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Written communication is a skill I\u2019ve been practicing since the third grade. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk eleven years ago, pencil in hand, scribbling down a few paragraphs about why owls were my favorite animal. As the years passed, the conversations I was having in my writing became more sophisticated, but its premise remained the same. Like my essay on owls when I defended my favorite animal backed by evidence \u2014 they\u2019re cool because they\u2019re nocturnal and have big eyes \u2014 my essays in college discussing the implications of gender and race in feminist poetry also require the same thought processes: choosing a position then discussing that stance backed by evidence.<\/p>\n
The University of Michigan, like many other universities of its kinds, requires all incoming students to complete a First-Year Writing course<\/a> that\u2019s designed to prepare students for the academic writing they may encounter in their classes or even their future careers. \u201cThe University\u2019s goals are determined by LSA and they focus on practices of inquiry, reading, summarizing, analyzing, and synthesizing other texts,\u201d said Laura Aull, director of the English Department Writing Program at The University, in an interview. \u201c[The program focuses on] analyzing how writers achieve what they do, developing strategies for the writing process, and then developing metacognitive strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n Aull took over the role as director just last month, but she\u2019s come into the position with a strong background in First-Year Writing through her years of research on similar programs at Wake Forest University. Through her experience, she has a good grasp of what works well in First-Year Writing courses and its benefits for students. \u201cOne thing that we know from research in higher education is that students who write regularly and who write what they feel are authentic genres have a higher level of academic and social development,\u201d she said. According to Aull, the benefits of writing extend beyond students\u2019 college careers and can be of use in their future endeavors. \u201cWriters in all fields end up having to articulate their ideas and contributions,\u201d she said. \u201cOne of my goals as the new director is to ensure that we are being attentive to the students who go on to many fields.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite its proven benefits, many students view the First-Year Writing requirement as a chore and don\u2019t envision it being useful in the foreseeable future. Sophomore Akshar Golakiya, a business student in the Ross School of Business, had high hopes going into his First-Year Writing course last year, but was disappointed by its lack of objectivity, a skill he believes is essential to a career in business. \u201cI took an argumentative writing course because I thought it\u2019d be very helpful, and I had to take it for a learning community. I found that it was not very helpful and was very subjective. I don\u2019t think it made me a better writer at all,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n Other students like sophomore Stephanie Reifman were able to gain valuable skills from their First-Year Writing experience. As a double major in communications and in biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience (BCN), Reifman believes her First-Year Writing course sharpened her ability to reach her audience through storytelling. \u201cI learned how to tell a story in a refutable way that used evidence, which I\u2019ve [needed] in all my classes,\u201d she said. While she was able to polish her storytelling skills, Reifman relied heavily on her previous writing experience and didn\u2019t gain much insight on how to improve her writing as a whole. \u201cI think my biggest takeaway [from English 125] was that I was a strong enough writer and was able to get the grade I wanted in the course using the skills I already had,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Aull is aware of this disparity among students coming to The University, and as new director, she plans on addressing these different levels of experience among first-year students. To do this, she wants to apply her previous research from Wake Forest University to The University\u2019s writing program in order to gain more insight on the knowledge and perceptions of students coming to campus. \u201cI want us to use the directed self-placement as a tool where we gather more information about incoming students,\u201d she said. \u201cI have already met with the Sweetland Center for Writing that oversees the directed self-placement, and one of the things I want to do is use that more as a way to know what students come in with and then be able to make institutional decisions that are responsive to that variety and are transparent about the differences.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Aull, the problem is not students\u2019 willingness to work hard in their First-Year Writing courses, but the lack of transparency in the expectations The University has for them. \u201cA lot of students are absolutely willing to work hard, they just aren\u2019t always clear on exactly what they need to do, so adding information gathering and transparency is one way to respond to that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n On top of accommodating students of all academic backgrounds, Aull also wants to make the First-Year Writing program more rewarding for students who may not be pursuing a degree in English. \u201cOne of my goals as director is to think about how First -Year Writing can better support students who are not going to be in another course with \u2018ENG\u2019 in front of the number,\u201d she said. Aull believes written communication is essential to any field, whether it be writing grants, emails, or academic papers. \u201cWriters in all fields end up having to articulate their ideas. [Students need to be] able to ask critical questions and able to represent other people\u2019s ideas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n While there is a need to reach students with interests that don\u2019t align with a traditional English course of study, the element of peer review in First-Year Writing courses appears to be working well. \u201cIt seems like something that students are invested in,\u201d Aull said. \u201cA lot of studies show the writer who\u2019s commenting actually gets more from the experience than the writer who is being reviewed. And still means everyone benefits because you\u2019re still going to be in the position of the reviewer at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n Peer review can be a great tool to improve one\u2019s writing via feedback, and many students find it helpful in improving their writing or improving how they communicate feedback to their peers. \u201cI think I learned how to be a better peer critic,\u201d said Stephanie Reifman.<\/p>\n Other students, however, believe the process of peer editing is not effective, mainly due to other students\u2019 lack of interest in giving their peers thoughtful feedback. \u201cI feel like a lot of the [students] in my class just did the peer reviews to [get the assignment done]. I don\u2019t think anyone actually read what I wrote and gave me actual feedback,\u201d said Emily Dershowitz, a second-year student studying computer science.<\/p>\n Although students\u2019 experiences with peer review vary, its benefits extend beyond the classroom and can even prepare students for collaborative work they may encounter in their future careers. \u201cI can\u2019t think of an obvious field in which writing isn\u2019t collaborative,\u201d said Aull. \u201cThere are ways in which the individual writing process that gets a grade on an individual paper is really not representative of how writing works in the world, so in that way peer review can be quite helpful in that you gain the experience of knowing how other writers write and you collaborate with them.\u201d<\/p>\n While students\u2019 have varying opinions and experiences on First-Year Writing courses, one thing remains true: written communication is everywhere and is even engrained in our day-to-day lives. \u201cStudents already have a lot of language knowledge,\u201d said Aull. \u201cYou make choices when you message your friends and when you write all kinds of digitally mediated forms of communication; you\u2019re making rhetorical decisions. I\u2019ve never met a student who hasn\u2019t revised a text message. It\u2019s not all haphazard. There\u2019s a lot of thought and play and audience awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n As the new director, Aull wants to emphasize the fusion of the language skills students know from their daily forms of communication with their academic writing. \u201cI\u2019d like to think about some more bridges between [academic writing and students\u2019 existing knowledge] because there\u2019s already so much interesting language knowledge there,\u201d she said. On top of that, she\u2019d also like to incorporate themes of civil engagement into the First-Year Writing Program in order to make the conversations in those classes relevant to the problems in the world today. \u201cRight now I\u2019m thinking about linguistic features of civil discourse: what does it look like to civilly engage with perspectives that are different from yours, and could we even say that in a moment in which people feel polarized that there are linguistic features that could allow us to come together a little bit more?\u201d she said. \u201cI think that First-Year Writing can be a space to think about that question.\u201d<\/p>\n While the First-Year Writing Requirement has traditionally been a tool to sharpen students\u2019 critical thinking and communication skills, Aull is working to not only improve the current structure of the program but also expand its goals. With her new ideas, the First-Year Writing Requirement can be a place for students to grow in their written communication skills and also their ability to collaborate with people of different backgrounds and opinions. This approach could be the answer to reaching more incoming students\u2019 needs and making the requirement a more worthwhile and rewarding experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written communication is a skill I\u2019ve been practicing since the third grade. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk eleven years ago, pencil in hand, scribbling down a few paragraphs about why owls were my favorite animal. As the years passed, the conversations I was having in my writing became more sophisticated, but its premise Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[159,160,161,51,59],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-on-campus","tag-english-125","tag-first-year-writing","tag-students","tag-umich","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}