Welcome! In 2006, I became the Clark Kerr Presidential Chair and Director
of the University Writing Program
at the University of California at Davis.
I have a dual appointment as Professor in the Department of English.
At UC Davis, the mission of the independent
University Writing Program
is to serve all disciplines in the University through
**undergraduate courses in the lower and upper divisions
that teach academic writing, writing in disciplines, and writing in professions
**graduate courses
and workshops that prepare teachers of writing and promote research in the
discipline of composition and rhetoric
**workshops for graduate students in all disciplines in ways to improve writing
**internships in writing and editing
**workshops for faculty in all disciplines on ways to
use writing to improve teaching and learning.
As
a teacher for more than thirty years, I've taught many different courses,
from composition to business and tech writing to classical mythology to
contemporary social structure to Shakespeare's comedies to advanced nonfiction
writing to graduate seminars in composition theory and the teaching of writing
and literature.
Since coming
to Davis, I've been chosen a member of the interdisciplinary Language,
Literacy, and Culture Graduate Group, which works with doctoral
students from a number of fields and collaborates on research. My professional
service includes coordinating the International Network of Writing-across-the-Curriculum
Programs (INWAC).
In addition, my teaching,
writing, and program development have led to my being asked to serve as a
consultant to schools,
colleges, and other organizations locally, nationally, and internationally.
I came to Davis from George Mason University, where I was a faculty
member and administrator since the 1970s. At Mason, my administrative
posts over the years included directing the English composition program, the writing-across-the curriculum (WAC) program,
and the University Writing Center.
I also served as chair of the Department
of English.
Mason's M.A. in English with a Concentration
in the Teaching of Writing and Literature (TWL) and two
doctoral programs, the Ph.D. in Education and
the Doctor of Arts in Community College Education
gave me the opportunity to work with graduate students individually through
independent studies and thesis or dissertation committees. From 1978 to 2006,
I also worked with K-12 teachers through the Northern Virginia Writing Project.
Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines: Research
on the Academic Writing Life
From 2000 to 2005, colleague Terry Myers
Zawacki and I engaged in study of the ways by which learners/writers become
proficient in the discourses of disciplines. This research involved
- interviews
with publishing and teaching faculty in a fourteen fields
- analysis of
teachers' course materials
- a survey of
students in a range of degree programs (respondents identified 40 disciplines)
- student focus
groups
- analysis of reflective
essays written by students as part of a portfolio procedure to obtain proficiency
credit for Advanced Composition
- use of data
compiled as part of George Mason University's discipline-based assessment
of student writing proficiency
This research was supported in part by a grant from the
Council of Writing Program Administrators and by internal assistance grants
from George Mason University.
The first phase of this research was
published in 2002 as a chapter, "Questioning Alternative Discourse: Reports
from across the Disciplines," in ALT.DIS:
Alternative Discourses in the Academy, eds. Schroeder, Fox, and
Bizzell (Heinemann). The entire project was published in 2006 by Heinemann
as Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines:
Research on the Academic Writing Life.
Core Research Questions to Faculty
Cluster One:
How do informants define “standards” for writing in their disciplines?
What do they see as alternatives, acceptable and unacceptable, to that standard
discourse? How do they see their disciplines changing to accommodate alternative
approaches and discourses?
Cluster Two:
Have informants sometimes written in alternative forms? If not, why not?
If so, why and how did they come to choose the particular alternative form(s)?
Cluster Three:
a. What are their writing/learning goals for students and how closely
do these goals match the “standard” disciplinary discourse?
b. Do informants ever give assignments asking for alternative ways of
thinking and writing?
c. How open are they to students writing in alternative ways to assignments
they give? How do they treat such writing?
d. In particular, how do they treat student writing that shows “alternative”
syntax and organization (e.g, “errors” in Standard Edited American English)?
*****************************
One tool of this research was a survey
that we administered in Fall 2002 to some 300 GMU students enrolled in
ENGL 302, Advanced Composition,
a course required of all GMU undergraduates and tailored to the varying demands
of writing in diverse majors. The survey is below. If you would like to
use this survey for similar research at your own institution, or if you
would like to modify the survey, we would appreciate knowing. Please send
email to cjthaiss@ucdavis.edu.
Survey on Writing in
the Majors
1. What is your major?
2. Approximately how many courses have you taken
with the prefix of your major, e.g. HIST, ENGL, PSYC, GOV?
3. Within your major do you have a particular
area of interest or concentration? If so, what is it?
4. Are you aware of some specialties or concentrations
within your major? If so, name some.
5. How aware are you of characteristics of good
writing in your major? Circle one.
Very aware
Somewhat aware
Unaware
Never thought about it
6. List some characteristics of good writing in
your major:
7. How have you learned characteristics of good
writing in your discipline? Rank (1=most important):
_____ teachers
_____ reading
_____ fieldwork
_____ published writing guides
_____ other students
_____ articles on websites
8. How confident do you feel about your writing
in your major? Circle one:
Very confident
Somewhat confident Not confident
Scared to death
9. From the following list, check those writing
assignments you’ve been given in your major courses (those with the prefix
of your major, e.g. HIST, DMIS, ITEU, CS) :
_____ Researched paper
_____ Journal, reflection paper, or narrative
_____ Collaborative project
_____ Lab report
_____ Impromptu in-class writing
_____ Critique, review or reaction paper
_____ Position/issue paper
_____ Summary, abstract or outline
_____ Letter (e.g. to an editor, a public official,
a family member, etc)
_____ Other ______________________________________________
10. From those you circled above, which have you
done most often?
11. Have you ever been given writing assignments
in your major courses that surprised you? If so, describe briefly.
12. Have you ever been asked to write about yourself
in an academic paper in courses in your major? If so, describe briefly.
13. Have any teachers in major courses allowed
you or asked you to write in ways you thought were not typical of the major?
If so, describe the assignment and how you approached it.
14. Have you ever been discouraged from using
a style you thought would be a more original and/or individual way to respond
to a writing assignment in your major? If so, describe briefly.
15. To what degree do your teachers in your major
courses expect you to conform to strict guidelines for writing in your
discipline? Circle:
1 (not strict at all)
2 3
4
5 (very strict)
don’t know
16. Do you find that your teachers’ expectations
for writing in their courses are generally similar? If not, describe briefly
a time you felt a teacher’s expectations were atypical.
17. Have you ever read any of your professors’
writing? Check all that apply:
______ book
______ professional article
_____ conference paper
______ website article
______ assignments.
18. If you have not read any of your professors’
writing, how aware are you of what they
might be writing?
Very aware
somewhat aware not at all aware
never entered my mind
19. Is English your first language? If not, for
how many years have you been educated in an English-speaking culture?
20. If English is not your first language, do
you recall any time(s) teachers in your major were dissatisfied with your
writing because of something other than grammar or content; organization,
for example? If so, describe briefly.
.
Conclusions
The following is based on Chapter
Five of the book and was first distributed in a presentation at the NCTE
Convention in Pittsburgh in November 2005. [Update 11/5/06]
************************************************************************************************
“Engaged Writers
and Dynamic Disciplines”: Research on Writing in the Disciplines and Alternative
Discourses
Researchers: Chris Thaiss [now of UC Davis] and Terry Myers Zawacki,
George Mason University
From 2000 to 2005, colleagues Terry Myers Zawacki and Chris Thaiss were
engaged in study of the relationship between "alternative discourses" and
writers' understanding of the conventions of discourse within academic disciplines.
This research involved interviews with publishing and teaching faculty in
a range of fields, analysis of course materials, surveys of students in
a range of degree programs, student focus groups, analysis of student essays,
and use of data compiled as part of George Mason University's discipline-based
assessment of student writing proficiency. This research was supported
in part by a grant from the Council of Writing Program Administrators and
by internal assistance grants from George Mason University.
Results and recommendations for practice were published in 2006 by Heinemann
as the book Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines: Research on the
Academic Writing Life.
Conclusions
Good College
Writing Comes from What Writers Care About
Faculty informants put undergraduate student “engagement” ahead of knowledge
of scholarly conventions. Department assessment rubrics balance concerns
for disciplinary standards in method and arrangement with concern for “original
thinking.” Our most proficient student informants all write about their growth
in a major being dependent on finding room for their own voices and interests.
College Writers
Must Confront the Tension between Convention and Individual Desire
College writing tasks oblige writers to be original thinkers, but also
to identify and conform to expectations of teachers, disciplines, and the
academy. Most of our student informants did not feel unduly constrained
by such expectations, and most wanted to “give teachers what they want.”
Most of our students saw teachers granting them freedom of subject and approach,
but few saw much stylistic freedom in majors. Both faculty and our most
proficient writers saw themselves having to negotiate between their desires
as scholar/writers and disciplinary conventions.
There Are No
Simple Rules for College Writers—Study the Reader & the Task
Most student informants saw teachers’ expectations and criteria as similar
in very broad ways, but differing significantly in details. For example,
students expected courses to demand research in support of theses or hypotheses
in writing tasks, but they saw teachers differing greatly in such matters
as attention to mechanical correctness and definitions of valid evidence.
They felt that every class demanded their effort to understand teacher idiosyncrasy.
Feedback on their writing early in a course they found vital in this quest.
Everyone Agrees
on the Terms, but They Don’t Agree on the Meanings
Faculty and students across disciplines are amazingly consistent in use
of terms to describe qualities of “good writing” in their majors. This apparent
consistency masks the wide variation in connotations of these terms. Similarity
of terms makes writing seem a much simpler matter than it is, both for student
and teacher. It leads students to put faith in textbook formulas that are
of little use in actual classes
Part of the complexity of terms comes from teachers' being influenced
in their assignments and standards by what we identified as five different
environments of which they are members as teachers and scholars: the academy,
the discipline, the sub-discipline or area of interest, the specific local
unit (with its own policies), and the individual's unique history. What students
usually see as teacher "idiosyncrasy" is actually the confluence of these
often identifiable environments.
College Writers
Move to Proficiency through Stages of Development
College writing growth is developmental; it can’t be rushed or “taken
care of” in one or two first-year courses. We saw great difference in proficiency
and understanding between student informants with limited experience in writing
in their major courses and those who had written in a variety of courses
at different levels.
Students Credit
Responsive Teachers for Their Growth as Writers
Students see teachers, by far, as the most important influences on their
writing development in the discipline. Reading of work in the discipline
is also important. Teacher feedback on writing is vital, our informants said;
our most proficient student writers wrote and spoke at length about the importance
of those teachers who had shown the most interest in their writing.
Some Implications of This Research for Teachers
1. Careful assignment design: students benefit from models, rubrics,
and disciplinary examples of terms like “clear thesis” or “concise sentences.”
Teachers across disciplines need to be prepared to help students negotiate
the general terms they and other
faculty often use to describe their expectations (e.g., "logic," "clarity,"
"evidence"). When very real differences are cloaked in the language of similarity,
it’s understandable that students rely only on other cues to guide their
writing (feedback on the first paper, lecture styles, etc).
2.
When we ask for "original thinking" or "your own conclusions," we need to
show what this might mean--especially in writing based on the research of
others.
Students have internalized an array
of different messages about “voice” and “originality.” Many less-experienced
college writers think that “voice” and “originality” are only desirable in
English classes. Many don’t understand what teachers mean when they ask for
original thinking, especially when they are writing from research. When we
talk about "voice" or "original ideas" with our students, we need to explore
with them all the ways that their voice(s) can be heard no matter what course/major
they are writing for and what it might mean to be original in their chosen
disciplines and in the teacher's particular subdiscipline and course.
3.
We can benefit students by explaining the methods, scope, and discourses
of our branches and research fields within the larger discipline.
Between the sparse principles
of “academic writing” and the truly idiosyncratic desires of the professor,
there exist unarticulated and unexamined (by both faculty and students)
concepts of the writing characteristics of “the discipline,” of specialties
within disciplines, and of local or institutional policies and practices.
If faculty wish to impart these concepts to students, then they need much
more clearly to articulate the ways of thought, procedures, and formal structures
of what they call “the field”—and to differentiate these from more localized
or subdisciplinary practices that also affect what we assign and expect.
It's often helpful for teachers to describe their own research interests
and writing, so that students can begin to see how our practices align with
and differ from a general concept of the discipline.
4. Feedback to
students on their writing is crucial to student understanding of the discipline
and the discourse.
We were gratified to find
that most of our focus group students had teachers in their majors who gave
them feedback on their writing and, often, the opportunity to revise. "How
else can we improve ?" some said.
To a person, these students said
that feedback on the first paper of a course was the most useful information
they received about how to write for a given teacher.
Proficiency essay writers credited
the detailed commentary of specific teachers in the major for giving them
the most insight into how to write in the discipline.
5. We should
help students find and express
their passions for learning within the assignments we give.
All our faculty informants
talked passionately about their scholarship and their disciplines; moreover,
all emphasized the priority of undergraduate students' "engagement" with
the subject. Moreover, most department rubrics include "original thinking"
as a criterion for student writing.
BUT only our most proficient, experienced
student informants saw a connection between their passion for learning and
their learning the conventions of the discipline. Most of our focus group
informants saw meeting their professors' expectations as requiring submergence
of their own voices and interests. "Either get the grade or do what you want;
you can't do both."
6. We should
give students opportunities to write reflectively on their growth as writers.
We were impressed by the maturity
and discipline-awareness of the small fraction of focus-group informants
who said that they had been asked by teachers to write occasionally about
their growth as learners and writers. These were more likely to have a "third
stage" understanding of disciplines, as well as confidence to realize their
own goals in a disciplinary framework.