Research
all the way down
How I Learned to Teach Writing Like a Researcher
Tracy Hamler Carrick
Senior Lecturer, The Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines
Director, The Writing Walk-In Service
Cornell University
Progam Development
• Should we offer more sections of the researchintensive First-Year Writing Seminar, Writing 1420?
Curricular Development
• What can we take from the Writing 1420 experience to
build research into First-Year Writing Seminars and
enrich student proficiency in information literacy?
Case Study
For first-year students, the Knight Institute offers
in one of the
country's largest and most diverse programs in writing in the disciplines: each semester, over
100 different courses are taught in more than
located in the
humanities, social sciences, expressive arts, and sciences. Through introductory work in each
seminar's particular field of study, students learn to write in a range of genres and in ways that
emphasize clarity, coherence, intellectual force, and stylistic control.
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Seminars should require at least six—and at most nine—formal essays on new topics, totaling
ca. 25 – 30 pages of polished prose.
No fewer than three of the 6 – 9 required essays should go through a process of development
under the instructor’s guidance (e.g. revision, peer review, responses to readings,
conferences).
All seminars spend ample classroom time (about half) on work directly related to writing.
Reading assignments in the course subject are kept under 75 pages per week to permit
regular, concentrated work on writing.
All students meet in at least two individual conferences with the instructor.
First-Year Writing Seminars
Writing 7100: Teaching Writing
• WEEK 1: Teaching Writing in a Discipline: What is it? Why do it?
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• WEEK 3: Responding to Student Writing: Writing, Conferencing, and
Collaborating
• WEEK 4: Looking at Language: Sentences, Paragraphs and Style
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• WEEK 6: On the Brink of Day One
Course Sequence
Writing 7100: Teaching Writing
Writers as
Teachers of
Writing
Researchers as
Teachers of
Writing
Writing 7100: Teaching Writing
Cross-Disciplinary Challenges
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Research Proposal
Single Source Evaluation
Source Variation
Annotated Bibliography
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Research Worksheet
Synthesis Matrix
Summary to Synthesis Exercises
Reflective Essay
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Visual Material
Textual Material
Electronic Material
Library Session(s)
Ciitation Management
Grammar and Rhetoric of the Quotation
Reverse Engineering the Research Project
Writing 7100: Teaching Writing
Writers as
Teachers of
Writing
Researchers as
Teachers of
Writing
Writing 7100: Teaching Writing
Cross-Disciplinary Challenges
Time
FEAR
Expertise
Plagiarism
Pedagogical Challenges
Building
Reading Skills
Building
Writing Skills
with research
with research
Building
Research Skills
Pedagogical Opportunities
Writing Course +4
Library Orientation
Writing Course +1
Library Workshop: Building Reading Skills
Library Orientation
Library Workshop: Orientation Redux
Library Workshop: Building Writing Skills
Learning Outcome:
Information Literacy
Writing Course +2
Fully Supported Writing Course, Modified
Library Orientation
Shared Sessions with Librarian
Library Workshop: Building Reading Skills
Undergraduate Peer Mentors in Writing
Course Leadership
Opportunities
1.
2.
Library Orientation
Library Workshop on Building Reading Skills
• Researching Authors (Learn what else this person has written or how she or others characterize her work)
• Google
• Library Catalog
• Researching Books
• Book Reviews (Learn how other scholars/experts have responded to book.)
• Library Catalog
• Book Review Digest
• Google
• Researching Websites
• WHOIS.com (Learn about the sponsoring person or organization)
• Researching Articles
• ISI Web of Knowledge database (Learn how often has article has been cited and where it has been cited.)
• Researching Key Concepts or Topics (Learn background or general information)
• Reference Universe
• Gale Virtual Reference Library
• Sage Reference Online
• Wikipedia
Writing Course +2
Building Reading Skills
READING
• Select ONE source
• Read it carefully
• In three separate paragraphs, compose a:
• Summary (what is this source about?)
• Structural Analysis (how is this source arranged?)
• Rhetorical Analysis (how does this author make meaning and/or persuade?)
RESEARCHING
• Conduct some research about this source or its author
• Compose an additional paragraph that describes your research strategies
REVISING
• Compose three additional paragraphs that detail
• what you learned about the source and/or author, and
• what you need to add, omit, or revise from your summary, structural or rhetorical
analysis paragraphs.
Single Source Evaluation
Building Reading Skills
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2.
3.
4.
Library Orientation
Library Workshop on Building Reading Skills
Library Re-Orientation
• All publication formats
• Cornell Library Catalog (Subject Heading Searches)
• Google
• Articles
• Academic Search Premier
• Google Scholar
• Web of Science
• Summon
• ProQuest
• JSTOR
• Browse by Subject or Name for Discipline-specific databases
• Newspapers
• Lexis/Nexis
Library Workshop on Building Writing Skills
• Interpreting bibliographic citations
• Reading abstracts
• Conducting Subject Heading searches
• Refining search terms and phrases
Writing Course +4
Building Writing Skills
Imagine that the editorial cartoon, “Girls Suck at Math,” recently appeared in The Cornell Daily Sun. Many members
of the Cornell community are outraged. Is their anger justified? How should readers make sense of this cartoon?
What commentary does it offer?
You and your groupmates are members of the Editorial Board, and you must release a public statement on your
decision to publish this controversial cartoon. Why did you publish it? What conversation did you hope to inspire
about current scholarship and opinion on the topic of gender and cognition? As you develop ideas for this position
statement, you should consider the kinds of research you could use to support your claims.
Source Variation Scavenger Hunt
Building Writing Skills
Publication Format
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Background resources/reference materials
Books
Scholarly articles
Popular periodicals
Websites
Multimedia items
Rhetorical Features
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points of view
disciplinary perspectives
cultural perspectives
genre
methodologies
audiences
dates of publication
publishers
Source Variation Scavenger Hunt
Building Writing Skills
Writers as
Teachers of
Writing
Researchers as
Teachers of
Writing
Writing 7100: Teaching Writing
Writing Course +4
Library Orientation
Writing Course +1
Library Workshop: Building Reading Skills
Library Orientation
Library Workshop: Building Research Skills
Library Workshop: Building Writing Skills
Learning Outcome:
Information Literacy
Writing Course +2
Fully Supported Writing Course, Modified
Library Orientation
Shared Sessions with Librarian
Library Workshop: Building Reading Skills
Undergraduate Peer Mentors in Writing
Course Leadership
Opportunities
Teaching
Artifacts@http://www.arts.cornell.edu/knight_institute/staff/Tracy.ht
m
Email @
thc33@cornell.edu