Writing Assignments Across the Disciplines

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.