Students talk writing in new poll

You love writing-intensive courses. At least that’s what a survey of more than 600 Pitt… You love writing-intensive courses. At least that’s what a survey of more than 600 Pitt students said. The School of Arts and Sciences released the 80-page study on Monday, containing information comprised from student focus groups, student surveys and faculty interviews conducted since 2004 by a committee of professors and English department chair David Bartholomae. Part of the goal of the study was to find what writing was actually being done in W-courses ‘- courses that fulfill a general education requirement for writing ‘mdash; and what professors expected of their students, said Bartholomae. The questions in the survey asked for students to detail their feelings on the importance of writing at Pitt and to their own education. The survey also provided an open-ended section for students to comment. In the survey, most students said that writing was either extremely important or very important to their education at Pitt, major, career or life beyond college. Less than 5 percent of students said it was not important. As far as potential curriculum changes in response to the study, ‘I don’t see anything new coming down the pike,’ said Bartholomae. A proportionately small number of students rated science-related writing, such as lab reports, as important. This was attributed to a low number of natural-sciences majors responding, according to the survey. Professor Chandralekha Singh, a member of the advisory committee that coordinated the study, said that the low number of natural-science majors responding might also reflect a smaller number of majors in the School of Arts and Sciences. The study also featured a series of interviews with more than two dozen of the School of Arts and Sciences faculty. They were asked questions about the course load in W-courses and their expectations. Many of the practices detailed in the interviews reflected the expectations of students in the open-ended parts of the survey. Students asked for detailed, constructive feedback and smaller, more numerous assignments that allow them to work to larger assignments later in the semester. ‘We wanted to feature examples of best practice,’ said Bartholomae. Bartholomae expressed a hope that the survey will be distributed among the faculty to foster increased interest in the writing program at Pitt. Pitt recently introduced the undergraduate writing fellows program to address a perceived gap in the curriculum between general education requirements and those in the major. This was particularly apparent in majors heavily emphasizing the sciences, and others that require certain specific styles of writing, according to the study. The University Writing Center was limited to basic grammar and English usage corrections of students’ work, and could not be familiar with the conventions of individual fields, said Lydia Daniels, a biology professor. The undergraduate writing fellows are eight juniors and seniors who have been trained by the University Writing Center and work with Daniels and psychology professor Barbara Kucinski, also piloting the program. The goal of the program is to expand writing for freshmen in the natural sciences. At the moment, only these two professors’ courses feature these undergraduate fellows. Within one year, Daniels plans to have a prepared system for writing in the foundations of biology course, eventually expanding it to a larger portion of the biology courses.