Innovative Writing in Teaching Award

2008-09 Innovative Writing in Teaching Award

Having learned that many students arrive in survey classes possessing underdeveloped writing abilities, I stress the importance of their learning skills in critical analysis and writing.  This emphasis on argumentation undoubtedly stems from my own experiences as a first generation college student.  I had a very rude awakening when I realized that my high school education had not prepared me adequately for the rigors of academic discourse at the collegiate level.  I was good at memorizing information for exams, and I could "copy" material from sources into a report, but I did not know how to analyze documents and construct coherent arguments.  As a result, my first semester in college was a stressful one, and my grades initially suffered.  But learning how to research, find evidence, and support an argument paid big dividends for me later in college and when I continued into graduate school.   

These skills are transferable to all sorts of majors and careers, so I emphasize them in all of my classes.  Paper assignments are designed to prompt students to think about how what they are reading can be used to answer specific questions.  I have built paper revision into all of my courses, and each semester I meet with many students in order to work on paper revisions.  I am heartened when I see students develop these essential skills.

2007-08 Innovative Writing in Teaching Award

I believe that writing is essential for communication and critical thinking. My assignment in Nursing 360 supports the vision, mission and goals of the university, college, and my department. SVSU at the university level believes that our institution fosters an environment of inquiry and openness and a respect for diversity. Furthermore, it strives to serve as an intellectual resource. To accomplish these endeavors, students need to engage in experiences that open their minds to the world around them. Unless these thoughts are captured in writing, the value of the intellectual pursuit is minimal.

The Department of Nursing believes that communication and critical thinking are the base concepts within our undergraduate curriculum in Nursing. Furthermore, we believe that the discipline of Nursing is both an academic and practice discipline. With critical thinking and communication as pivotal concepts in our organizing framework, writing becomes essential. For the students in the deprtment and specifically my course, this writing involves proper use of the nursing literature, a coherent flow of ideas, correct documentation of ideas, as well as correct grammar and spelling.

The Nursing 360 paper provides the opportunity for the students to explore concepts/theories and research essential for their knowledge base in Nursing. It allows each student the opportunity to contibute to nursing as he or she shares ideas with peers. Above all, it enables them to understand that the indivuals they care for do not have a disease but live with an illness.

2006-07 Innovative Writing in Teaching Award

Erik Trump
Department of Political Science

I believe that my responsibility is not just to assign written work but also to teach students how to write effectively. I have developed a system of assignments that both requires students to engage with the course content and gives them directed practice in writing.

I try to support students' development of effective writing skills. Specifically, I do three things. First, I offer general guidelines about effective thesis statements, organization strategies, and so forth. Second, I provide examples (drawn from students' homework) of "promising" first draft materials; I then revise and annotate that material to demonstrate how one can use the writing process to deepen and extend one's thinking. Finally, I create a model paragraph "template" that we use for in-class writing exercises and/or as a prompt for discussion.

This collection of assignments modifies the typical "draft and revise" model by having students practice the final assignment several times with different topics each time. I have them write about each ideology that we study. These short assignments require the students to take information from lecture and the textbook and apply that information to an ideological argument.

Each week students complete one of these short assignments, and we then use their responses as the basis for class discussion. The short writing assignments thus ensure that students stay focused on the course goals, reading (for example) Robert Bork with an eye to identifying his ideology rather than to simply find reasons to disagree with his argument. In the final assignment, students take one of the shorter responses and expand it. This exercise gives them practice in deepening and extending their critical.

2005-06 Innovative Writing in Teaching Award

Andrew M. Chubb
Department of Chemistry

Effective communication is a vital component of any discipline. This certainly is no less true in the sciences, where it is crucial for precise documentation and accurate transmission of data. However, the incorporation of writing exercises in science classes, which have a strong quantitative foundation, often can be a difficult task. To address this need and to enhance the students’ understanding of key concepts, I have changed to the structure of the Organic Laboratory courses to include a more formal writing component.

The traditional focus on purely quantitative results no longer is used to measure the quality of work and depth of understanding. Instead, the emphasis now is on the students’ own interpretation of both the data they collect and the experimental results they obtain. Formal typewritten lab reports, similar to those that might be required in post-graduate settings, provide a framework for the students to summarize and analyze their data and to provide an explanation for the results, whether or not the experiment was a numerical success. I am proud of how well the students in general have responded to these changes, which, in most cases, represent a complete shift from the way they have become accustomed to thinking and writing. I look forward to the continued success of these SVSU students as they pursue their careers in the sciences.