Sample Assignments | Additional Resources
Writing in Different Disciplines
Writing Across the Curriculum directors have long found that faculty members from across the university will inevitably evaluate the same piece of writing very differently. Students often complain of this, assuming it to be the result of “subjective” grading practices. Instead of seeing this inconsistency as a problem, however, composition and rhetoric scholars have begun to document the various disciplinary conventions that govern our responses to writing. These go well beyond the often-quoted (but not always accurate!) claim that scientists prefer the passive voice.
Differences in argumentation, kinds and uses of evidence, and even syntactical structures are realities within the academy. This is not to say that “anything goes” - some writing practices will be viewed unfavorably across the disciplines. Nor is it to suggest that we must all become linguists, ready to document every last sentence pattern and assess its appropriateness to a given disciplinary setting. Instead, we should acknowledge the differences between our disciplines and help students negotiate a variety of standards and expectations.
Consider the following kinds of writing:
- > Hypothesis-driven research – asks students to develop a working theory of the situation or problem, test it empirically, and report the results.
- > Qualitative analysis of data – asks students to consider a body of data and identify patterns, focusing both on the single case and on the relationship of that case to larger social patterns.
- > Close reading/analysis of literature or art – asks students to focus on language (or a work of art) intensely, noting minute details of word choice, metaphor, imagery.
For each type of writing (and these are clearly only a few brief examples), students may be unfamiliar with the generic expectations. Where will they start? What are the skills necessary to complete the final project? Helping students understand the distinctive features of the writing tasks they are being asked to perform can lead to more engaged learning and more interesting end products.
Back to the Top Sample Assignments
- > Kim Emmons’ “Analyzing Genre” Assignment (Word Doc) – This is an essay assignment (a sequence that took 4 weeks of class time) that asks students to explore a specific genre of their choosing. Along the way, students are asked to bring 5-10 examples of the genre to class, to develop a list of characteristics of the genre, and to analyze what the genre allows its users to accomplish. This kind of assignment could easily be adapted to ask students to analyze specific, disciplinary forms of writing – perhaps asking students to collect senior undergraduate papers in a major they might like to pursue, and exploring what the conventions are for that kind of writing.
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Additional Resources
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