University Times

The School of Arts and Sciences has released an assessment of writing in its undergraduate curriculum that its authors hope will provide a basis to “reassess the curriculum and to reassess the appropriate levels of institutional support for undergraduate writing across the disciplines.”

The origin of the report dates back to 2003, when the Provost’s office was seeking a way to assess the writing program’s impact on students, English department chair David Bartholomae said.

Noting that the September 2004 U.S. New and World Report listed Pitt among the top 16 Writing in the Disciplines programs in the nation, Bartholomae said, “The provost knew we had a strong and highly regarded writing program but he wondered what measures we had to test or to demonstrate its effectiveness.”

Bartholomae said that kind of information couldn’t be gleaned from an SAT-style test of students’ general writing abilities. “What we needed was detailed knowledge of what was happening on the ground,” he said, acknowledging that even though he had spent more than 30 years directly engaged with student writing at Pitt, he knew little about what went on with regard to writing outside of his department. Pitt requires students to take an introductory composition course and two “W” (writing-intensive) courses, one of which must be in the student’s major.

“The goal of the study was to bring forward the experiences and expectations of students and faculty,” Bartholomae said at a March 23 event in Bruce Hall marking the study’s release.

“As you read it, you will frequently hear from students. Their comments are pointed, thoughtful, eloquent, sometimes critical, but always useful. You’ll also hear from faculty colleagues who provide detailed accounts of their courses, their writing assignments, their methods for responding to student writing, their expectations, their frank assessments of what their students do with ease and where they struggle.”

The study, initiated in spring 2004, consisted of a survey of existing W courses and others that require writing, focus groups with undergraduates and teaching assistants and teaching fellows, an online survey of juniors and seniors and interviews with 27 faculty members from across the disciplines selected for their interest in student writing.

Bartholomae co-directed the study with Beth Matway of the Department of English and the School of Arts and Sciences College Writing Board in conjunction with an advisory committee made up of Lisa D. Brush, sociology; Jean Ferguson Carr and Nick Coles, English; Lydia Daniels, biological sciences; James Lennox, history and philosophy of science; Edward Muller, history, and Chandralekha Singh, physics and astronomy.

A draft of study’s findings, presented to the Provost’s office during the 2005-06 academic year, prompted some action on the administration’s part. The final report includes details on those initial actions.

The courses

An inventory of Pitt courses found that outside of English and W courses, some 7 percent of the 1,956 courses offered during academic year 2003-04 noted in their course description that students would be required to write. Most frequently, that writing took the form of a term paper, followed by short papers and other writing such as journals or essay exams.

The study found W courses on the rise. Between fall 2003 and spring 2005, 165 different W courses were offered. But between fall 2007 and spring 2009, the number had grown to 184, an increase of about 11 percent.

Student input

The focus groups revealed that the writing assignments students valued most “are those that push them to think further and learn more” and “those that allow them to write about something that matters to them,” the report stated.

Students said they wanted detailed feedback from their professors and were helped most by written comments that made specific suggestions for revision of their work.

The survey sent to 1,000 juniors and 1,000 seniors showed that 90 percent of respondents thought writing was “important,” “very important” or “extremely important.”

Respondents indicated that they did a significant amount of writing beyond the required W courses. Students valued most “the assignments that ask them to work with ideas and to develop their own position in relation to assigned readings or data sets,” the report stated.

Students’ complaints focused on the variation in expectations among W courses. They also mentioned the amount of writing required in non-W courses, noting that it was writing that “didn’t seem to count.”

The survey also asked students for additional comments. One example drew laughter from the Bruce Hall audience. “You should have asked us whether long papers due at the end of the semester are helpful. They aren’t,” Bartholomae read.

Faculty input

The faculty survey provided “a rich menu of best practices from our colleagues across the disciplines,” Bartholomae said.

Faculty shared their approaches to the senior seminar course: Many chose to model the process of writing an article for a professional journal as the course’s long paper assignment. Others chose to use the senior seminar as an introduction to writing in professional business or industrial settings, the report stated.

Many of the faculty said they required smaller assignments leading to a larger project, providing “close commentary, models and strategies” for approaching the task and chances for students to revise their work.

According to the report, “A common thread across the interviews was a concern to make writing matter, to make it more than a routine and predictable classroom exercise.”

The report showed that faculty members felt students’ writing and preparation for writing courses had improved in the past decade and that students were prepared to handle work in advanced courses.

Still, the faculty found that the important qualities of clarity and coherence “were often lacking” and noted the importance of developing the ability to handle complex writing assignments requiring multiple sources, ideas or points of view.

Professors, when asked what support they would like in teaching writing, mentioned teaching assistants to serve both as readers and mentors; more visibility for the advanced writing courses in the disciplines, and additional incentives such as a stipend or course release to develop such courses or a teaching award for writing in the disciplines.

Administrative response

The report’s final section summarized the developments that have been put into place based on the information that was gathered and presented in draft form to the dean and provost. That 2007 draft report prompted the provost to provide funding for peer tutoring and for the creation of two lectureships: one (held by Matway) to support and build upon the successes of the initiatives described in the study and one (held by Beth Newborg) to support the School of Engineering’s first-year writing initiative.

Matway discussed Pitt’s Writing in the Disciplines faculty seminar that enables professors to create a new undergraduate course or transform an existing course so that writing plays a more central role.

Fellowships fund the participation of 10 faculty members in each term-long endeavor.

Support for the program, Matway said, “demonstrates that Arts and Sciences truly places a high value on the writing experience of our undergraduates regardless of what major they might be.”

Daniels, a professor in biological sciences and member of the advisory committee for the report, noted, “I think our English department supplies a very sound foundation for students to move into writing in the disciplines. But it’s that transition of writing [while] thinking like a biologist, thinking like a psychologist, thinking like an economist, that provides a real challenge.”

Daniels said she participated in the faculty seminar last year in an effort to increase the amount of writing in her department’s BioSci 0150 survey course.

The addition of four undergraduate writing fellows provided a second set of eyes to review students’ writing in her class of 300 students. Although writing assignments throughout the semester weren’t graded, Daniels said 90 percent of students participated.

“Among the things I’ve learned is that these students, even though most of them are freshmen, want to write. They want to learn how to write in the discipline, they want to learn how to express their understanding and their learning as we go through.”

In psychology, said faculty member Barbara Kucinski, undergraduate writing fellows are used in the research methods course — a required gateway course to the major. “For many of the students this is the very first exposure to research writing. Many of the students didn’t come from biology or chemistry necessarily so to them technical, dry, boring research writing is a very, very new endeavor,” she said.

Kucinski said Pitt’s Writing Center, which offers help to students, was “wonderful” but didn’t address writing from the perspective of various disciplines. “Oftentimes students who went to the Writing Center received help with their grammar and English but felt that something was missing,” she said.

In addition, Kucinski said lab instructors were telling her that they often had to deal with low-level writing issues and general organizational errors in students’ lab reports before being able to move on to deal with bigger issues with students’ methods.

Now, students have the opportunity to meet with a writing fellow before they submit their initial draft to the lab instructor for feedback, after the lab instructor comments, before the papers are graded and during the revision process. Students have been receptive to the peer input, she said. “They feel that if a fellow student doesn’t understand it, there’s a real problem. If faculty doesn’t understand it, it’s because they have different expectations.

“We’re hoping the extra pair of eyes and extra input is helping them learn to become better writers,” Kucinski said, adding that a survey of students’ thoughts on the new program is planned for the end of the spring term.

Patricia E. Beeson, vice provost for undergraduate and graduate studies, commended faculty for the reputation of Pitt’s composition program and the consistently above-average feedback from Pitt undergraduates on the University’s impact on their writing skills. She touted the value of the Arts and Sciences report as well.

“To continue to be an outstanding writing program, we need to do this sort of reflection. We need to ask ourselves and ask our students how well we’re doing,” Beeson said.

“This was really one of the University’s first forays into the assessment of student learning outcomes. As we continue down this road, if all of those assessments are nearly as successful as this one has been in focusing attention on the program, on what students are learning and in changing the programs to meet those needs once they perceive the strengths and weaknesses of the program, I think that we are going to be incredibly successful.”

The report can be viewed at www.provost.pitt.edu/assessment/resources.html under “University of Pittsburgh Resources and Examples.” Copies can be obtained by contacting Bartholomae at barth@pitt.edu.

—Kimberly K. Barlow