Teaching with Writing
Writing in the Disciplines at Pitt invites faculty members to enlarge the role of writing in their undergraduate classes by treating it as a powerful mode of inquiry. Practicing the forms of writing common in a given discipline enables students to speak its language, and so to enter into its ways of thinking and knowing, its modes of inquiry and genres of intellectual exchange.
When writing is well integrated into a course, both students and teacher can see that writing instruction advances content learning rather than competing with it.
Often, assignments are designed to help students move from one level of thinking to another—to take the next step necessitated by (and valued by) the discipline.
—University of Pittsburgh Study of Writing
Teachers in all fields can enhance their classes by treating student writing as a process for increasing understanding and for pushing thought along.
Sequencing Assignments
Teaching with writing is most effective when a course moves students through a series of related assignments, preparing them to complete a complex project or engaging them in the discipline’s modes of inquiry. Instructors should plan along the trajectory of the whole semester: What will students need to do before this, and after that?
The Scaffold divides a major project into a sequence of activities that take students through the stages of research, reading, thinking, and writing the project demands.
The Ensemble coordinates a variety of assignments that work together to develop students’ capacity for particular modes of thought and inquiry.
Requiring Revision
Students often report that they learn most (about writing, thinking, and course content) when they are asked to revise their work in meaningful ways.
In many courses, instructors use the revision process to open a first draft up to question, to provide the context for additional research and new lines of argument, to raise the problem of alternative points of view, to provide the occasion for attention to audience.
—University of Pittsburgh Study of Writing
Instructors can integrate revision into the assignment sequence, teaching students to transform their work by pursuing further learning.
