(Based on an article by
Jon D'Errico and June Griffin)
All ENWR students are novices at reading and constructing college
or professional-level academic arguments. Novice writers are hampered
by a fairly predictable set of problems:
*They aren't sure what a good paper looks like. They read relatively
few models (textbooks and occasional articles), and even in the
models, they often can't recognize which features they should
imitate.
*They can't imagine any readers other than their instructor,
and they rarely understand what their instructor is interested
in.
*They don't know enough. They possess relatively few facts about
the discipline they want to write in, and they don't appreciate
what makes a good problem or question to tackle in an academic
essay.
There are some straightforward ways to deal with these problems
when designing assignments:
Provide model papers, good and bad.
As a class, talk about what distinguishes good writing from bad.
Use sample student writing as well as more professional/academic
pieces.
Identify specific audiences.
Begin with non-academic audiences (for example, instead of asking
students to write about a painting, ask them to write to
a museum board explaining why they ought to bid on the painting
at auction;
instead of asking them to write about genetically-modified
foods, ask them to write to the European Union's commission
on
agriculture.
As a rule, it's easier to write for knowledgeable readers
than to uninformed readers, and for a single reader than to
multiple
readers. When you move on to academic audiences, explain
what that academic audience is interested in learning.
Break essays down into smaller stages.
A finished essay requires many smaller tasks: understanding the
reading, formulating a question worth asking, supporting
a claim with reasons, accumulating evidence, learning the language
of
the discipline, citing sources. Novice writers need to
work on these
matters separately. Create small assignments designed to
tackle
specific aspects of essay writing, and check in on student
progress (either by reading and responding to individual
assignments, or through class workshops). Some stages leading
up to an
essay are:
* reading summaries
* a list of similarities or differences between two authors/ideologies
* a list of questions based on the readings
* description of why a question would be of interest to
the audience
* an outline of reasons and evidence
* annotated bibliography
* introduction
* draft
Include revision.
Allow writers to respond to comments, yours or their peers'.
See workshopping for advice on soliciting productive
peer comments.
Choose frequent short writing assignments instead of periodic
long assignments.
These assignments allow novice writers to build up their
skills. Short writing assignments include:
* discussion questions
* reading summaries
* annotated bibliographies
* outlines
* lists of evidence for or against a position
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