Section 1
How Will Writing Help Me Teach My Class?
Teachers, regardless of their discipline, face the daunting task of structuring classes to fit the needs of their students as well as cover important course material. One of the greatest challenges in attaining these goals is helping students not only to "remember and recall" the material that is presented to them, but to also "assimilate and understand" that information. In other words, it is essential for teachers to provide students with the opportunity to incorporate new information into their existing knowledge structures, to critically assess it, to transform it, and to develop the ability to manipulate and apply this knowledge to a variety of situations. Most teachers would agree that memorization or reporting facts is not enough in this endeavor; instead, students must be able to "make knowledge" on their own turf, indeed on their own terms, and negotiate truth with others inside and outside the classroom.
Why Should I Use Writing to Teach?
Utilizing writing in the classroom offers students the opportunity to do just that--to transform knowledge and determine their own "ways of knowing." Robert Kellogg, in his book The Psychology of Writing, is clear on this point: "[Writing] is a vehicle for expanding and transforming one's own knowledge base...[It] not only demands thinking, it is also a means for thinking. By writing about a subject, one learns what one thinks about the subject. This property of transforming knowledge is a fundamental component of writing skill" (16-214). Kellogg suggests that writing in the classroom--regardless of the particular discipline--requires students to delineate "raw information" from the acquisition of knowledge, recognizing that the two are not the same. In fact, in order to understand the information enough to be able to critically assess, manipulate, and apply knowledge, course material must be appropriated by and integrated into the "self," so to speak. One certain way of doing this is through writing.
Writing as a Means to Transform Knowledge
Indeed, writing offers a unique mode of learning, a critical process in the academic development of our students. Janet Emig, a prominent figure in education, discusses learning through writing in "Writing as a Mode of Learning." According to Emig, "What is striking about writing as a process is that, by nature, all three ways of dealing with actuality [(1) enactive-we learn "by doing," (2) iconic-we learn "by depiction in an image," and (3) representational or symbolic-we learn "by restatement of words"] are simultaneously or almost simultaneously deployed (88).
Emig continues,
If the most efficacious learning occurs when learning is re-inforced, then writing through its re-inforcing cycle involving hand, eye, and brain marks a uniquely powerful multi-representational mode of learning.Writing [also] involves the fullest possible functioning of the brain, which entails the active participation in the process of both the left and the right hemispheres. Writing is markedly bispheral. (88). If writing is, then, such a powerful tool in the learning process, how could we afford not to use it in our classrooms?
Over the last twenty years studies concerning the cognitive operations that students utilize during the writing process have helped illuminate the true power of writing - a power which cannot only help students learn new material, but apply it to their own experiences, and transform it into something personal, something new. Today, writing is no longer seen as simply a means to retell or recount information; instead, it is an efficient and unique way to internalize and expand upon discipline-specific knowledge. Including writing assignments in any field can improve students' retention of information, generate new ideas, allow students to explore the dynamic quality of knowledge within their disciplines, and provide them with a personal stake in their learning.
Even here on the local level at Bowling Green State University, many teachers in a variety of disciplines recognize writing as an opportunity for students to critically assess and integrate new information into their existing knowledge bases. Undergraduate students in history, for instance, are told that their chosen field is not a realm of study that simply reports on events from the past. Instead, students are expected to assimilate course material, while molding and shaping it in an interpretive way in an effort to generate new ideas and discover new connections. This is done primarily through writing. Likewise, several education classes at BGSU utilize writing to assist students in applying their newfound knowledge. In this field, the primary focus is on producing a text that shows the student's ability to think critically and apply various concepts and theories discussed in class. No multiple choice test or short answer quiz can provide students with the opportunities to develop the kind of critical evaluative skills a thorough writing assignment can.
Writing Helps Students Express Material In Their Own Language
Implementing writing exercises into a course is a natural extension of enabling students to learn and express themselves in language that is uniquely their own. As a cognitive enterprise, writing endows students with the critical ability to locate themselves within both the discourse of academics and of the every day world. By providing students with writing exercises, instructors add a new dimension to their courses that is not merely "additive, but transformative."(McLeod 3) This transformative power has the ability to not only challenge students with self-directed course interests, but also enable students to further engage course material in meaningful and directed ways. With this context, writing in the classroom empowers students to order and share their perspectives and experiences through a variety of purposeful ends and can be the mortar lines for the sturdy foundation of a solid academic enterprise.
In advocating the use of writing in the classroom, instructors must be prepared to share themselves as active and participatory models for students to question and identify with in regard to the scope and purpose of a particular writing assignments. Such writing assignments have a broad range of appeal and can be suited to fit almost any particular course and teaching style. For example, an instructor may require his or her students to keep a journal about class lectures, while another instructor may require short weekly writings or "thought pieces" about a particularly controversial topic raised in class discussion. The audience of such a writing assignment can be the teacher, the class, or the student him or herself. Allowing students to voice their concerns, in their own writing, will weave an original fabric of meaning that students are much more likely to take seriously than traditional tests, quizzes and reports. Hopefully, writing in relation to a course will stimulate students to carry knowledge and ideas to their other courses and eventually into their every day lives apart from academics.
References
Emig, Janet. "Writing as a Mode of Learning." College Composition and
Communication 28 (1977): 122-28.
Herrington, Anne and Chales Moran. "Preface." Writing, Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines. Eds. Anne Herrington and Charles Moran. New York: - MLA,1992. ix-xi.
McLeod, Susan H. "WAC: Introduction." Writing Across the Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Programs. Eds. Susan H. McLeod and Margot Soven. Newbury Park,NJ: Sage, 1992. 1-1
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