Writing Assignments Across the Disciplines
Fifth Campus Alberta Writing Colloquium
September 30, 2011
Susan ChaudoirPhD Student, Interdisciplinary Studies
University of [email protected]
www.ualberta.ca/~graves1
Writing Assignment Research at University of Alberta
Consult/support faculty and curriculum administrators
Disciplinary contexts: writing in the disciplines (WID)
Conduct research with faculty initiative (Light, 2001, p. 223) scholarly consistency (Graves, Hyland, & Samuels, 2010)
Describes the kinds of assignments undergraduates are asked to write in various disciplines (Anson & Dannels, 2009)
inform discussions of how to direct or improve disciplinary writing for learning
Our Series of Studies
Writing ‘inventory’
Five (5) disciplines University of Alberta: Faculty of Nursing Faculty of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty of Physical Education & Recreation Department of Political Science Service-Learning Program
One (1) discipline from another Canadian institution: Department of Geography
1,232 assignments and 350 courses
Today’s Presentation
Summary:Five (5) completed studies:
Faculty of NursingFaculty of Physical Education & Recreation (PER)Department of GeographyDepartment of Political ScienceCommunity Service-Learning Program (CSL)
In process: Pharmacy
Our Research Questions
What assignments are students asked to write?
How often are they asked to write?
Do writing assignments differ by discipline?
How do instructors structure writing assignments within a course (e.g., scaffold, link, sequence)?
What We Found
Students write:a lot in these disciplines (77 to 100%)in every course of Political Science and CSL more often beyond second yeara variety of genresalmost exclusively for an academic audience
What We Found
(instructor’s label) PER Political
Science CSL Geography Nursing
Paper 16 32 22 25 18Report 30 12Essay 21 12Teaching Demonstration 22
Self-evaluation 24Handouts 11Presentation 15 17 13Journal 10 8
Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.
What are students asked to write?
What We Learned
How often are students asked to write?Discipline Number of writing
assignmentsPercent of courses with writing assignments
PER 266 82%Political Science 198 100%CSL 163 100%Geography 186 77%Nursing 157 86%
What We Learned
How often are students asked to write?
PER Political Science
CSL Geography Nursing
Year 1 66 / 2.5 7 / 1.4 42 / 10 15 / 3.8 17 / 3.4
Year 2 46 / 3.2 39 / 2.3 12 / 4 40 / 2.2 33 / 5.5
Year 3 67 / 2.6 40 / 2.4 35 / 6 24 / 1.85 50 / 4.2
Year 4 87 / 4.6 112 / 4.2 74 / 6.7 107 / 3.5 57 / 4.4
Note: first number = total assignments; second number = average number of assignments per course.
What We Learned
Do writing assignments differ by discipline?
Length in pages
PER Political Science
CSL Geography Nursing
under 2 17 5 16 18 0
2 - 4 45 27 39 34 74
5 - 6 15 15 14 19 2
7 - 10 13 23 14 18 18
11 - 12 1 11 6 5 0
13 + 9 19 11 6 6Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.
What We Learned
Do writing assignments differ by discipline?
PER Political Science
CSL Geography Nursing
FEEDBACK 7 21 41 12 96
RUBRIC 27 25 13 20 60
AUDIENCE 97 92 91 100 99
Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.
What We Learned
How often do instructors scaffold/nest writing assignments within a course?
PER Political Science
CSL Geography Nursing0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
3037
68
50
71
perc
enta
ge o
f all
assig
nmen
ts
Note: numbers are reported in percent of all assignments.
Most Surprising
Pronounced disciplinary differences (dominant genres, nesting-linking)
Course terms varyNursing study:
feedback (96%)scaffolding (71%)short assignments (74%)academic audience (99%)
Future Projects
Meta-analysis: patterns within each discipline as well as across the disciplines
SSHRC grant: national research program to document writing assignments given to students in a wide variety of disciplines
PhD research project: small-scale qualitative inquiry to understand how students learn what they are asked to write
Theoretical frameworks Curricular & pedagogical focus
NursingCSL
Political Science
My Research Topic
How do students learn the genres they are asked to write?
Theoretical framework: Genre as social action (Miller, 1984/1994)
Analysis: Genre flexibility (Schryer, 2002) students are ‘genred’ into the discipline
Methodology/method: Case study
My quandary: which to pursue?1. across disciplines: comparative study2. within one discipline: descriptive study
My Research Topic
How do students learn the genres they are asked to write?
Nursing:Highest ratio of nesting (75%)Highest ratio of feedback (96%)Highest ratio of short assignments (74%)Near-exclusive academic audience (99%)Emphasis: writing “scholarly” (not expository, creative, provocative)Emphasis: reading “research” (secondary not primary)
genres: Dominant and periphery
Perspectives: student - instructor – tutor
My Research TopicFirst question: what assignments are students asked to write?
My research question: how do students learn the genres they are asked to write?
What are your questions?
Discussion
ReferencesAnson, C. A., & Dannels, D. (2009, December 3). Profiling programs: Formative uses of
departmental consultations in the assessment of communication across the curriculum [Special issue on Writing Across the Curriculum and Assessment.] Across the Disciplines, 6. Retrieved May 30, 2011 from http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/assessment/anson_dannels.cfm
Graves, R., Hyland, T., & Samuels, B. (2010). Undergraduate writing assignments: An analysis of syllabi at one Canadian university. Written Communication, 27(3), 293-317.
Light, R. L. (2001). Making the most out of college: Students speak their minds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Miller, C. (1984). Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 72, 151-167.
Miller, C. (1994). Rhetorical community: The cultural basis of genre. In A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Genre and the new rhetoric (pp. 67-78). London: Taylor & Francis.
Schryer, C. (2002). Genre and power: A chronotopic analysis. In R. Coe, L. Lingard & T. Teslenko (Eds.), The rhetoric and ideology of genre (pp. 73-102). Creskill, NJ: Hampton.