It's probably the case that we 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 3 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.
14 comments:
Hello from Tucson, Arizona! I am here for a few days to present at a conference on Developing and Assessing Intercultural Competence. It’s 70 degrees outside. :-)
For me, some of those “obstacles” are definitely not obstacles. As a French teacher, writing and speaking make up the foundation of my job and my discipline.
The three obstacles that are most relevant to me are all related to time, in my opinion.
• Irritation: “Too many students, not enough time.”
I know that classes across the US are getting bigger (I was a TA for classes of 230, 350 and 540 students at the University of Arizona and had friends working in classes of 1000 students), so my complaints that language classes are too big is not unique to my field. At USM, I’m actually really happy with the class sizes. Although we’re capped at 30 students, I usually have around 18 students. According to research’s suggestions about the ideal size of language classes, that’s still too big, but it’s a lot better than most schools I know, so I can’t complain too much.
How do I try to counteract the big class sizes? My most common solution is to do group and partner work so students get to practice speaking. Then we come together as a class to summarize or compare their discussions. Critics of groupwork (and some students) say that their partner might not be knowledgeable enough to help them, but in my opinion, just saying anything in French (even if it’s incorrect) is better than remaining silent. In my 400/500-level course, I have three graduate students that I can intersperse through the groups so there is always an authority figure to help facilitate group discussion in French. I’m really grateful to them. Another way that I’m trying to foster participation is with polleverywhere or white boards. Students can write down a summary of their group discussion or write their individual thoughts anonymously. This helps counteract student anxiety because the responses on polleverywhere are anonymous (and they get to practice writing, and I get immediate responses).
• Extrinsic needs: “There’s no reward for this extra work.”
Giving a lot of writing assignments (or very involved writing assignments) means that I need to spend a lot of time outside of class preparing the assignment and then even more time giving feedback. I’m not as bothered by this as I was as an overworked TA when I was told that I should spend 20 hours on my TA responsibilities (even though I needed to spend a lot more time to get everything done). Although I would have loved to have been paid overtime, I guess I can justify the many hours of outside work as (hopefully) making future work easier. For example, being clear about my expectations will help the students submit better work and prevent questions. Maybe it will make grading go quicker? I’m not convincing myself….
• Additional layer: “Writing/speaking intrudes on my course coverage.” “I already have so much to teach, I can’t add another thing.”
Having a long process for writing does take up my class/content time, and giving presentations takes a long time. How I try to counteract this is by having students do their final presentations in videos. This way they can also be creative and have fun with their work (and stress out less about speaking in French in front of their class). I think I could assign some of the writing process for at home and spread it out into manageable chunks. That way, I can still cover all the content that I have planned.
These are some interesting choices--I'm not sure that this is a comprehensive list, but since I used to work at the NC State writing Center, I will have to trust Chris Anson (who was not the director when I was there--the director was some woman who had once been "Miss Montana"-I wonder if writing was her special skill at the pageant--but I digress)
I certainly agree with Katie on the first point--Too many students, not enough time. i think this is the most valid excuse as there seems to be no good way to assess writing both quickly and well. I wrote an article about this with a few of my colleagues at Georgia State and I am happy to share our results--there's no good way.
That being said, there are creative ways to incorporate writing without having to grade 500 or 600 papers. I think that we may need to first approach writing assignments without thinking about "grading". Setting our goals and intentions before we begin the exercises(as my yoga instructor likes to say).
I will add in the pedagogical apathy component on a personal level, even if it may not be the same for all the rest of you. It is easy to coast in this job--and the students make it even easier with their own apathy. Case in point: sometimes my long writing assignments fall at the end of a semester. I often will encourage students that are eager to get comments back on their paper to note that on their paper when they turn it in, so that I will grade it first. Others never come back for their paper, never want it and don't care. Since I have been at USM, I have had ONE student ask for their paper back. ONE. Not that it is different at other schools, but with a stack of 30 papers and xmas break ahead of me, the desire to bust my butt for a student who will never read my comments is daunting at best. The obvious fix here is two-fold. First, I need to be less of a slacker. Second, I need to configure my assignments so that they do not promote wasted effort on my part or the moral hazard of the un-commented paper grade. Unlike multiple choice tests, etc; writing assignments seem kind of pointless unless you talk about the results with the student. that, again, brings us back into the time issue.
Finally,
I want to make a slight alteration to the "Our university doesn't provide the right resources". I think we have all of the resources we need. What I think is that our university (department, college, etc;) doesn't provide the right environment for students to appreciate these resources. By this I mean that I find myself being a huge stickler for writing style and content and I am constantly pushing the importance of writing on my students. They often let me know that I am the only one. So this makes me the hard-ass who has the crazy notion that "writing is important" and then they can forget about it when they go to their four other classes. IT would be LESS of an uphill battle if the values of writing were shared university wide. I'm sure those sentiments exist here, but I don't hear them. This is especially troubling in the College of Arts and Letters. At least WE could get behind this on a unified front. Sorry, I'm bitching...the solution? I don't know. Unilaterally, it seems like there is nothing more I can do, besides organize a university wide change in the curriculum or something and that would certainly lead us to the "Extrinsic needs" argument. I'm surely not going to do that.
I appreciate both Katie’s and Joe’s responses and feel that they bring up some relevant points related to perceived “obstacles” that hinder some’s integration of writing and speaking into curricula. Reflecting about English (as a discipline and not specific to USM), not all faculty view writing/speaking (w/s) as intrinsically linked to courses; thus, it is possible to have an element of avoidance in the discipline. This may come as a shock, especially for those of us who do weave the two in English courses (no matter the subject, literature or theory). Moreover, with the avoidance factor, some (again, not specific here) view teaching writing as the responsibility of solely composition courses and then blame those comp classes/faculty when upper-level students are struggling with writing skills when in actuality (like the reading for this week highlights), comp courses are not a one-stop shop to magically foster all the w/s skills students need. Rather, these skills should be covered throughout the college career – and colleges often do through writing-intensive courses. Like Joe, I would like to see a stronger writing culture at USM and hope that we are making positive influences in this area and can better integrate w/s across campus. Connected, one of the challenges (insert “obstacle” if you will) is the fact that students often enter as underprepared writers, and the blame-game continues, pointing fingers at high schools. But the lack of preparation should encourage the integration of w/s in courses—and in ways that enhance course content while building communication and critical thinking skills. The third “obstacle” that could play a role in the amount of w/s embedded in courses in the discipline (including the amount of time dedicated to drafts, workshops) could be irritation related to too many students (or even sections). The readings offer some historical explanation of composition as a field (indicating that courses are often taught by adjuncts, graduate students, or non-tenure-track faculty), and this still rings true. Plus, grading essays takes time, and composition classes are typically over the ideal size. A comp faculty teaching four sections of the same course could have 100 essays to grade (and some could interpret the drafts and various stages as 100 papers each time), but by incorporating grading strategies (such as minimal marking, verbal conferencing, etc) some of the burden is lifted. Regardless, I still think class sizes are too large and would like to be able to do more with less.
For me, the three biggest obstacles are definitely the time-related ones: writing/speaking intrudes on my course coverage; too many students, not enough time; there’s no reward for this extra work. In a studio art course, almost every assignment is as time-intensive to grade as a major research paper. Every assignment involves what one of our readings for this week described as the “ideal” situation for teaching and grading composition: an instructor who has a clear and personal sense of every student’s goals and process throughout the project, coupled with intensive and well-articulated feedback – in speaking or writing, or both – at every step along the way. Because the portfolio is the primary outcome of studio-based learning, it can be easy to imagine that only the portfolio matters and to plan classroom time accordingly. But for my students, almost all of whom plan to become professional designers, communication is oral and written as well as visual. So I invest a lot of energy in trying to overcome the resistance to practicing non-visual communication skills. My time is at a premium, too, so I’ll be honest: in my studio courses, I try to make sure very few of these communication activities need to be graded. This is less the case when I teach design history, where there are some major written and spoken components that are graded, but I still try to come up with lots of good practicing-communication activities that don’t require grading. Here are some things I’ve tried to combat the specific time-based obstacles that I chose –
Intruding on course coverage: We practice writing and/or speaking about content-specific subjects. I’ve actually had a lot of success asking students to have critical discussions about specific aspects of their portfolio project work. I also try to have at least one written critique each semester, in which every student is assigned the work of a peer and they write about it, analyzing its successes and failures. Since critique is something we practice a lot, verbally and in a large group setting, having small group discussions and even written critiques can be a natural extention of a skill that’s already familiar for my students. And since we’re discussing their portfolio work, which is the primary focus of the course, it feels like an extension of rather than an intrusion on the work.
Too many students, not enough time: This is problematic for me when I’m actually grading the writing or speaking that my students do. Like I said before, my students do a lot of speaking and writing that I don’t grade, though I do try to make sure there’s always some form of feedback. If students have been practicing “pitching” their work to clients, we’ll spend time after the pitches talking about what makes the more successful ones better than the less successful ones. Or if they’ve done a written critique exercise, we’ll talk about what makes a critique more or less useful to the designer and/or to a broader audience. But if I’m individually grading formal assignments that have a point value according to the grading rubric, this is a tricky obstacle. Having a really good rubric makes the grading process quicker, but giving substantive and useful feedback is time consuming.
There’s no reward for this extra work: This is the one where challenging the assumption or solving the problem seems insurmountable. There is no structural, institutional reward for trying to make sure my students know how to communicate. I’m happy when I can help my students be successful and reach their goals. But making that happen doesn’t achieve anything for me on an institutional level, and that’s frustrating.
I must admit that I have mentioned each of these “obstacles” over the course of my teaching many times. I sometimes find myself meshing three of the mentioned obstacles together to form my own diatribe. The obstacle that speaks to me the most is “the additional layer” – I have too much substantive information to teach already, there is not enough time in the semester to also teach students how to write and speak effectively. This obstacle then leads me to blame by saying, “Come on! They should been taught how this stuff in high school”. I then finish off my statement with, “Even if I could teach them this technical stuff, it is impossible because I have too many students.”
Solutions to these collective obstacles would be to somehow seamlessly integrate writing and speaking into the classroom. To help eliminate the “additional layer” obstacle, my Criminological Theory class could benefit by having the students utilize class time to reflect on the reading (this would also increase the chances of them actually reading the text). I then could provide immediate/initial feedback by enlisting fellow peers to critique their writing. Then after they revise based on peer response. I could then provide feedback to them on their writing. Then they can revise and hand in a final version indicating how they addressed my comments. I need to find out ways to almost bring the graduate student atmosphere to undergraduate students.
Of the choices presented, I agree with what most everyone has posted. Time is the biggest issue for me.
Too many students, not enough time.
While reading both rough and final drafts for written work is time consuming, I find that the Turnitin software lifts some of the burden when grading writing assignments. I resisted using Turnitin for some time and still find some features cumbersome, but the grammar check and other features mean that I spend far less of my time correcting grammatical issues or checking for plagiarism and more time on reading for content, organization/style and correct citation. Also, I allow my students to submit multiple drafts and to see the reports so that they have an opportunity to correct their own work before I grade it. Do most of my students take advantage of this? No. Do some of them? Yes, and it is no extra work for me to set it up to allow early or multiple submissions. Don’t get me wrong. There are still some large limitations to any software and I still have to get in there and read. I make a concerted effort to provide as much feedback as necessary on all rough drafts. The pedagogical apathy that Joe mentions shows up for me around the final draft stage. I have already read these papers, and now there are finals and other end of term projects to grade as well. However, I have found that Turnitin pushes me to be better at providing comments on final drafts because students have immediate access to them and they don’t have to come as ask me for their papers, so they will check.
There’s no reward for this extra work.
I haven't found a tangible reward for doing this extra work. As Joe mentions, if you do require substantive writing and speaking assignments, and then grade them as they should be graded, you are labeled. I hear students say to each other, “Oh, you don’t want to take that class, that’s a Dr. Walker class.” While I am not personally distressed by this, it sets students up to be afraid of areas in the discipline or afraid of writing/speaking. I completely understand why some of my colleagues in the sciences have “given up” teaching how to write lab reports. When I complain about the work load, the common answer is that I brought it on myself. It isn’t required, so why do it? This will sound cliché or plain sappy, but I guess I am going to say it since it is the one thing that keeps coming to mind as I type this. The reward comes when you know you have reached a student and made a difference in how they write and it is a double reward when they realize that you helped them progress.
Writing/speaking intrudes on my course coverage. I already have so much to teach, I can’t add another thing.
This is probably what I struggle with the most. Content must be covered or you don’t prepare your students to move on. I have to admit that this is why I don’t require students to present in my genetics class (~40 students) but do require them to do so in my other 300-400 level classes (~15-20 students). It is absolutely imperative that students be able to write and speak when they join the work force. So, I do feel it is an important part of my job to help reinforce those skills. However, what will they write and speak about if they are deficient in content? As you can see, I haven’t solved this dilemma.
I want to start by saying there have been some really great points and comments brought up on the “obstacles” so far. I always incorporate speaking and writing (s/w) into all of my classes because I see the need and know the benefit of them for my students, despite the obstacles.
“It’s the fault of the high schools. Our university doesn’t provide the right resources.” I consistently see that my students lack appropriate speaking and especially writing skills. As I can see that they have taken college courses covering these topics, it is very easy to play the blame game. It is easy to say their underpreparation comes from high schools. However, schools these days are understaffed and teachers are not necessarily allowed to do their jobs to betterment of the students due to directives from the state, excessive disciplinary issues, etc. Therefore, I really don’t think it is entirely the fault of the high schools, per se. There are so many other factors that contribute to the performance of students, including their upbringing, family life, and social life that have to be taken into consideration, making pointing fingers very difficult. To that end, the University does offer sufficient resources for students to help improve their s/w skills. The fact that students do not take advantage of the resources available to them is not a failure on the institution’s part for the student’s poor performance either. Therefore, I agree wholeheartedly with Rachel’s comment stating that the lack of preparedness in s/w should warrant incorporation of these assignments into courses while reinforcing course content and forcing critical thinking.
“I already have so much to teach, I can’t add another thing.” While I’m sure would all would love to teach everything we know in a course or every chapter from a textbook, the fact of the matter is we cannot. If we are all in agreement that students a deficient in s/w skills, then it is worth the time to help them develop these skills. These students are majoring in their respective disciplines with the aspirations to one join the workforce, so being able to effectively speak and write is a skill worthy of the time it takes to help them develop it. I think we all too often forget that students can and do still learn content through doing s/w assignments. So with some skillfully designed assignments, it is possible to kill 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak. To help students develop their writing skills, I break up assignments into smaller assignments done in sections with instructions given in intervals so as not take up too much class time. I also believe that allowing students to peer-critique other students work after a short discussion about expectations for assignments can be helpful for student writing skills. I also believe that allowing students to grade each other’s assignments (anonymously) goes a long way for helping them in their own s/w process.
“Too many students, not enough time.” Yes it is hard to deal with s/w assignments with large classes! However, all writing assignments do not have to be long research papers. Not all speaking assignments have to be 15 minutes. There are s/w assignments that can be given that are short yet effective at helping our students develop these skills. As Don said, not all assignments have to necessarily be graded. As long as feedback is given, then the assignment can be worthwhile. As I stated earlier, I think peer-critiquing is an incredibly powerful tool and can be used to help deal with this issue. I guess I should state that peer-review is vital to biological sciences as a discipline.
Hello all,
Misconception--My discipline is about dance, not writing or speaking. I must admit that I often think about this when I feel as if I am arbitrarily giving a writing assignment (in a technique class specifically). However, I realize that I must reframe my thinking here. Based on the mission of what we aim to achieve in the Dept. of Dance, my students should not only be skillful in artistry and expressivity when moving, but they need to also be articulate about what they are doing and why. This also has a direct link to a student's future successes in grant writing, applying for jobs, auditioning etc.
Closely related to my first choice (and without being a snob...ha), my teaching is pretty good as is. In terms of my primary contact with students being in a studio setting, I am mostly pleased with what the students achieve as a result of my teaching. However, I would be delusional to think that I could simply continue with what I am currently doing and all would be well. In order to truly feel a shift in the culture of what my students do, say, think, etc., I also have to be willing to break the mold on what it is that I do as well.
I have blamed the preparation of my students (esp. in Dance Appreciation) on their high schools more often than not. I agree with Joe and the many others that have commented on the resources that are available through the university but are not exploited, if you will. I can personally say that many of the dance students do not utilize the resources available to them simply because their schedules are so packed. As a result, we have a dance writing tutor in house (one of our students is the "go to gal" when students need help with organization, editing, etc.). However, most of the students don't use the help of the dance writing tutor either...again I think that it is related to a much needed shift in thinking on behalf of my students and what I can personally do to encourage them to use the resources available to them
The primary obstacle for me is the "Additional Layer" -- I do feel that having to cover writing and speaking in a literature class does take away from content. At the same time, I feel that both are very important, so I am trying to overcome feeling that there's no time. I found the Bean reading very helpful. And our library has that book, if any of you are interested -- as a book-book and as an e-book. Irritation also enters in as does the blame option -- students arrive unprepared and the challenges at times seem overwhelming. I also have trouble during workshops of keeping students interested in reading and commenting on the drafts. Mostly, I feel they don't want to hurt the feelings of the writers, so they talk about other things. So, I want to work on that and not feel that the time is lost for them and for me.
I think the 3 obstacles that are most applicable to me are blame, additional layer and irritation. As for blame, I have often commented that students are not being properly prepared before coming to USM; however, I don't think it is entirely the fault of high schools. I think there has been either a cultural shift in feeling about the importance and value of educating oneself or our students primarily come from a culture where it has never been important. It is a problem that runs far deeper than the efforts of a few teachers can reach. I have also commented that I have so much to teach that I don't have time to spend class time explaining how to write or speak. That is said out of frustration, though, because I actually feel it is my duty to educate my students in every way, and nothing signifies a poorly educated person more quickly than bad writing or speaking. Every second we spend helping our students in these areas is worth it. Finally, I am often irritated at the amount of time it takes to grade papers as most of my fellow performing colleagues are not required to teach academic classes and, therefore, don't have to spend their time doing this. I struggle because I find myself feeling like I basically need to rewrite every student's paper. Perhaps I need to realize that every little bit of help I give is worth it and that it is not necessary to spend so much time on every paper.
Hmmm . . . have heard most of these from colleagues in my discipline at one time or another, and have some sympathy for the various points. Most of the speaking/writing in our curriculum is driven by Assessment of Learning goals/requirements. There is some misconception going on: accounting is about technical competence first, and other skills second, so most would say. But, of course, learning technical competence and other skills need not be mutually exclusive pursuits. Along with the misconception obstacle comes the additional layer argument: in the lower level major coursework, especially, everyone is always working hard to make sure the allocated material to be covered is part of their course and consequently no one feels like he/she has extra time/space for "luxury" pedagogy. Careful planning and accomplishing multiple goals simultaneously helps to get all the boxes checked (most of the time). And the extrinsic needs obstacle is omnipresent: including the writing/speaking components does increase workload. The AOL goals do help motivate most of the faculty in this regard. With regard to myself personally, I can't help but feel that my time involvement would decrease if I were more experienced/proficient/efficient in my grading of the writing/speaking assignments themselves. Perhaps that's a delusion, but I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to give constructive feedback, which may well go ignored by the student. I (at least) want to do this aspect of it better - regardless of whether it's ignored or read!
Such fantastic comments here. This should kick off our conversation well tomorrow. See you there!
Three obstacles that I perceive:
1. I make comments or corrections and the student has no idea what I am talking about - that is, they are not very prepared to do this task and they are Seniors!
2. The writing is so bad that I don't even know where to begin to correct it.
3. They have missed the point of doing this research paper and resent me for making them do it at all.
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