664 Blog 4: Two Steps Forward, (at least) One Step Back

Stout, Roland. “Good Writing Assignments = Good Thinking: A Proven WID Philosophy.” Language and Learning across the Disciplines 2.2 (1997): 9-17. The WAC Clearing House. Colorado State University. Web. 26 May 2011.

As I have been searching through different journals and collections, I have been looking for both theoretical and practical discussions of assignment development and evaluation. The title of this article initially attracted me, as I agree with the WAC/WID notions that writing is a means of thinking. And, since a chemistry professor wrote the article, I hoped to gain some insight into interdisciplinary perspectives on writing assignments. The article argues that instructors who develop a clear sense of what they want students to learn will be able to develop effective writing assignments that encourage more meaningful thinking in students. But the perspectives of writing offered here make this article problematic.

First, I want to address the benefits of this article, for what this professor attempts is exactly the kind of work writing instructors in English studies should be promoting, at least generally. Stout promotes helping students learn to think as members of a discipline, making the work they do more relevant to them and helping them retain and more meaningfully apply information. He also promotes a number of other elements writing instructors will likely applaud: writing as a process; deeper, more thoughtful revisions of texts; considerations of different rhetorical situations by having students write texts in different genres and for different audiences. Finally, he talks about developing assignments and exam questions that require different levels of thinking These all help students better understand various abstract chemistry concepts and are all notions many writing instructors endorse.

Despite Stout’s beneficial approaches, some of the assumptions about writing are troubling. The vast majority of these assumptions arise quite early in the piece, and some may even serve to undermine the good work his assignments attempt. First, much of how he defines “good” writing seems to rely on grammar and style. He wants “clear, concise writing” and note that “poor writing” consists of “awkward phrasing, improper grammar, illogical word choices” (10). Second, he seems to avoid much responsibility for teaching his students how to write well in his terms. He claims that he will help the students learn but immediately notes that, because he lacks specific training in writing instruction, he requires his students to go to the writing center. Furthermore, most of the commentary on students’ drafts prior to final drafts comes from their peers and from tutors, not from the professor (10-11). In short, this article seems to promote (even if unintentionally) ideas that good writing is superficially correct and that responsibility for writing instruction is minimally or not at all on instructors in the discipline, even if they rely on writing assignments in their classrooms. In considering the work that we and our colleagues from different disciplines do regarding writing assignments, we must attempt to challenge those assumptions that undermine more sound pedagogical practices, while praising the positive work our colleagues do to promote writing.