We probably all agree with the idea that speaking and writing across the curriculum is important. There are, of course, obstacles that we have to overcome if we are to succeed in integrating speaking/writing into the curriculum, however. Here are a just a few of the commonly listed complaints about using writing and speaking assignments in the classroom (credited to Chris Anson at North Carolina State University, Director of the Campus Writing and Speaking Program):
- Avoidance: “It’s not my job—I’m not a writing/speaking person”
- Anxiety: “I’m not a great speaker/writer myself”
- Blame: “It’s the fault of the high schools” “Our university doesn’t provide the right resources”
- Additional layer: “Writing/speaking intrudes on my course coverage.” “I already have so much to teach, I can’t add another thing.”
- Pedagogical apathy: “My teaching is pretty good as is.”
- Misconception: “My discipline is about _____, not writing/speaking.”
- Irritation: “Too many students, not enough time.”
- Extrinsic needs: “There’s no reward for this extra work.”
Choose the 2 obstacles that you think are most applicable to your situation and then reflect on ways that the assumption is wrong or present possible solutions to the problem.
9 comments:
I will discuss two obstacles that apply to my teaching.
1. Anxiety, "I am not a great speaker/writer."
Our online courses have come a long way from a basic text typing to a live synchronized session. Students desire to see us live. However, my colleagues and I agree somehow there is only a couple of students willing to speak during the class. A great majority of them choose to type. Maybe, texting is such a norm in today's world. It always takes me by surprise how outgoing those presumably "quiet" ones were when I met them face to face for the first time at the professional conferences. I was curious enough to ask them why. They said they were intimated to say something wrong in class. Looking back on my student days, I probably did the same to my instructors. Only now myself as an instructor, I have to speak and guide the class, which has made my speaking less anxious. I wish to find a better strategy to overcome this obstacle because our in-class communication will be easier and more direct.
2. My discipline is about "technology," not writing and speaking.
Our field is largely divided into public service(reference service for patrons) and technical service(organizing information). I have taught a few courses in the camp of technical service, technology oriented. My course assignments include hands-on practice and project writing. There are a plethora of ever-changing concepts and technology applications. I do spend a certain amount of time preparing. During the class, though I encourage students to think critically, given the novelty of concepts and tools, they text and remain silent. During our faculty meeting colleagues share how they incorporate video-making and oral presentation to facilitate their classes. That has made me rethink of my assignments. I can add more speaking components and incorporate effective writing for students.
One of my obstacles is the fear that I may incorrectly correct their writing! I have learned to refer to the handbooks and to attempt to model, but find myself pressed for time to give each student feedback every time. So, I have been working to give intense attention to the first writing practice, then reminding them to refer to the notes I have made. I also encourage them to use sites such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).
Also, I have to take into account that our language is living and some of the 'rules' and customs of language change. So again, I have to check the newer handbooks, dictionaries and style guides. I often check OWL for myself.
I was taught to write papers in third person, to never self-reflect and that the word 'data' is a plural form. So part of the first obstacle, fear of being incorrect is compounded by being afraid I will be seen as crazy for electing to enforce 'old fashioned' rules. Students will quickly point to the informal writing in popular publications, and I will counter with writings from prestigious peer reviewed journals. However, even some of those are taking to the less formal writing style. Ultimately, it is my insecurity and lack of strong time management skills. So I can work on those, and tell stories on myself so students will understand they too will one day see changes in writing and technology that surprise them.
In speaking, my second obstacle, like writing, is a tendency to be verbose. Sometimes amusing, but tedious for students and probably not a good model. I have tried to tighten my lectures, use more refined outlines, and plan graphics (yes, I use PowerPoint) to add focus. Students have been asking for the Power Points, and assure me it seems to help me stay on track. Next, getting them to speak more easily in the space we use, seems dependent upon how much I link 'participation' credit to actual speaking and presenting. It is a process.
J
I typically take the approach that if the student has made the effort to complete a task I've assigned, then I should, out of respect for the student's effort, give as much feedback as I can. That being said, I have often found myself saying:
“It’s not my job—I’m not an English teacher and/or “My discipline is about Nursing, no grammar.”
My profession is all about communication, so I can't, in good conscience, say it's not about speaking or writing. But I do get very frustrated because our society is no longer about speaking or writing but texting and sound bites. Communicating in snippets does not reinforce linguistic competency in budding professionals.
There is also only so much I can correct without leaving students feeling totally incompetent. Students cannot typically differentiate between the feedback I give based on the topic from feedback I give based on the mechanics of written communication communication. It's not as difficult in oral presentations when I can talk about nonverbal communication. But sometimes I feel that I am overloading the students with feedback. Even though I make an effort to give positive feedback also, I find I need to make a choice between correcting the mechanics of the writing or providing feedback on content.
Also, to follow a comment by J, so many instructors have given conflicting feedback on mechanics of style, grammar, and format (including APA format) that the students are more confused by feedback on those areas and tell me they don't know whose advice to follow. Because of this I am often reluctant to do more than give more specific feedback than "you might want to reconsider rewording" or "watch your tenses." At USM I have begun sending students to the writing center, of course, that's not a foolproof approach, and, because my undergrads are all graduating seniors, I feel like I am locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen!
I guess I would distill my two greatest obstacles as 1] working with seniors who have not developed good communication skills during the previous 4 years and 2] needing to pick my battles - form or substance - I have chosen to focus on substance because if I don't, the arguments about form overshadow my comments about substance.
I sure wish I could go back and edit so I can correct those things that may not be misspelled but are not the correct word!
I think the two common complaints that most accurately apply to my situation are "Additional Layer" and "Irritation."
1. Because the undergraduate courses I teach are not writing intensive I don't spend any time teaching my students how to write. Devoting even one lecture to basic writing would throw my syllabus off schedule and require me to rearrange the rest of the semester. I also wouldn't have the time to grade 100+ writing assignments. At the graduate level this is less of a concern because I have enough contact with my doctoral students outside of class that I can use to provide them feedback on their writing and I will eventually read their thesis and dissertation proposals, if nothing else. For my undergraduates, the best solution would be to find an alternative way to provide them the opportunity to write that doesn't require any instructional time but also doesn't require too much of my time outside of class either. The writing I have them do for extra credit kind of takes care of this since not all students choose to take advantage of the opportunity but I may only engage 20% of my students in this way. A solution to this might be for me to require all of my students to complete an online writing assignment and have them engage in anonymous peer grading. I could write instructions for them to reduce the amount of time I spend talking about the assignment in class and I could rely on my TA to mediate the process online. Of course, this would require my TA to have adequate writing skills too, which isn't always the case!
2. The other complaint is very similar to the first. In my class of 100+ students it would be very difficult to find the time to provide each student with detailed feedback on a writing/speaking assignment. I raised the idea of peer-mediated assessment in my first point but I would lose a lot of quality control in doing that. Even if I relied on my TA to help with grading we may both end up trying to grade 50 or more papers at the end of the semester and I feel as though the quality of my feedback would suffer as a result. Another option would be to allow students to work together in groups on a single writing/speaking assignment but then I fear one or two groups members would do most of the work and not all students would participate equally.
I'm not sure what the ideal solution to these two complaints is but I'm hoping our discussion this week gives me some ideas to better engage my students' writing/speaking skills in an efficient manner!
No one in my field can legitimately claim that it's not about writing/speaking (not that this prevents some folks from trying), so complaints are usually about the time necessary to address writing with a class of 150 (or even 30) and blaming the lack of skills on high school or the resources available at USM.
I actually do think its true that with a class of 150 students there is only so much we can do. Students wanting individual attention to writing need to come see me or avail themselves of the writing center or other tutoring opportunities. That said, when I told my students that they needed to find at least one thing they would take out of the course, I emphasized that improving writing could be that thing. I did that, knowing that I wouldn't be able to help all of them, because if they just find some motivation they can do some of the work themselves -- and some of them did come to see me. In addition, I also scratched off a day of content and focused solely on writing. I had them bring their first papers with them to class. I spent about 20 minutes explaining the most common mistakes, giving them concrete suggestions on how to write the next one, and then had them revise their first papers on the basis of those mistakes. It was a small thing to do, but I did see some lights go on while we were doing it.
There is also truth to the second complaint. But my response is that we have the students we have, not the ones we want. One way I have tried to address this fact is by finding new kinds of assignments that students may see as more relevant to the way they communicate. This is one reason why I've used blogs and wikipedia and oral presentations; to show students that the skills we learn in history class are applicable to the way they already communicate as well.
Blame: “It’s the fault of the high schools.” In my area (music) I see many students who come to Southern Miss who are unprepared, not only for university level music studies, but seemingly for university studies of any type. Whose fault is it? I don't know. I fear the "solution" is to dummy down our curricula to meet the students instead of not accepting under-prepared students--essentially making their freshmen year the thirteenth grade of high school. There doesn’t seem to be the time and resources to create remedial classes for these students. (As an aside, my wife is an elementary school music teacher. If the majority of our incoming freshmen music students met the State of Mississippi standards for FOURTH GRADE students, I’d be so excited.)
Additional layer: “Writing/speaking intrudes on my course coverage.” “I already have so much to teach, I can’t add another thing.” I think I would restructure this complaint to "I wasn't hire to teach speaking/writing to undergrads, let the English and Speech professors do that." In music, most faculty are hired because they have a specialty in a very specific, and narrow, area. I was hired to teach music theory, not clarinet performance, for example, and I definitely couldn't teach anyone to sing! My class time is devoted to teaching students to read, write and understand music, not how to write an essay or give a speech on political protest. (See my comments above on the level of preparedness of many of my students to understand why I don’t feel I have time to also teach writing and speaking.) However, I am here to educate, and if the area needing emphasis happens to be outside of music theory, I am willing to use the abilities and resources I have to help the student. Sometimes this is directing them to an expert; sometimes it has been working with them myself.
Danny
Like others have said about their fields, writing and speaking are essential parts of my field. My courses revolve around both formal and informal writing assignments and informal speaking, in the form of class discussions. Adding formal speaking assignments is rarer for me, and I suppose I have sometimes avoided them in part because of the "additional layer"- that is, I did not want speaking assignments to detract from or replace writing assignments, which students so desperately need from their English classes. Maybe I would add something to the list, which is that when I work with students who have stronger speaking skills than writing skills, which I often do here at USM, I am motivated to focus assignments on the area they need more help in, which is writing. But the truth is the students differ in their needs, and there are also strong writers who could use support with formal speaking. _Morgan
My main issue is how to correct their writing without re-doing too much for them. Some students have written so poorly that I could not believe they were Seniors in college. I wish that, those courses that are writing intensive were required to have an English course to "monitor" it. I wonder what is being taught in English 101 and 102? It seems a more integrative approach would help those of us who do not teach English composition and would make the English comp. classes more meaningful. The idea of applied activities instead of busy work. There is much to be written and communicated in the field of interior design, but it is specific to our field and a standard English class has no relationship to my world.
My students don't need creative writing - they need the means to present solid "arguments" and to talk about elements of the built environment in the proper language.
Designers have been riffed for saying they need to "tweak the plan" or "play around with it", which only demeans our work. Professional terms focused on the Career at hand would be a much better way to teach speaking and writing.
Remember, I am new to teaching so that allows me to ask, what if...
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