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- English Writing Center-
Writing Across the Curriculum
Because M.S.U. is dedicated to providing a quality education that thoroughly prepares graduates to succeed, communication skills are emphasized in all disciplines. Writing requires active, engaged learning on the part of the students. Integrating writing into your courses also changes the demands of teaching. Here at M.S.U. the Writing Across the Curriculum staff is available to provide support to faculty throughout that process.
Assignment design: A good assignment gets good results. We are happy to help you with all phases of assignment design from generating fresh ideas to explaining your expectations to your students. We can also help create instructional material.
Classroom instruction: We are happy to present writing workshops, mini-lectures, and question and answer sessions tailored for your class and your assignments.
Evaluation: Grading writing assignments can be labor and time intensive. It can also be intimidating to those who don’t consider writing to be their specialty. We can help in a variety of ways.
* Norming workshops provide a clear sense of what makes a paper succeed or fail. We work together with you to establish clear criteria for judging your students’ work. This is especially helpful to forge a good grading team with T.A.s and faculty.
* How much, or how little, written feedback should you give your students? We can help you reduce your ``marking” time and increase its effectiveness.
* We can help you find trained graders for large sections. The graders receive an hourly wage paid by the requesting department.
Liaison with the Writing Center: M.S.U.’s Writing Center provides tutorial support for all course related writing. The Writing Across the Curriculum staff serves as liaison between faculty and the tutors. We will make sure your assignments and expectations are clearly understood.
The integration of writing across the curriculum can lead to some problems for students who are often surprised, and sometimes dismayed, at the amount of writing required in their courses. Here are a few tips that can help you support your students as they navigate your course.
Each discipline has its own discourse. Students may have little experience with informational, transactional communication. Frequently, writing instruction focuses on expressive, personal responses or ``creative” writing. As a result, students may not understand the objectives or conventions of writing in your field.
How to help your students:
* Provide good models for your students. Put a successful report or essay on reserve at the library. Give your students readings that reflect the conventions and style you want to see in their work.
* Break large writing tasks into smaller, clearly defined sections. This not only helps the student to stay on track, but also prevents procrastination.
* Remind your students to use the Writing Center. Make sure that you send a copy of your writing assignments to the Writing Center, along with any specific requests. If you hate to see a preposition at the end of a sentence, let the tutors know.
* Encourage students to communicate with you. Take their confusion seriously and respect their questions.
* Motivate students to start reading in the professional and academic journals of their chosen field. Suggest that they read with an eye for how ideas are presented, watching for style and format. Tell the student that it may be tough going at first; journals require a different reading strategy than novels or textbooks.
Let us know how we can serve you and your students.
wac@english.montana.edu
Edis Kittrell (X5199) 2171 Wilson Hall
Kiki Rydell (X5258) 2292 Wilson Hall
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