Writing in the Majors: a Guide for Disciplinary Faculty
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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 421 723 CS 216 455 AUTHOR Brand, Alice G. TITLE Writing in the Majors: A Guide for Disciplinary Faculty. PUB DATE 1998-00-00 NOTE 471p.; "Endnotes will be published separately." PUB TYPE Guides Classroom - Teacher (052) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC19 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Content Area Writing; Editing; Higher Education; Proofreading; *Writing Assignments; Writing Evaluation; *Writing Improvement; *Writing Processes; Writing Skills IDENTIFIERS Academic Discourse; Writing Contexts; *Writing Thinking Relationship ABSTRACT At the intersection of teaching and learning, this guide is intended to introduce and update disciplinary faculty on contemporary writing principles and pedagogy. In addition, it is designed to: alert faculty to the ways in which effective writing helps students not only show what they have learned but also to learn, generate, and communicate knowledge; recognize the form the literature of their discipline takes; identify what constitutes competent writing in a particular field; promote writing as a natural and regular part of content area instruction; help students begin to live the mental lives of their professional counterparts; produce student writing that is readable, lucid, and logical and seeks applicability within and beyond the academic discipline; help faculty respond insightfully to writing; know when students need help in writing/thinking that disciplinary faculty can no linger give; and create in departments and/or the college community a philosophical coherence on writing instruction. Chapters in the guide are (1) "Introduction"; (2) "Prewriting and Invention"; (3) "Drafting and Revising"; (4) "Editing and Proofreading"; (5) "Processes of Inquiry"; (6) "Using Sources"; (7) "Research Project or Critical/Analytical Paper";(8) "Academic Forms of Writing"; (9) "Designing Writing Assignments"; (10) "Sequencing Writing Assignments"; (11) "Responding to and Evaluating Writing"; and (12) "Collaboration, Conferences, and Computers." A three-part appendix contains evaluation forms; checklists; exercises; articles on topics such as stress, plagiarism, and the scientific method; course descriptions, course proposal guidelines, and ways to evaluate textbooks.(RS) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Writing in the Majors A G Ii for isciplinary Faculty Alice G. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Brand Office of Educational Research and Improvement PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS CENTER (ERIC) SUNY This document has been reproduced as BEEN GRANTED BY received from the person or organization originating it. College 0 Minor changes have been made to °_,a),k improve reproduction quality. at Points of view or opinions stated in this TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES document do not necessarily represent INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Brockport official OERI position or policy. 1 2 Also by Alice G. Brand Therapy in Writing: A Psycho-educational Enterprise (Scholarship) The Psychology of Writing: The Affective Experience (Scholarship) Presences of Mind: Writing and the Domain Beyond the Cognitive (Scholarship) as it happens (Poetry) Studies on Zone (Poetry) Court of Common Pleas (Poetry) Copyright C 1998 by Alice G. Brand All rights reserved. Edited and Designed by Paul Des Ormeaux Alice G. Brand, Professor Department of English SUNY College at Brockport Brockport, NY 14420 3 PREFACE Education isn't designed to make people comfortable. It's designedto make them think The Chronicle of Higher Education Having written and read a number of research reports, editeda journal and a psychology text, and published three scholarly books, three poetry collections,articles, and poems, I receiveda call some years ago from my daughter, a graduate student in clinicalpsycholOgy, several days before she traveled ten hours home for the four-day Thanksgivingholiday. She asked, Mom, how do you write a master's thesis? I gasped: Over the phone?You want me to tell you how to writea proposal for a master's thesis over the telephone? What did theyteach you in college? And what have you been doing in graduate school? It certainly wasn'twriting. Much of the holidaywas spent helping her draft a proposal for her thesis. So much forThanksgiving. And it spilledover into Christmas and into the spring. Although Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)covered the country, although guidesto writing in various fields were proliferating,at that time much of the university communitywas still unenlightened about it. Traditionally, writingwas taken for granted as proof of work done. It was used as a means of evaluating established knowledge. Writing justhappened. There was little to be learned about it or, if itwas to be learned, it was not going to be content faculty who taught it. Writing was not their field. Thatwas done in English. Not any more. WAC unravels that. But WAC isnot grammar across the curriculum. It is not an update of trends in usage and punctuation. Andso, this guide is not a composition text or a set of worksheets for college students. It is alsonot meant to be a stand-alone text foran upper- division course for majors. This guide is a product of faculty developmentundertaken at Brockport to developcourse objectives, competencies or learningoutcomes, and curricula for incorporating advanced writing within the disciplines. Faculty who have undergonethe seminars will recognizemany of the ideas and activities here. But this guide is availableto all disciplinary instructors. Asa faculty resource, it is designed to reinforce or supplement instruction in thecontent areas. Faculty may use parts of it profitably in conjunction with content materials. WAC isabout changing teaching, not just student learning. This guide helps its readers do that. To justify the investment of instructor time in suchan enterprise, I urge administrators to limit enrollment of any WAC-intensivecourses in order to allow multiple drafting, critical thinking, and deep revision to occur. iiPreface OBJECTIVES OF THE GUIDE The objectives of disciplinary writing are broad enough to justify itsuse in fulfilling any college requirement. At the intersection of teaching and learning, this guide is intended to: 1 1. Introduce and update disciplinary faculty on contemporary writing principles and pedagogy. 2. Alert faculty to the ways in which effective writing helps studentsnot only show what they have learned but also to learn, generate, and communicate knowledge. 3. Recognize the form the literature of their discipline takes. 4.Identify what constitutes competent writing in a particular (and in related) field(s). 5.Promote writing as a natural and regular part of contentarea instruction. 6.Help students begin to live the mental lives of their professionalcounterparts. 7.Produce student writing that is readable, lucid, and logical and seeks applicabilitywithin and beyond the academic discipline. 8. Help faculty respond insightfully to writing. 9. Know when students need help in writing/thinking that disciplinary facultycan no longer give. 10. Create in departments and/or the college communitya philosophical coherence on writing instruction. I apologize on a few fronts: These materialsare far from exhaustive. The chapters are uneven because the materials came to me unevenly across all subjectsareas. Examples and exercises, for example, are compiled from the facultyat Brockport as well as those from other campuses and so reflect their particular interests and strengths. Second,my interest and strength is on describing a large, but idiosyncratic, writingprocess. It is hard to order into linear prose those processes whose very claim is that theyare without order. I have done my best to credit all sources with their contributions. They appear in the Endnotes whichare not yet available. To have waited to publish the Guide until all the citationswere fully clarified would have meant further delaying its appearance. I take full responsibility for inaccuracies,omissions, and confusions. The Endnotes will be printed separately. I want to acknowledge the programs andpersons who in unnumbered ways contributed their expertise, knowledge, ideas, materials, and words to this guide. Iam grateful for a 1997 Excellence in Teaching award and to the Dean of Letters and Sciences,Robert McLean, who provided the funds to bring it to print. A special debt goes to graduate student Karen Renner for 111 copy editing and formatting the unwieldy manuscript. I want also to thank Paul DesOrmeaux whose expert eyes put the finishing touches on it. I thank the English departmentfor its generosity as a long-term support system for this work. Last, Iam grateful to the faculty who undertook the seminars and contributed to the guide in both materials and perspective,their collegiality and commitment. Alice G. Brand May, 1998 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE PART 1 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Models of Writing Across the Curriculum 4 Constraints 5 Overview of the Writing Process 7 Assumptions Old and New 9 The Written Product 15 Sample Student Fact Sheets 21 Chapter 2 Prewriting and Invention 24 Invention Methods 25 Notes on Fluency and Writing Anxiety 42 Chapter 3 Drafting and Revising 45 Details and Development 48 The Thesis Statement 52 Organization 56 Coherence 63 Deep Revision 74 Writing Pedagogy Strands 83 Chapter 4 Editing and Proofreading 85 Style