What Would Writing Intensive Studies Look Like?

They just need something to chew on...

In “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning ‘First-Year Composition’ as ‘Introduction to Writing Studies’”, Downs and Wardle assess many of the pitfalls of traditional mandatory freshmen writing courses. These classes often fail to prepare students for college-writing across a variety of disciples because they emphasize mechanical skills, separate writing from context, and assume the existence of a unified academic discourse that does not exist in practice.  Downs and Wardle rightly suggest that this model needs to be rethought and they propose transitioning to an ‘Intro to Writing Studies’ class in which students study the writing process (their own and others), thinking reflexively about it as they begin to draft college-level writing.

 While I think an ‘Intro to Writing Studies’ course would be highly beneficial and appealing for many students (particularly those who are already interested in and enjoy writing), I’m not sure that such a class will be any more universally helpful than the current model. I imagine that many eighteen-year-olds would be bored and put-off by the thought of a course that asked them to read about and study writing (even, maybe especially, their own). Such a course might be the academic equivalent of enrolling people who hate exercise in a 5:00 AM boot-camp—you might change some of their habits, but you risk alienating them further before you’ve even started. If you really wanted to help these individuals maintain active lifestyles, it might be better to encourage and support them in the pursuit a specific activity (swimming, biking, etc.) that they already enjoy.  Similarly, I think writing-intensive classes across a variety of disciplines should provide opportunities and support for students to dig into their own interests, enter an intellectual conversation about them, and engage in written work. This requires a course that asks them to focus on sustained writing projects and to think reflexively about those projects, but it need not be a ‘writing’ or an ‘English’ class. For instance, my younger brother might be described as a ‘reluctant writer’, but, when he was given the opportunity to choose to write a paper on prohibition and the history of drinking, he became an engaged and thoughtful reader.  He developed ideas that he wanted to share and became invested in the process of organizing, writing, and revising those ideas. He grew as a writer and as a problem-solver, developing mental persistence and a put-all-the-details-on-the-page-and-see-what-they-say attitude that have been useful to him in chemistry and engineering. (Side note: while I agree that self-reflexivity is crucial to skill transfer, I was otherwise fairly disappointed by Downs and Wardle’s approach to skill transfer. Certainly, we should strive to help students write across contexts, but I would argue for more nuanced and holistic thinking about education and experience. I’m convinced that I learned many of my “writing skills” through calculus, yoga, baking, and kayaking. And that engaged writing helps students develop a wide variety of other skills, some of which may not involve written words at all. Because the brain is a mysterious place.)  This happened in a U.S. history class that was writing intensive—and provided structure and guidance for student writers—but not explicitly about writing. Perhaps, in the long run, it might be more helpful to integrate supported opportunities for writing (and reflexivity about writing) into a wider variety of classes so that students can learn to create and reflect on the kind of writing they need to produce within their own academic contexts.