it’s about conveying meaning, tone, and information effectively. Writing, similarly, is about clear communication. Together, these skills are essential for effective design.

The Role of Writing in Design Education

Designers frequently interact with clients and collaborators who do not have a design background. Writing helps designers articulate their ideas clearly and persuasively. Designers must be able to explain their design choices and elaborate on complex visual concepts. When teaching Type & Media, I strive to ensure that freshmen students not only master the technical aspects of typography but also develop their ability to express ideas effectively through writing.

Writing-intensive courses enable students to research, organize, and synthesize information, which is highly integral to the design process. These courses also enhance critical thinking and creativity. Through various writing assignments, students gain experience in finding, evaluating, organizing, and communicating information, essential skills in both design and in broader professional contexts.

Course Modifications and Scaffolded Assignments

For the WAC Faculty Writing-Intensive Certification, I revised the syllabus of COMD 1127: Type & Media to include more scaffolded assignments. This approach ensures that students gradually build their skills and confidence and are well-prepared to advance to further design classes. The assignments are designed to lead into formal projects, altogether providing a foundation of knowledge and practice.

Informal Writing Exercises:

Design Critiques and Personal Reflections: Students engage in informal writing exercises where they react, critique, and analyze typefaces used in various media and reflect on their effectiveness. This helps students articulate their design choices and preferences, enhancing their critical thinking skills.

Process Work & Documentation: Students document their design process for each project, including workflow, challenges, and solutions. This reflective practice is essential for continuous learning and improvement. By the end of the semester, students compile a formal portfolio that includes process work and final projects, supported by a strong written narrative.

Formal Writing Assignments:

Research Essay: Students write a research paper on influential typographers and their work, analyzing the historical and contemporary impact of those design typefaces. These assignments deepen students’ understanding of typography and help them present their findings coherently.

Essay and Presentation: Analytical essay and presentation on important typographic principles and famous designers help students articulate their insights and analyses effectively.

Writing Integration

Incorporating writing-intensive elements into the Type & Media course leads to several key outcomes:

Articulation of Design Concepts: Students learn to articulate their design concepts and decisions using appropriate terminology. This skill is crucial for professional communication with clients, fellow designers, and other stakeholders.

Critical Analysis and Reflection: Writing assignments foster critical analysis of type designs and media applications. Reflective writing helps students evaluate their work and others’, deepening their understanding of typographic principles.

Professional Documentation: Producing detailed reports and documentation prepares students for real-world scenarios where clear communication of design processes and outcomes is essential.

Engagement in Reflective Practice: Design critiques and reflections encourage continuous learning and self-assessment. Students develop a habit of critically analyzing their own work, which is vital for professional growth.

Feedback

The WAC Writing-Intensive process was immensely beneficial. Working with the WAC Fellow provided practical suggestions for improving writing assignments, especially for design students. The real-time workshops were a great way to connect with fellows as well as other participants.

Conclusion

Integrating WAC principles into COMD 1127: Type & Media has highlighted the intrinsic connection between typography and writing. By emphasizing writing-intensive components, students develop critical thinking, reflective practices, and effective communication skills. These competencies are essential for their success as professional communication designers. The experience has underscored the importance of writing in design education, preparing students for diverse professional opportunities where clear and effective communication is crucial.

With the development of AI, the design field is changing rapidly and, consequently, writing skills are especially important and applicable to adapting with the evolving profession. Writing should not be viewed as merely an additional skill for designers but rather as a fundamental component of the design process, one that enhances designers’ ability to communicate and succeed in their careers. This course revision has reinforced that understanding, benefiting both students and the broader field of design education.

Syllabus: 2024 Fall COMD 1127 – course outline

Informal and formal writing assignments: Informal and Formal Writing Assignments

Grading criteria: Grading Criteria for Type Hero

May 5, 2024October 25, 2024

Reflection, WAC Training, Spring 2024

Reflection

THE 2380 Storytelling and Script Analysis will be WI as the requirement for a minimum of 15 pages of writing in various forms is now being met. The requirement is distributed over several different kinds of assignments: in-class low stakes assignments, a creative “additional scene” assignment (that also demonstrates students’ understanding of genre, adaptation, character, motivation, scenic and play structure), and a scaffolded Final Paper and Presentation. This course uses many WI concepts (writing to learn, scaffolding, writing as a means to generate class discussion, peer-critique, and self-grading) as a means to develop General Education SLOs in Knowledge, Skills, and Values. At present, a non-WI section of this course has a total of 9-10 pages of writing, not the full 15. For the non-WI section, the final paper is 5 pages instead of 10.

I love the idea of scaffolding assignments. I start out with prompts in the in-class, low-stakes writing that will show up again in high-stakes assignments. For example, I give an in-class, low-stakes assignment to generate an idea for a new “Production Concept” for a play we have studied in class. This gets students over the fear-factor of feeling that they cannot engage with the idea of a “Production Concept” and to see that they can, very successfully, do this given an hour or so of in-class time. Students can be amazingly creative if given a defined structure! Later in the semester when they have to give a “Production Concept” on a new play (each student will choose one play from a list), and present it to the class, they have a good success to draw from and a basis with which to engage the assignment.

I really appreciated the module on grading student writing. I loved the simplicity and clarity of the rubrics shown, and I returned to Bean for even more inspiration. I look forward to showing the rubric to my students tomorrow as they are all beginning to write (5 page) papers for the non-WI section of this course. I know they will appreciate the clear guidance of what to focus on as they develop their work.

I appreciated the succinct 3-session WI accreditation and have learned an enormous amount from the sessions and also from working with my excellent fellow, Dohyun Shin!

–Dr. Sarah Ann Standing

March 28, 2023October 25, 2024

Sharing resources from FIT

My wife works for FIT and they have much the same writing challenges that we do. They’ve developed some tools to deal with this. I thought it would be helpful to share these. They are mostly aimed at writing research papers but some of the tools, such as how to write a paraphrase, or explaining levels of proof seem more widely applicable.

They seem good because they’re aimed at students with the same middle-school level of writing ability that many of our students have. Here’s the link:

https://sites.google.com/fitnyc.edu/wss-student-resources

I especially liked the “Resources for Research” menu items, notably the videos on quoting/paraphrasing/summarizing. The citing sources video is good too.

December 13, 2021

Teaching Writing: Nobody Knows the Rules, Just Write

An earlier post, “Perceiving Writing as a Process, Not a Product”, began with a potentially apocryphal quote by a well-known author. In that spirit, I would like to start and end this post with two potentially apocryphal quotes by well-known authors. The quotes may be fabricated, but I think that the insights are real.

Somerset Maugham, the author of one of my favorite novels, was quoted as having told the students of a class on English literature “there are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

I’ve never tried to write a novel, so I can’t say with certainty whether Maugham (if he ever said such a thing) is right. But I’ve tried to write plenty of papers, and on that subject I’m certain: if there are three rules for writing a paper, no one knows what they are.

This has turned out to be a bit of a problem for me, because part of what I’m trying to do as an instructor is to teach writing. Sometimes it’s pretty clear that students want me to tell them the rules for paper-writing that they need to follow in order to be successful. They want the writing equivalent of a mathematical formula: take your idea, apply these rules, and BAM! Good writing.

I completely understand that desire. Heck, I want those rules too. But unfortunately, as Maugham allegedly observed, no one knows the rules for writing. I certainly don’t know of any rules that are necessary for good writing. For any writing rule I’ve ever been told (“don’t end a sentence with a preposition”; “avoid run on sentences”; “avoid repetitive phrasings”, etc.) I can find several examples of great writing that break that rule. I also don’t know of any rules that are sufficient for good writing. A paper might follow all the “best practice” rules and guidelines in the world, and still be unclear and confusing to read.

So what then, as an instructor, can I do to help my students who want me to teach them rules for writing that I just don’t have?

The answer, or at least the answer I’ve come to accept, is to get them to write. This doesn’t mean getting them to write more or longer term papers, but getting them to write constantly and in different contexts: write out their ideas, write down questions they have about readings, write notes and questions about what they’ve already written, write responses to what their classmates have written, etc. I can help my students learn the writing skills they need by teaching them to think of writing as a tool, and then teaching them to use that tool as often as they can.

I can’t speak for everyone. But when I write papers, I find that for every page of the finished paper, there are about 3 legal pads full of handwritten notes, questions, false starts, and half-baked ideas that eventually (after a long recursive process) end up fully baked. The finished paper full of polished writing owes everything it has to the pile of informal writing that came before it. And each polished paper owes an awful lot to all of the writing that came before it, both formal and informal. Having more writing experience has never made anyone a worse writer.

I don’t think I’m alone is using a process like this. But I didn’t learn to use this sort of process until graduate school. College students often don’t think of writing in this way, and one of the best ways we can help them learn writing skills is by getting them to start using writing as a tool in both formal and informal contexts.

WAC pedagogy has a ton of useful methods for doing this. Freewriting, exploratory writing, scaffolding, problem-oriented assignment design, etc. Bean’s “Engaging Ideas” is full of them, and the other posts on this site are chock-full of discussions of different methods and ideas on this subject. I have personally found them very helpful, and I doubt I’m the only one. I think it’s a good place to start for anyone looking for ideas on how to engage students in this sort of recursive writing process.

So even if we can’t give students Maugham’s three rules for writing, we can help them by giving them writing experience, and specifically giving them experience using informal writing as a tool to develop ideas and to develop formal papers.

And maybe, just maybe, it turns out that we do know the three rules for writing after all. In what is almost certainly a fabricated quote, Mark Twain supposedly said: “there are but three rules for writing. Namely, first, write; second, write; third, write.”

I suspect that the best thing we can do to help our students with their writing is to teach them to stop looking for Maugham’s three rules, and to start following Twain’s.

November 8, 2016

Why We Grade

At a recent WAC meeting, we watched this video of students relating their feelings about receiving graded papers back from instructors. The general theme among the students was that getting comments (often somewhat inscrutable negative ones like “Bad” or “No”) scribbled in red ink all over their papers feels demoralizing.

This prompted a vigorous debate within our WAC team: Do students just want to be coddled? Or should we heed these pleas for kinder and more constructive feedback?

As instructors, we want our students to improve the quality of the work they turn in to us. How can they learn to improve if we don’t show them where they are failing? This drives the spilling of much red ink. But as our discussion unfolded, we realized that the underlying debate about how much marking and “correcting” is appropriate had to do with differences in the kind of work that students are turning in. Before we even begin to grade, we need to ask ourselves why we are grading. Yes, to help students improve. But to improve at what?

If you teach math, some of what you’re grading might be proofs; getting the details of a proof right might be the very thing you want students to learn, so marking up all the details that are incorrect might be the appropriate way to grade that sort of assignment. The same goes for subjects like introductory foreign language instruction, in which the learning objectives are about grammar and proper word usage.

If the overarching goal of the assignment isn’t about the details, however, a different kind of grading might be more appropriate. I teach political science. I would like for my students to be able to write using polished prose. I used to take that goal to mean that I should mark up all of their grammatical and stylistic errors in order to help them identify and avoid them in the future. But I’m not actually teaching them grammar or style in my class; of greater concern to me – and what I spend most of my course trying to work on with them – is that they learn to engage deeply and thoughtfully with readings and concepts, and to formulate informed arguments about them. So now that’s what I mostly grade for – deep, thoughtful engagement and informed arguments. And my feedback tends to come not in the form of marks all over the page, but an acknowledgment at the end of what they did well and two to three concrete suggestions for improvement.

That doesn’t mean I ignore mechanical errors altogether. But filling a paper with red marks does have a tendency to overwhelm rather than to inspire, so I try to pick out just one or two recurring issues the student seems to have (semi-colon usage, for example) and demonstrate and/or explain how to fix them.

Of course, this “minimal marking” approach is not just a way to help students get more out of my grading – it’s a way to help me be a more efficient (and less frustrated) grader. For more discussion about grading strategies, come to the next WAC workshop for faculty and staff on Tuesday, November 15 at 1pm in Midway 205 – or if you can’t make it, check back in afterwards to our Open Lab page for the Powerpoint slides and handouts, which will be posted under “Workshops.”

September 19, 2016October 24, 2016

Writing to Learn: From WAC Principle to Life Practice

As anyone who has spent much time around the Writing Across the Curriculum program is well aware, those working in WAC have a near religious devotion to the inclusion of low-stakes informal writing assignments in every curriculum. These exploratory writing exercises which we call “writing to learn” include activities such as journaling, free-writing, and reflective in-class writing. Following WAC philosophy, “Writing to Learn” helps develop the students’ critical thinking skills and fosters a deeper engagement in thought surrounding the course content.[1] While writing to learn has proven to be a very successful tool in the classroom, its benefits carry over into non-academic settings.

I recently took a graduate level course taught by a former WAC fellow. One of the requirements for the course was to join the website 750words.com and develop a daily writing habit by writing at least 750 words five days out of the week. There were no guidelines beyond the simple stipulation- 750 words, 5 days a week. We were required to generate a monthly report through the site which stated the days on which we wrote and the word count for each day. The words themselves remained private.

I admit, I was resistant to the idea at first. What could I possible have to say that would take up 750 words everyday; however, it didn’t matter what I was writing—it only mattered that I wrote. So I began. On some days I was inspired by the course reading for one of the classes that I was taking and I used my time and 750 words developing my thoughts on the readings. Some days I developed research problems; or thought through other course material that I was struggling with. But some days I was stuck. There were days that I didn’t want to write, days that I could barely get out of bed. But I forced myself to sit down in front of the computer. On these days I wrote about not wanting to write. I wrote about the barrage of personal problems that blocked me from wanting to get work done. Often I would pose a question to myself and write until I was able to answer my question.

Over the course of the semester, I found that the days I began with my freewriting were vastly more productive than those which didn’t begin with writing. The morning writing helped me jump-start my brain in the morning, work through problems that I was having, and organize my day. It allowed me to get all the mental junk out of the way so that I could focus on the day’s tasks with more focus and clarity. By the end of the semester I had been converted and to this day continue to use writing as a way to start my productive days and to work through problems.

As we encourage students to utilize various writing techniques and tools in our classrooms, it can be helpful to point out that these exercises are not merely classroom tricks or ways to take up their time. Writing is an integral part of thinking and organizing. We should help our students see that a writing practice can extend beyond the educational setting and help them live fuller and more

[1] For more information on the philosophy behind “writing to learn”, as well as example activities, see John Bean’s Engaging Ideas chapters 2 and 7.

September 6, 2016

Back to school, back to plagiarism?

As another semester gets under way, many City Tech students will find themselves under a tremendous amount of pressure – with family, work, and school obligations, finding time to write a successful paper might seem impossible to some. And that’s what the folks handing out these on campus are hoping to take advantage of:

As a professor who spends time designing and grading assignments with the goal of helping your students learn the course content, this kind of service probably makes you feel angry, frustrated, or depressed – if not all three at the same time. Even plagiarism detection programs can’t help you with paper writing services like this. You can try to get to know a student’s writing “voice,” but it’s still hard to deal with those who take advantage of these services.

But there are things you can do to make it much less likely that your students will turn to services like this. Remember that for many students, the pressure to succeed is very intense. English may not be their first language. They may not have been well prepared by their previous education to write college-level papers. They may not really want to cheat in this way, but they might not feel capable of writing a big term paper or project that has a lot riding on it. You can help address these issues by breaking down big, daunting assignments into smaller pieces – what we at WAC call “scaffolding” – that build toward the final paper or project. In this way, you make it harder for them to take advantage of paper-writing services, but more importantly, you make it feel less tempting to them.

Let’s say you’ve assigned a final paper or writing-based project that accounts for a large portion of your students’ grade. You can scaffold that assignment by designing shorter assignments throughout the semester that tackle and help demystify pieces of that final project. This could include assignments on brainstorming and writing a strong thesis statement, building a literature review, or compiling and evaluating data or evidence. Students are much less likely to plagiarize on these smaller assignments – particularly if you do some of them in class – and by the time the final project comes around, they’ll discover it’s more than half written already and doesn’t need the help of a service like the one offered above. They’ve also built the knowledge and confidence that will hopefully help them tackle bigger projects with confidence in future classes.

If you’d like more ideas on how to do this, come to some WAC workshops this semester! Next Tuesday (9/13) we’ll be presenting an overview on Designing Effective Assignments that will touch on these issues; then on October 18 we’ll be doing an entire workshop on preventing plagiarism. We’ll round out the semester with a workshop on Effective Grading and Minimal Marking (11/15) and the Creative Classroom (12/6). And if you can’t wait for a workshop, you can check out the PowerPoints and handouts from previous workshops last year that we’ve posted online: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/writingacrossthecurriculum/workshops/

(Our complete Fall workshop schedule with times and locations will be posted on that page as well.)

Best of luck this semester, and we hope to see you at a workshop!

Category: WAC in Practice