UCC – Writing Survey of Faculty
In November of 2014, over 200 Brandeis faculty completed an Undergraduate
Curriculum Committee online questionnare about undergraduate writing skills and related matters. Respondents included 69 faculty from the Social Sciences, 65 from the
Humanities, 50 from the Sciences and 17 from the Creative Arts. When asked how many years they had taught at Brandeis, respondents were evenly divided amongst those that had taught less than five years, 5-10 years, 11-20 years, and more than 20 years. 88% of respondents replied that they assign writing in their courses. The following report reorders the questions and includes representative comments. Faculty also noted that there is a wide variation in the writing skills of current undergraduates, particularly in their demonstrated knowledge of grammar and organization.
2
3
#
1
4
Answer
Excellent
Good
Acceptable
Not
Acceptable
Response
7
92
75
19
%
4%
48%
39%
10%
Total 193 100%
#
1
2
3
Answer
Undergraduate writing skills are better now
Undergraduate writing skills are worse now
Undergraduate writing skills are about the same
Total
Response
13
31
48
92
%
14%
34%
52%
100%

#
1
2
3
4
5
Answer
The amount of writing (total number of pages) I assign has not changed over time.
I now assign a higher total number of pages than I did previously.
I now assign a fewer total number of pages than I did previously.
I assign the same kind of writing assignments now as I have in the past.
My writing assignments have changed over time in the following way
Response
33
8
25
23
32
%
38%
9%
29%
27%
37%
Faculty who discussed how their writing assignments had changed over time reported that they now assign more short assignments, or more reflection, response and reaction papers, or in-class writing, or in-depth journaling. Some place more emphasis on revision, or give more detailed directions or instruction on writing basics. Others ask students to write for and respond to classmates via LATTE, or require students to submit assignments electronically.

2
3
#
1
4
5
Answer
0
1-5 pages
6-10 pages
11-20 pages
21 or more pages
Response
1
27
25
71
41
Total 165
%
1%
16%
15%
43%
25%
100%
#
1
2
3
4
5
6
Answer
Papers
Blog posts
Latte posts / forums
Lab reports
Problem sets with essays
In class writing
Response
154
11
53
12
20
42
%
91%
7%
31%
7%
12%
25%
7
8
Creative
Writing
*Other
23
28
14%
17%
*Under “Other”, faculty also mentioned one page papers or short essays/analyses, weekly literature reviews, simulation-based or work-related memos, journals, and other essays.
#
1
2
3
4
Answer
Research papers
Reflection papers
Essays
*Other
Response
119
82
85
32
%
74%
51%
53%
20%

* “Other” papers assigned included observation studies, critical analyses, summaries of articles or internet information, research proposals, descriptions and analyses or works of art, policy memos, and in-class short papers.
#
1
2
3
4
Answer
Opportunities for students to revise their papers
Required revision of papers
Peer Review
Feedback on sections of a longer assignment
Classroom
Response
102
54
51
70
%
60%
32%
30%
41%
5
6 instruction on specific aspects of good writing
Comments on graded papers
*Other
102
151
60%
89%
7 30 18%
8
I do not employ any of the above
3 2%
*Faculty also mentioned the following “Other” pedagogies used in teaching writing: mandatory conferences, giving grades on papers for both content and for grammar/structure of writing, distributing rubrics, assessing quality of writing on all graded papers or problem set essays, sharing sample/model excellent student research papers on LATTE, extra writing assignments available for all who want or need them to improve their grades, feedback or review outlines or essay proposals, or reflection papers about substantive papers.

In this section, faculty provided suggestions for both students and for faculty and the institution.
The following are representative comments.
Take one more writing course during their first 2 or 3 semesters at Brandeis. This is especially true for students who are still struggling to learn English.
Take courses with required revision of papers -- and teachers who are eager to help students with their writing. Rewrite as much as you can.
Keep practicing, make use of resources such as the writing center.
When students have difficulties, I encourage them to attend the writing center. Students should not be afraid of meeting with their professors to brainstorm on a papers.
Write, write, write.
Read the paper out loud to yourself after writing your first draft. Organize your paper sequentially by drafting an outline using text boxes for each segment listing the sources and citations you will use in each segment of the paper. Avoid repetition and move the narration forward segment to segment.
Students need to get comfortable sharing their ideas with peers and incorporating feedback.
Find your own voice and engage in material in a way that takes the ideas to a new level.
Faculty should make clear their standards for excellent writing and enforce them.
Perhaps gather faculty in small groups (or departments) to look at student writing at different levels and discuss strengths, weaknesses and interventions to improve the writing. Encourage faculty to provide models of strong writing. Keep trying to get people to assign shorter assignments and give rubrics, models and feedback.
Brandeis faculty need to agree generally about what constitutes good or at least acceptable writing, and we need to develop rubrics that can be used by all classes in the University.
Brandeis faculty need to model good writing in everything they distribute to students. If students are to understand that good writing is essential to their success in their chosen area of study and in their eventual professional life, all faculty must be held responsible for teaching good writing, not just faculty in the Humanities or Social Sciences. Good, effective writing must be addressed in every course taught at Brandeis so that students understand that good writing is important and that elements of effective writing are universal and not defined according to subject.
Science students need more opportunities to practice writing. Guidelines need to be clear and consistent from course to course.

1) Add capacity for coaching scientific writing at the writing center. Scientific writing is actually in important ways different from other sorts of writing that students do for other courses. 2)
Encourage courses in scientific writing.
We need more resources to assist non-native English speakers (especially the increased number of students from mainland China) in writing research and other analytical papers in clear English.
I think students should have more opportunities to write. All classes should include some form of writing. Writing is a skill that gets better with practice and feedback.
Required revisions and regular feedback is by far the best way to get students to develop their writing skills.
I provide detailed instructions about criteria for research papers (Introduction, methods, literature review, historical overview, findings, analysis, and conclusions).
Emphasize writing across the curriculum. Too many students tell me their professors grade them only on content – if they seem to have mastered the content being tested, they are rewarded for that and they get a pass on the fact that their essays are incoherent.
Teach them how to write clear declarative sentences and how to make a sustained argument.
Improve UWS: hire full-time instructors and put it on a professional basis.
Read "teaching writing from the reader's perspective" by George Gopen.
Writing labs with group/peer corrections.
The following are representative comments:
On the institutional level:
Perhaps workshops could be organized where writing instructors could share some of their ideas and techniques.
The new Center for Teaching and Learning seems to be the ideal place for professors to go to improve their skills in teaching writing. Writing workshops could be offered for individual professors or for departments facing particular issues. The CTL and the ELC could help professors incorporate writing instruction (as well as student reflections about writing) into course syllabi, and they could help us find ways during and at the end of each semester to encourage students to reflect on the areas in which they have improved as writers and the areas in which they still need work.

A set of dedicated workshops to teach writing skills in the classroom. Rather than providing feedback on student work after the fact, I would prefer to spend at least a class session teaching writing, although I do not feel adequately equipped to do so.
Support for faculty to launch small reading or discussion groups or to have lunch to talk about teaching.
Departmental or Divisional workshops and/or guidelines and resources.
Very brief bullet point suggestions in an e-mail with links for further info and resources might be helpful and would reach more faculty.
It might also be nice to have a set of writing exercises or instruction that we can teach in our courses. I have recently turned a course into a Writing Intensive course, and I would welcome some assistance as I put together the writing instruction component of the course.
Faculty should be supported in offering smaller classes focused on writing.
TA support for writing intensive classes.
My main suggestion is to expand incentives for faculty to actually teach writing and the research/writing process in the classroom. Assigning a term paper and then giving them comments isn’t teaching them writing. Their writing needs to be reviewed, by peers and/or instructors; they need to revise drafts; the writing process needs to be taught in the classroom.
Are there standards of writing skills that Brandeis expects (and measures) of its graduates after 3 or 4 years here? What are they? How can we better assure our students reach these benchmarks?
Have people analyze student writing together, articulate criteria, talk about ways to improve writing of specific students.
Need to assign more writing in science courses.
Suggest that faculty, when grading, comment on writing skills in addition to the content of the paper directly relevant to the class.
Regarding Faculty Practices:
Assign required revisions; learn to use rubrics to give feedback; learn to give relatively targeted feedback so as not to overwhelm the students. Vary your assignments, so that students learn a wide variety of writing models.

Making oneself aware of what the most frequent and typical errors are is a starting place. Mini lessons in class on those areas will benefit many students at one time. I would also take care to learn about the home languages of the students in the class. If they speak or use another language sometimes language interference influences can creep in, and errors in English can occur.
Fewer assignments allow for more revisions.
I find that several short assignments + revisions are better than one long one.
Provide some specific techniques and a lot of both bad and good examples of writing involving different aspects and discuss them in class.
Provide examples/models of the type of writing that you wish them to do---explain how it is structured, and encourage the use of topic headers, at least in the first draft.
Mandate a trip to the Writing Center on at least one written assignment.
Ask students to write the abstract (about 200 words) of a scientific paper which is handed out without the abstract.