Writing at Doane College: a Workshop
David Smit
Department of English
Kansas State University

Topics of the Sessions:
What Doane students should be able to do as writers
How writing can or should be taught
What writing pedagogies/ curricula might be most appropriate for Doane College

What Doane Students Should
Be Able to Do as Writers

Traditional Goals/ Objectives for Writing Instruction
Abstract skills that can be manifested in many different ways:
Thoughts clearly organized
Assertions clearly supported
Sufficient and appropriate evidence

Diary Entries Memos
News Stories Memoirs
Thank You Notes Business Letters
Movie Reviews Abstracts
Cook Books
Histories
Academic Articles
Lab Reports
Essays
Meeting Minutes

New Rule #1
There is no such thing as “writing.”
There are only pieces of writing using the conventions of a particular genre.

New Rule #2
You get what you teach for.

The Issue of Transfer
Students do not necessarily transfer what they learn in one writing class to other classes or to writing outside of school.

Written Literacy
The ability to write a range of discourse for a variety of “discourse communities”
There is no common set of genres that defines literacy for everyone.

Discourse Types
Expressive: Focused on the writer
Referential/Informative: Focused on
“reality,” the outside world
Persuasive: Focused on the audience
Literary: Focused on the Text

Expressive Writing
Essays
Memoirs
Autobiographies
Reflections
Creeds
Manifestos

Referential Writing
Scientific Writing
Research Reports
Philosophical Analysis
Informative Writing
News Stories
Encyclopedia entries
Exploratory Writing

Persuasive Writing
Editorials
Proposals
Appeals
Petitions
Broadsides/ Tracts
Advertisements

National Assessment of Educational Progress
Percentage of Students Writing at the Level of
Adequate or Better
Personal Informative Persuasive
Narrative Analysis Writing
Grade 8 37.9 40.3/ 15.7 31.3/ 19.3
Grade 12 54.5 44.6/ 27.2 27.3/ 23.6
Arthur Applebee and Others. Learning to Write in Our Nation’s Schools .
Princeton, NJ: NAEP, 1990.

Some Principles for a New Way of Thinking about Writing
We write top down, not bottom up.
Writing is always rhetorical:
It is written in a particular context.
It is written in a recognizable genre.
It is written for a specific audience.

Implications
Students need instruction in those aspects of writing most likely to transfer to writing outside of school:
Adapting genre conventions to context and audience

More Implications
School assignments need to be modeled after writing outside of school.
Students need practice in thinking about how to adapt writing to particular contexts.

The Bottom Line
• Students should not write to the instructor.
• The instructor should be a coach, helping students to write particular genres to a
“third-person” audience.
• Instructors should emphasize how writing changes from context to context.

New Goals and Objectives for
Writing Instruction
What types of discourse or specific genres should students be able to write after four years at Doane College?
Where should they be taught how to write each type of discourse or genre?

Session Two
How Writing Can or Should be Taught at Doane College

Some Considerations
#1:
Requiring writing is not teaching writing.

#2:
Commenting on and grading writing is not teaching writing.

Modes of Teaching Writing
Presentational
Natural Process
Environmental: Teaching to Specific Goals
Individualized: Tutorials, Programmed
Materials

Comparative Effectiveness of Instructional Modes
The Environmental Mode or Structured
Learning is THREE times more effective than the other modes.

The Environmental Mode
Clear objectives
Materials and problems that engage students in specifiable processes important to writing
Activities with peer interaction, focused on those specifiable processes

Application
Choose a genre and rhetorical situation relative to your course.
Give students practice in using the conventions of the genre or in presenting the material to a particular audience.
Workshop drafts.
Comment on a later draft.
Insist on revision if necessary.

Session Three
Planning a Writing Curriculum at Doane College

The Issues
#1
At the completion of their college careers, what should Doane students be able to
DO in writing?

#2:
What would a reasonable person accept as evidence that Doane students can write certain types of discourse or certain genres well?

#3:
How can Doane insure a common standard of writing from one course to another?

The Diederich Experiment
THE SAMPLE: 300 essays written by high school students
THE READERS: 53 people from six different fields
Teachers of English, social science, and natural science
Professional editors, lawyers, and business executives
THE TASK: Readers were to rate the essays on a scale of 1 to 9 using their own sense of “general merit.”

The Results
101 essays received every score from 1 to
9.
94 percent of the essays received 7, 8, or
9 different grades.
Paul Diederich. Measuring Growth in
English. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1974

#4:
How can Doane “teach to the transfer” of writing abilities from one context to another?

Teaching to the Transfer
Developing in students a “meta-cognitive” sense of how writing varies from context to context.

To Teach to the Transfer:
Point out often how any given example of writing differs from other samples in the same genre.
Point out often how genres differ from context to context according to purpose, audience, and genre conventions.

The Implication
Instructors need to know:
What their students write in other courses
How their assignments are related to writing done outside of school

Common Writing Curriculums
Requiring students to take a number of writing intensive courses
Requiring students to take a capstone course
Requiring students to submit a portfolio of their work
Requiring students to take an exit exam

Writing Intensive Courses
Advantages
Students get practice throughout their college career.
The task of teaching writing is shared by all faculty, not just faculty in English.
Students may be exposed to a wider range of writing than they may get in
English classes.

Writing Intensive Courses
Disadvantages
Difficulty in maintaining a common standard from course to course
Difficulty in organizing a curriculum
Difficulty in “teaching to the transfer”

Writing Intensive Courses
Overcoming disadvantages
Course descriptions that list:
The type of discourse or genres taught
The audience/context for the writing
Regular meetings of faculty to share assignments and grade papers
Outside readers

Capstone Courses
Advantages
Students receive intensive practice writing the genres of their major or discipline.
Students can practice all they have learned earlier.
Capstone courses may involve fewer courses than a writing intensive system.

Capstone Courses
Disadvantages
Difficulties in offering capstone courses across the curriculum
Practice in a limited range of writing

Portfolios
Advantages
Students have two or three years of practice to assemble their best work.
Portfolio requirements can insure that students get practice in a range of writing.
Grading portfolios can rigorously maintain common standards.

Portfolios
Disadvantages
Difficulties in organizing an evaluation system outside the curriculum
Difficulties in training readers to evaluate portfolios according to a common standard

Achieving Common Standards
Course descriptions that list:
The type of discourse or genres taught
The audience/context for the writing
Regular meetings of faculty to share assignments and grade papers
Outside readers