Learning to write on a college level isn\u2019t easy. Turns out, teaching students to write on a college level is no walk in the park either.<\/p>\n
Furman professors found this out in 2008 after the University joined a national trend and traded the composition courses the English department had taught for years for a system of First-Year Writing Seminars (FYW) which could be led by any faculty member.<\/p>\n
Biology professor Wade Worthen, Ph.D., volunteered because he was excited about \u201cthe opportunity to do something new and express my passion about biology in different ways.\u201d He discovered, however, that his students weren\u2019t the only ones who had some things to learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike most people outside the English department, I was particularly anxious about actually teaching writing instruction,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t really sure what that was and how to do it. I can recognize both effective and poor writing when I see it, but the question then becomes how do you instruct someone to improve their writing beyond just correcting it and marking what\u2019s wrong or suggesting a rewrite?\u201d<\/p>\n
The answer wasn\u2019t intuitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that first class, I had a lot of trouble figuring out and finding techniques and classroom examples that I could use. Instead, I relied more on content,\u201d Worthen said. \u201cWhen it came to writing instruction, I think I was probably treading water most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Optional one-week instruction workshops have been offered since the switch, but they weren\u2019t enough to climb the learning curve. So beginning this school year education professor Paul Thomas, Ed.D., Furman\u2019s FYW faculty director, and English professor Margaret Oakes, Ph.D., who chairs the FYW oversight committee, created a Faculty Writing Seminar (FWS) to provide \u201ca year-long examination of teaching writing to undergraduates\u201d for 12 participating faculty members.<\/p>\n
Included was a weeklong workshop in July as well as three more workshops per semester led by Thomas, Oakes, and Jane Love, Ph.D., Furman\u2019s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) director. Among many things, the importance of revision and giving students ownership over what they\u2019re writing about were particularly stressed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned is to take\u00a0the emphasis off the subject matter at hand and put\u00a0the emphasis on learning\u00a0about the topic through writing and learning how to become researchers,\u201d Victoria Turgeon, Ph.D., Worthen\u2019s colleague in the biology department, said. \u201cSo instead of me lecturing about scientific claims in the media, it\u2019s really a process for students\u00a0to be scholars and learn how to\u00a0look at literature, how to\u00a0determine if a source\u00a0is valid, and how to\u00a0know whether or not they\u00a0should believe\u00a0it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thanks to the Internet\u2019s ever-growing propaganda mountain posing as information, teaching that skill has never been more important. First, though, incoming freshmen must be broken of some bad habits that have served them well on standardized tests.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have people who have a lot of potential, but they don\u2019t seem to have had the practice in high school that the kids used to have. We have a lot more territory to cover in some respects than we used to,\u201d Oakes said. \u201cThe level of quality out there is \u2026 appalling to me. We\u2019re on this little mission to make things better. That\u2019s pretty much my mission in life these days, I have to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not so much the basic writing skills, it\u2019s getting them to step away from the laws that they were taught in middle school and high school,\u201d Turgeon added. \u201cThey all want to write a five-paragraph essay regardless of whether the assignment is two pages or 15 pages, and they do have problems discerning between what\u2019s a topic of a paper and a thesis of a paper. So I spend a lot of time on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Political science professor Glen Halva-Neubauer, Ph.D.,<\/a> has his students write everything from cover letters to emails to papers, all of which they\u2019re required to read out loud during the revision process. Mostly, though, he wants them realize good writers are made, not born.<\/p>\n \u201cWriting is tough work, even if you do a lot of it, and I think it\u2019s a good message for young people to know that it\u2019s mainly about hanging in there and continuing to write drafts,\u201d he said. \u201cI work really hard at telling them my own stories. My wife\u2019s a really good editor and cut 140 pages out of my dissertation, and the poor woman has an armadillo skin to endure my kvetching about every little word that was lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Crystal Brockington \u201918 took Psychic Disorder and the Social Order taught by Gretchen Braun, Ph.D., which was part of the Healthcare Today Program for Engaged Living<\/a>. A political science and communication studies major from Conyers, Ga., who hopes to go to law school, Brockington wanted \u201cexposure to something different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was one of my favorite classes as a freshman,\u201d she said. \u201cWe learned how to develop a thesis and hold an argument and how to support that argument on both sides. I took away a lot more than writing. I learned how\u00a0to engage in a class, how to think critically outside of the ordinary questions, and to dig deeper into my reading.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s exactly the transformative outcome Oakes is looking for. Professors who participate in the faculty writing seminar receive a small stipend, but Oakes thinks more should be done to recognize their value.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the years we\u2019ve developed a cadre of folks who like it and are good at it, and we felt that they need a couple of things: More visibility and more support,\u201d she said. \u201cPart of my goal is to give them some credibility and some honor on campus for all the work that they do, which is legion and takes many hours.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019ll be a prime position to do just that from her new position as Furman\u2019s director of writing programs, a job Oakes will assume in May. The appointment is the final step in Furman\u2019s integration of the Writing and Media Lab<\/a> into the Center for Academic Success<\/a>, and her responsibilities include the development of programs and resources in support of writing for both faculty and students.<\/p>\n The inaugural FWS campaign was so successful, 12 new teachers have signed up to \u201cjoin the cadre\u201d next year. \u201cThis is something I think the faculty recognizes is very valuable for them. This is not just Furman Hall types doing this. It\u2019s people from all over the campus,\u201d Oakes said.<\/p>\n Furman needs as many qualified writing instructors as it can get to handle another change to the University\u2019s curriculum, which will go into effect in the fall in response to a recent study of graduating seniors that showed Furman students write \u201cfar fewer papers\u201d of eight or more pages than graduates of other schools.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw that as a significant shortcoming of our program, and as a consequence have instituted an additional general education requirement \u2026 that all students, in addition to taking this first-year writing seminar, will at some point during their curriculum here at Furman take a class that is designated as writing and research intensive,\u201d Worthen said.<\/p>\n That will ultimately only help the institution and its students, Oakes thinks.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something that should attract students: The fact that we are a small school that can teach them how to write,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learning to write on a college level isn\u2019t easy. 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