Are Your Students Writing?

Event Date & Time

Event Description

Pillar: Transformative Learning

Lectures and discussions cover complex ideas that students might not otherwise give themselves enough time and space to reflect on class content, or to forge connections that will allow them to remember and use ideas from assigned readings, lectures, and other projects. In-class, informal writing can help accelerate student learning and understanding, and when assigned regularly, can lead students to develop insightful, critical, and creative thinking. It can be used to generate questions for further, deeper discussion, and explore student connections to the material. It can inform future lectures, discussions and class-by-class pacing.

This interactive presentation will discuss different writing strategies and their benefits that can be adapted to writing or learning in your course, and any one of them can be done in just a few minutes with tremendous results for students. You will be encouraged to contribute to the discussion and participate in several writing exercises ranging from free-writing and scenarios to micro-themes and logbooks. You will work individually, in pairs and in small groups.

At the end of the session, you will be able to:

1. Articulate and apply various writing exercises to their own disciplines
2. Describe the benefits of term-long, in-class writing in any discipline
3. Explain how writing prompts aid critical reading of texts

Facilitator

John Vigna, Instructor, Department of Creative Writing

Resources

• Bean, John. C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
• Weimer, Maryellen. Informal Writing Assignments: Promoting Learning Through Writing. Faculty Focus. Magna. 6 November 2012. Web. 22 July 2013. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/effective-teaching-strategies/informal-writing-assignments-promoting-learning-through-writing/. Based on research by Hudd, S.S., Smart, R.A., and Delohery, A.W. My understanding has grown, my perspective has switched: Linking informal writing to learning goals. Teaching Sociology, 39.2 (2011), 179-189.