Introducing "Writing in the Disciplines" (WID)
As a teaching practice, writing in the disciplines begins from the recognition that successful student learning is not ultimately measured by how well students report course content back to us on a final exam, but by how well they apply what they've learned in situations outside the classroom.
If successful teaching is measured by students' ability to use what we've taught them after the class is over-on their own and in real life rather than in pre-packaged contexts-it immediately becomes clear that one of our most urgent objectives is to teach students to think like members of our disciplines. As teachers we help students develop expertise not by teaching them facts, but by helping them learn the thought processes and conceptual operations of our field. We teach them what to notice in a situation, how to recognize relevant information, what kinds of questions to ask, what kinds of data to collect, what kinds of answers count as answers, and what to do with answers once they have them.
The goal of WID, then, is to speed up and reinforce the process of teaching students to think like members of the discipline by teaching them to write like members of the discipline. Teaching someone to think like a ______ is a long-term project-definitely not something that can happen in a single course or a single semester. But it's the difference between a program that produces graduates who are competitive in the workforce (and whose employers keep coming back to PSU for more graduates) and one that doesn't.
Writing in the disciplines is the theme of much of what the WAC program will be bringing you for 2009, beginning with a workshop on designing writing assignments on January 13th. Look for more information about this and other programs in the next couple of days.
"First Thoughts on Writing" are brought to you by the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program. For more information about the WAC program at PSU, please browse our website or contact the WAC directors.