Instructional Strategies for Emphasizing Writing in the Classroom

1
Instructional Strategies for Emphasizing Writing
in the Classroom

• presented by
• Judith M. Davis, Director
• Writing Technology Laboratory
• Hampton University Faculty Institute
• January 7, 2003

2
First ask

• Who?
• What?
• Why?
• When/where?
• How?

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Who needs to write?

• Faculty
• Students
• All college educated professionals

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What do we write?

• Faculty
• Students
• Disciplinary professionals

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What types of writing?

• abstracts
• case studies
• essays
• research papers
• term papers
• lab reports
• articles
• reading responses

• journals
• literature reviews
• scripts
• arguments
• analyses
• instructions
• process descriptions
• essay tests

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Why write?

• To express oneself
• To learn material
• To demonstrate knowledge
• To communicate ideas
• To persuade others

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When and where do we write?
Out-of-Class
In-class
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How do we write?

• Fluency?Form?Correctness
• Planning Revising
• Drafting
  Editing
• Cognitively
• Collaboratively
• Competence errors
• Performance errors

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How can we best incorporate writing into our
courses?

• Define goals and objectives (course and
  assignments)
• Break up large projects
• Sequence assignments for increasing mastery
• Plan some assignments that allow students to
  write to learn
• Schedule preliminary assignments leading up to a
  large project

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How can we best incorporate writing into our
courses?

• Consider how the project(s) will be evaluated
  (both as individual assignments and in the
  broader context of the course grade)
• Put assignments in writing and include evaluation
  criteria on the assignment sheet
• Encourage students to use the Writing Technology
  Laboratory