The Writing Centre and Writing in
the Disciplines at London Met
EWCA, PARIS
2010
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Writing in the Disciplines
• Examine Write Now CETL’s WiD work at
London Met (London Met Writing Centre)
• Discuss and evaluate a new project to
make this work more systematic,
sustainable and effective
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Writing in the Disciplines
• Lecturers / Professors take responsibility for students’ disciplinary
writing within their disciplinary courses (rather than leaving this to
writing/study skills one-to-one tutorials or stand-alone courses or
workshops often taught by others)
• Writing specialists may collaborate with the lecturer
• For all students
• Not about remediality but about creating more effective writers in the
subject and about using writing to create better thinking and better
disciplinary practice
• Cf. AcLits on “problems” of student writing as a result of confusions
concerning disciplinary demands and epistemologies (Lea and
Street 1998)
• Wingate (AcLits): real understanding of the complexities of
disciplinary writing “can only be achieved within the subject and
through explanations, modelling and feedback by subject tutors”
(2006: 463)
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WAC, WiD and Beyond…
• Writing across the Curriculum: attempt to use writing
outside composition classes and to integrate it within all
courses to promote thinking and learning (Bean 2001).
McLeod and Maimon describe WAC as “one of the most
important educational reform movements of the twentieth
century” (2000: 582).
• Writing in the Disciplines: focuses more specifically on
creating disciplinary writers (including attention to the
kinds of writing students will do in their professional life).
Cf. Monroe (2002 and 2003).
• (Communication across the Curriculum. See e.g.
http://www.uncg.edu/cac)
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WiD at London Met
• Write Now CETL: many WiD collaborations
• Initial strategy: “work with the willing”
• No “master-plan” at the start; collaborations
depend on lecturer’s level of interest
• Reflect on experiences and try to improve
• Major collaborations in first year of CETL with:
Psychology, Film Studies, Management and
Multimedia. Other more minor collaborations.
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Lessons learned 2006-09
• Limited point to delivering a “writing workshop” or
(worse) a lecture on writing. Unsustainable and despite
best efforts divorces writing from the subject.
• Best role for writing specialist is to collaborate with
lecturer, offering support, knowledge, resources, advice
and helping lecturer to assume ownership of writing in
their module. This is a process, not something that will
happen or be perfected in one semester.
• Once lecturers see writing as not a remedial or surfacelevel issue (grammar and syntax) but as the vehicle
through which students perform the higher order skills of
their discipline (analysing , synthesising, evaluating etc),
they are more likely to be interested in owning this
aspect of their teaching.
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Goal for final year of CETL
• Build on our experience and create something
potentially lasting and sustainable
• Put in place a model of WiD which will promote
good practice and which doesn’t require huge
resources
• Make pedagogical research an integral aspect of
WiD collaborations in order to raise the status of
teaching and learning issues
• Put in place a model of WiD which encourages
ownership of writing by subject lecturers
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WiD and “Assessment” at MUOhio
• Timely visit by Paul Anderson, Howe Center for Writing
Excellence, Miami University, Ohio
• Creates detailed writing assessment rubrics in
conjunction with MUOhio subject-based professors
• Writing diagnostic takes place
• Target “weak point” and implement teaching change
• Writing diagnostic repeated
• More targeting
• On-going cycle of evaluation. Incremental improvements.
Long-term, sustainable, developmental process rather
than a “quick fix”.
• Allows Paul Anderson to work with many different
disciplines at the same time
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Paul Anderson’s Cycle of Evaluation
1) USE DIAGNOSTIC
TO DEFINE GOALS
2) IMPLEMENT
TEACHING STRATEGIES
4) REFINE
STRATEGIES
3) EXAMINE
STRATEGIES
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London Met WiD Research Project
• Implement a similar model of evaluation which
encourages staff to assume ownership of writing
and adopts an incremental, process-based
approach
• Create wider impact in final year of CETL
• Offer a sustainable model of writing /
professional development at London Met
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Overcoming fear and resistance:
supporting student writing in formal
exam settings
Dr Debbie Holley
London Metropolitan Business School
Student fear of examinations
“Discussion in class highlighted student fear and
apprehension of examinations per se, not the
particular examination for the module; and
indeed, this fear had inhibited students from
even looking at the prepared materials.”
Holley & Agombar 2010
The face to-face workshop:
• Student attitudes to examinations were collected by
questionnaire
• around a third of students express concerns about exam
writing, and do not consider exams a good way to
assess their knowledge.
• Most of the students do not want more exam
assessments.
• A significant minority find exams stressful and find it
difficult to write what they want to say in the time
allowed.
• Only 4 of those completing the questionnaire felt able to
perform ‘at their best’ in the exam.
Student ‘wish list’ for final resource:
•
•
•
•
•
The final resource was designed
to be discipline specific
focus on the ‘case study’ (which
students identified as the most
problematic aspect of the
examination paper);
be personal to them (their own
tutor talking through issues)
available 24/7
tracking tools from the previous
cohort clearly showed a last
minute panic the day before the
examination was scheduled!
Writing Centre: The resource
needed to be reusable in different
disciplinary contexts and
sustainable.
The final resource:
http://prezi.com/t6gsdnytc7oj/exam
-case-study-pineapples-from-brazil/
What did students think?
Student A
“I just read your feedback
document, I will like to tell you,
that I found the exam project
extremely useful, as it gives
students a very structure way
of learning how to answer a
question. I really like it, I think
that it is an amazing way to
help students.”
Roger Gossett
Faculty of Life Sciences
School of Human Sciences
Creating an Argument
r.gossett@londonmet.ac.uk
Background
Project Preparation Module
Students are good at:
 Searching the scientific literature
 Describing the scientific literature
Students are less good at:
 Synthesising the scientific literature
Intervention
The Project Proposal and Literature Review Explained
 Historical Context
 Definitions and terminology
 Contextualising your proposal
 Identifying a gap in the literature
 Theoretical underpinnings
 The significance of your research question
 Critical argument – the method
 Critical argument – contrast of interpretations
 Critical argument – connecting different source texts
Example
Arguing for the significance or your research question
Conclusion
 There is tentative evidence of improved writing
style in terms of creating an argument
 Not all students seem to have benefited
 Improvements and sustainability
 Working with the Writing in the Disciplines
Team of the Write Now CETL at London
Metropolitan University
Evaluation
A small number of students completed each
week of the intervention
An example of improved writing style that may
be attributable to the intervention is:
Research carried out by Pratt et al. (1999)
proposed that it is inconclusive that sedentary
lifestyle causes obesity …. However, Manson et
al. (2003) found positive associations … This was
confirmed by Hu (2003) who carried out similar
research …
Case Study Film Studies:
Improving Students’ Critical
Thinking Using the Blackboard
Discussion Tool
Dr Rosemary Stott
Principal Lecturer in Film Studies
London Metropolitan University
• Honours level undergraduate
• Film Studies
• Module Title: New German Cinema
Module details
• 18 students (14 Film Studies, 3
Journalism, 1 Creative Writing)
• 12 weeks teaching (3 hrs per week)
• Assessment: 2 critical essays (40% each)
+ seminar log (20%)
Perceived Problems
• Critical thinking not deep enough
• Existing seminar log template not working
because:
• reflective writing element did not relate
closely to coursework essays
• log was ‘private’ and not used as a
resource for coursework
• students generally not engaged enough
with the log
Existing Log Template
Blackboard Homepage
Aims of the intervention
• Blended Learning solution
• Enhance seminar work via online discussions
(blog) on Blackboard (VLE)
• Develop critical thinking
• Encourage deeper analysis of screenings
and readings
• Develop new ideas and arguments
• To create closer link between seminars and
assessments
• Desired outcome: improved writing in essays
Planning
• Threaded Discussions: 2 to 3 topics set up
for each week in advance on Blackboard site
• Each topic related closely to essay titles also
presented at the start of the module
• Students encouraged to contribute comments
and replies to discussions each week
• Online comments used as starting point for
face-to-face seminars(student-led seminars
integral to Film Studies)
• ‘Traditional’ log assessment (20%) replaced
by assessment of discussion contributions
Discussion threads on each film
screening
Sample comment
Sample comments and replies
Positive Outcomes
• Reasonable student engagement (carrot and
stick approach!)
• In most cases, provided an orientation for the
student-led seminar
• Quiet students did contribute well
• Increased collaboration between students
• Feedback – students preferred it to the
existing seminar log template
• Some evidence of deeper thinking in the
assignments
Problematic issues
• Not all students contributed regularly
• Rush of contributions towards the end of
the module (defeated the purpose)
• Some problems encountered with
Blackboard when uploading images
Adjustments needed
• ‘Hands-on’ training session to accustom
students to the discussion tool
• Blog comments need to be integrated
more into the student-led seminar
• Need to address disability (could dyslexics
use sound as well as image files?)
• Award marks for regular contributions?
Project findings
Staff change
• Role of reflective practitioner taken seriously and evidence of
continuous development
• Research into practice, publications, conference and other
presentations
• Writing perceived as a process, which was mirrored in individual
approaches to developing own students’ writing
• Practical changes made to module design and delivery
• Future plans for continuing and extending the changes
– to one’s other modules
– across the department/faculty more widely
• Importance of working with individual, committed lecturers
• Lecturer taking on role as a local champion of WiD
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Project findings
Staff reflection on this form of professional
development
• Viewed very positively and experienced as having several uniquely
beneficial aspects
–
–
–
–
personal conversation: intensive and helpful, but not too time-consuming
encouraged own thinking and empowered lecturers to make changes
targeted to actual concerns and specific problems
being part of a “project community” with occasional meetings provided
support and exchange of ideas that would not have taken place otherwise
– enabled a constructive focus on pedagogy instead of just subject content
– more effective than a general staff development workshop
– participation in research attractive; helpful to see that student writing is an
area of academic study in its own right
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Project findings
Student writing and learning
• Evidence of increased participation and engagement with module
content and learning activities amongst most students, including
those lacking confidence as writers
• However, increased engagement did not consistently carry over
into improved writing in assessed work
• General tendency for more marked improvement in writing quality
amongst already stronger students
• Some students reluctant to engage in collaborative and public
writing tasks (e.g., blogs, in-class writing), and in general these
students were the least likely to show writing or learning
improvement
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Taking the project further
Possible directions for 2010-11
• Planned and systematic expansion across departments, facilitated
by staff with positive experiences of embedding WiD in their own
modules
• Explicit targeting of specific modules for highest impact, e.g., first
year, large number of students, low pass/progression rate
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Writing Centre
• A place where such work can be carried
out and recognised
• Disciplinary peer tutorials (London Met
Writing Mentors Scheme) to support
lecturers (2000 one-to-one tutorials 200609; with over 950 held last year)
• But staff development, learning
development and language centres could
also be units for carrying out WiD work?
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AcLits and WiD
– Is WiD an effective vehicle for promoting
attention to AcLits?
– Does WiD perhaps neglect the critical
dimension essential to AcLits thinking?
AcLits and WiD
•
AcLits: so far in large part a theoretical approach. Cf. Lillis: “Academic
Literacies has been highly generative as a critical research frame,
challenging many common-sense assumptions about what is involved in
student writing and foregrounding the limitations in much current writing
pedagogy. However, as a design frame it has yet to be developed. I am
using ‘design’ here in the broad sense of the application of research findings
and understandings to pedagogy” (2006: 33).
•
WiD perhaps is more pragmatic? Reflect on the issue. Do something.
Reflect and do it again differently? Cf. Action Research.
•
Lillis suggests that the pedagogical outcome of Academic Literacies is likely
to be dialogues between student-writers and tutor-readers which “enable
participation in dominant academic literacy practices as well as provide
opportunities for challenging aspects of such practices” (2006, p.33). Cf.
writing mentors’ scheme. Does WiD encourage this dialogic approach or
does it perhaps reinforce dominant practice, seeking to help students
master the conventions but perhaps being less interested in challenging
how things are done?
•
Or does this depend on the goals and interests of the lecturer?
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