SUMMER READINGS ON WRITING MATTERS
Every summer, faculty are invited to participate in summer reading groups. Each group reads 23 short articles on a specific issue related to writing pedagogy and then meets to discuss the
articles in August. The summer 2015 groups are as follows:
Group 1: How to Grade Papers
How much should you comment on student papers? Can you comment too much? Too little?
What grading techniques do students find most useful? How much attention should you pay to
grammar and other sentence-level errors? How can you use your time most efficiently when
grading? Find the answers to these and other questions through this summer reading group.
Readings:
Elbow, Peter. “About Responding to Student Writing.” Marist College Writing Center,
http://www.marist.edu. 2 pp.
Gottschalk, Katherine, and Keith Hjortshoj. The Elements of Teaching Writing. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. Pp. 47-61.
Williams, Joseph M. “The Phenomenology of Error.” College Composition and Communication
32.2 (May 1981): 152-68.
Group Meeting:
10:00 a.m., August 14, Sweet Treats (tentative)
Group 2: Reflective Writing and Medical Practice
What is reflective writing? How can it be used to help students learn medical concepts? How
can it be used to improve the accuracy of medical diagnoses? Find out the answers to these and
other questions by participating in this reading group.
Readings:
Craft, Mellisa. “Reflective Writing and Nursing Education.” Journal of Nursing Education 44.2
(Feb. 2005): 53-57.
Mamede, Sylvia, et al. “Reflection as a Strategy to Foster Medical Students’ Acquisition of
Diagnostic Competence.” Medical Education 46 (2012): 464-72.
Wald, Hedy S., and Reis, Shmuel P. “Beyond the Margins: Reflective Writing and Development
of Reflective Capacity in Medical Education.” Journal of General Internal Medicine 25.7:
746-49.
Group Meeting:
12:00-1:30, August 14, Mi Casita (tentative)
Group 3: Writing in the Sciences
Should science instructors focus on general writing issues or on discipline-specific issues when
they assign and grade papers? Is the lab report a good writing assignment? What other kinds of
assignments work well in science courses? What kinds of rubrics, if any, should science
instructors use? Get ideas about these and other topics by joining this writing group.
Readings:
Alaimo, Peter J., et al. “Eliminating Lab Reports: A Rhetorical Approach for Teaching the
Scientific Paper in Sophomore Organic Chemistry.” WAC Journal 20 (Nov. 2009): 17-32.
Szymanski, Erika Amethyst. “Instructor Feedback in Upper-Division Biology Courses: Moving
from Spelling and Syntax to Scientific Discourse.” Across the Disciplines 11.2. 25 page
(large type).
Group Meeting:
4:00-5:30, August 14, Scrub Oaks (tentative)