and reading about writing. The other three strategies cluster around experientially scaffolding and reinforcing the notion that writing is a process, building habits that support this by structuring course assignments so that students must revise their writing during the semester, providing detailed and comprehensible feedback on drafts in a timely manner so that students can revise based on instructor feedback, and creating ongoing opportunities for peer feedback. Transparency. Students may have difficulty understanding writing expectations not only related to a specific course assignment, but also, more broadly, related to the program, the discipline and the university. Hedgcock (2008), reporting retrospectively about his writing development, asserted that students should not have to depend on figuring this out on their own as he did. At the course level, however, instructors may inadvertently assume that assignments are clear when expectations are more tacit than they realize. Because different courses may require different kinds of writing (e.g., literature reviews, integration of theory with experience, reflection), students may need help in understanding specific text demands. An important starting point in helping students become better writers is for instructors to be reflective and communicative about the aims, assumptions and goals of assignments, and insure that these are clear rather than simply taking for granted that they are (Blakeslee, 1997; Koncel & Carney, 1992). Because faculty often have tacit assumptions, knowledge, and expectations, students may not even know the right questions to ask in order to clarify assignments; therefore, it should be up to faculty to do this. Additionally, students need a clear statement of assessment criteria (e.g., by using an assessment rubric) (Lea & Street, 2006). In order to increase clarity, instructors may need to be more reflective about their own standards and expectations. In this way, they can share “insider in a comprehensible way with students and help demystify what constitutes effective knowledge”
and reading about writing. The other three strategies cluster around experientially scaffolding and reinforcing the notion that writing is a process, building habits that support this by structuring course assignments so that students must revise their writing during the semester, providing detailed and comprehensible feedback on drafts in a timely manner so that students can revise based on instructor feedback, and creating ongoing opportunities for peer feedback. Transparency. Students may have difficulty understanding writing expectations not only related to a specific course assignment, but also, more broadly, related to the program, the discipline and the university. Hedgcock (2008), reporting retrospectively about his writing development, asserted that students should not have to depend on figuring this out on their own as he did. At the course level, however, instructors may inadvertently assume that assignments are clear when expectations are more tacit than they realize. Because different courses may require different kinds of writing (e.g., literature reviews, integration of theory with experience, reflection), students may need help in understanding specific text demands. An important starting point in helping students become better writers is for instructors to be reflective and communicative about the aims, assumptions and goals of assignments, and insure that these are clear rather than simply taking for granted that they are (Blakeslee, 1997; Koncel & Carney, 1992). Because faculty often have tacit assumptions, knowledge, and expectations, students may not even know the right questions to ask in order to clarify assignments; therefore, it should be up to faculty to do this. Additionally, students need a clear statement of assessment criteria (e.g., by using an assessment rubric) (Lea & Street, 2006). In order to increase clarity, instructors may need to be more reflective about their own standards and expectations. In this way, they can share “insider knowledge” in a comprehensible way with students and help demystify what constitutes effective
Student_Writing_FIPSE_Produ.docx