University Writing CenterStudents often have a hard time navigating the writing expectations implicit in the writing assignments of a given course. Instructors rarely make explicit the writing genres of a particular course and discipline. As David Bartholome argues in his essay “Inventing the University,” students who are unfamiliar with the discipline and the genre of the writing task are forced to invent the genre and imagine the audience it serves. Over time, they learn to mimic the genre expectations of a particular discipline, including writing voice, the ways in which research is used and referenced, and various other stylistic norms. Students often learn these norms over time by taking courses in the discipline and in effect learning through trial and error.
But in the interdisciplinary departments and programs that I teach in—including Liberal Studies, Interdisciplinary General Education, and Women and Ethnic Studies (all in the College of Education and Integrative Studies)—this method of learning by trial and error is much more problematic, because faculty in these departments have a hard time pinning down what interdisciplinary studies is, let alone defining the writing styles implicit within it. Ultimately, each instructor has a different approach to the kinds of disciplinary syntheses that occur in their courses, depending on what discipline the instructor was trained in as well as when and where they went to graduate school. Often this synthesis is also in flux, depending on current influences, including the topic of the instructor’s current research.
Adding to this confusion, students in these departments are required to take courses in a wide range of disciplines. In IGE, students are expected to take the core course sequence within the program along with courses in their major. As a result, students can experience widely varying expectations in the writing assignments they encounter. And in general, what is true for students in interdisciplinary programs is also true for undergraduates, who are required to take courses in many different areas in order to fulfill the general education requirement. Students often express confusion and frustration about the writing assignments and questions about what is expected. Instructors need to be conscious of this and work to make their writing expectations as explicit as possible.
Given the variety of approaches in interdisciplinary studies, it is important for instructors to engage in a meta-narrative about interdisciplinary scholarship, the kinds of writing styles that are embedded in different approaches, and some of the writing outcomes they want from the program.
This conversation can take place among faculty in a particular department or program as well as with students. Simply having this conversation does not imply the necessity of forging a consensus. Nonetheless, some conversation about writing expectations is important, and a loose consensus may emerge.
I have had two opportunities to be involved in such discussions. One was in the IGE program, and what resulted from the discussion was an awareness of some of the ways that we needed to supplement our approach. In thinking about our requirements, we decided that we often have students do a variety of different kinds of writing, including reflective journal writings as well as more formal analytic essays. We ask students to do interpretive writing using primary source materials that we have provided for them, and often expect students to synthesize materials, linking an idea found in one text with another text. We realized that we often overlook the fact that students are often doing writing for the required oral presentations in PowerPoint, and that we need to be much more aware of the writing issues and interventions involved in this process. We also discussed the fact that when we require outside research our students often resort to the Internet, but lack the skills necessary to determine whether the information on the site is legitimate. We also agreed that many students lack knowledge of basic use of citation format and other issues related to plagiarism.
The other department-level conversation took place in Liberal Studies. We discovered that instructors teaching one of our core course sequences that focused explicitly on a writing product had widely varying expectations. Some instructors insisted on using the first person pronoun and having students write a more descriptive or narrative account, while other instructors were telling students to take the personal pronoun out of their writing and write a thesis-driven analytic essay. The department decided that it needed to come together to see if it could forge a common set of expectations.
We did this, and had a substantive discussion about writing outcomes, discussing the relative merits of our different approaches. I had been pretty much against the idea of using the first person, because in general I find it superfluous. However, I was persuaded by my colleagues that for our particular students the use of the personal pronoun can help them come to terms with the material by integrating it into their own thought process.
We also discussed the importance of thematic writing in terms of its ability to impose a kind of organizational rubric or discipline on the essay. We agreed that these two approaches were not necessarily antithetical, that it is possible to integrate use of the personal pronoun with a more structured analytic essay. In general we had a productive discussion and came to some sort of rough consensus, which is all that was needed anyway.
Instructors also need to have this conversation about writing styles and expectations with their students. One way is to select readings that model the approach that you want students to use in their writing, and to have an explicit discussion about the reading in terms of the author’s style and approach. The second way is to actually model successful student papers by using transparencies to project them on a screen. I have always found this to help students. The third way is to articulate your expectations as explicitly as possible in the assignment.
For example, in my writing assignments I want students to make use of the course readings, and to weave the readings together into some sort of synthesis, using an analytic rubric of their own design. I explicitly ask for a thesis-driven paper that integrates a number of course readings. I try to be a specific as possible, suggesting, for example, that student use three different sources, and I urge them to paraphrase instead of quoting, so that there is a more seamless narrative quality to their essays. I also let them know that it is acceptable to use the personal pronoun in their writing, because this can help them integrate their own interpretations with the readings.
Many of the readings that I assign model this by weaving the personal voice within an analytic framework. There are pieces that I leave out; for example, I don’t emphasize citation format or talk a lot about sentence structure because I try to focus more on coherence and organization, which I find students have much more difficulty with.
In sum, there are a number of interventions that faculty can make to alleviate the confusion and distress students have about writing. Instructors need to be much more conscious of their expectations, and more explicit in stating them.
