Writing program revamped
Ruth Stevens
An extensive review of the University's undergraduate writing program has served as a catalyst for the complete revision of the way Princeton teaches students to write.
A proposal for a major restructuring of the teaching of writing won unanimous approval at the Dec. 4 faculty meeting. The new program will be implemented over the next several months and will replace the current writing requirement for freshmen entering the University this fall.
Princeton has had an undergraduate writing requirement for generations, according to Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel. The University traditionally has placed rigorous writing demands on its students with course papers, junior papers and senior theses. The program's revamping is in line with the high priority the University puts on writing, she said.
"Writing is a central part of education and a central part of functioning in any professional or civic pursuit," Malkiel said. "Students need to be able to express themselves clearly on paper. It isn't just that they're going to have to write, so they ought to be able to do it well. Writing is tied up inextricably with the capacity to think clearly and analytically about a subject. Good writing is absolutely essential, no matter what a student studies."
Currently, students can satisfy the writing requirement by taking a course that includes instruction in writing (so-called "w" courses because of their designation in Course Offerings) by the end of their sophomore year. These classes are offered in all divisions of the University and in the Freshman Seminar Program. Until now, the courses counted toward the students' other distribution requirements.
In the new program, the "w" courses will be replaced by specially designed freshman writing seminars of no more than 12 students each. All students must complete a writing seminar during their freshman year. Unlike before, the seminars will not count toward other distribution requirements.
Students in the A.B. program will be required to take one more class, increasing the number of courses they must take to graduate to 31. For B.S.E. students, the number of courses required for graduation will remain at 36 because of the constraints already on their schedules, Malkiel said.
Review spurs change
The effort to revise the writing program began in 1998 with a systematic review of the current program, which has been in place for the last decade. A committee of faculty and administrators involved in the teaching of writing surveyed students and faculty at Princeton about their experience with the current program. The group also studied writing programs at other universities.
"The sum total of all the data and analysis was that we have not been doing an adequate job of teaching our students to write," Malkiel said. "The reason for that is not because the faculty and graduate students teaching 'w' courses weren't trying to do a good job. The reason really was rooted in what I would describe as fundamental flaws in the approach that we took to teaching writing in the 'w' courses."
One of the flaws was that the teaching of writing was subsidiary to the coverage of a specific body of subject matter, she said. Another was that there was no means of articulating and enforcing a set of standards for the courses.
In February 2000, experts from Harvard, Cornell and Duke universities conducted an external academic review of the writing program. After meeting with faculty and students and analyzing written material, they emphasized the urgency of improving the program.
"Essentially, they said even more forcefully than the internal review that we were simply not delivering effective instruction in writing," Malkiel said. "So with those two reports as background, we began conversations that led to the drafting of a new program."
Tipping the balance
Malkiel acknowledged that the preparation of freshmen when they arrive on campus with respect to writing skills is more "variable" than it has been in the past. But she said addressing deficiencies in some students was not the impetus behind the plan.
"Even when the high schools are sending us accomplished writers, there's still a difference between the best high school writers and the best college writers," she said. "We have very high expectations here in terms of writing in courses and independent work. No matter what's going on in the high schools, when we receive this population of very talented undergraduates, we still have work to do to prepare them appropriately for the demands of college level courses and independent work."
Princeton's preparation now will include seminars that are still subject based, but more concentrated on the writing and less on the subject matter.
"It's really a question of balance," Malkiel said. "If you take a freshman writing seminar on Shakespeare, you'll read fewer of Shakespeare's plays and have more attention to writing than you would have in a lecture course fulfilling part of the distribution requirement in Literature and the Arts. You'll have much more class time spent on writing, and you'll have more individual conferences outside of class with the instructor to go over the writing line by line."
There will be a set of standards that the courses must fulfill, including but not limited to: frequency of writing assignments; variety of genres; opportunities for revision; progression from short papers to papers of increasing length and complexity; opportunities for conferences with the instructor, for peer review and for oral presentations; the minimum number of pages of required writing; and limitations on the length of reading assignments.
"We'll invite the people who want to teach in the program to submit course proposals," Malkiel said. "Those course proposals then will be reviewed by the faculty writing program committee led by the director and approved by the Committee on the Course of Study, the regular faculty committee that approves courses. But we're not going to tell anybody teaching in the program, 'This is the content you must teach' or 'This is the way you must teach that content.' We'll set standards and then say, 'What subject matter would you like to teach, and how would you like to approach the teaching of writing?'"
While modeled after successful programs at other institutions, Princeton's program will have advantages in several key areas, Malkiel said. The writing seminars will be small, providing more opportunities for one-on-one instruction and peer review. In addition, a good share of the classes will be taught by regular Princeton faculty members -- in addition to people hired specifically to teach in the program. All members of the teaching staff will be required to participate in a rigorous training program.
Malkiel expects that a detailed survey instrument -- something that builds on the standard course evaluation tool -- will be developed and administered to freshmen every term. After three years, there will be a systematic internal review of the program and, after five or six years, another external academic review.
The plan for the new program also includes second-level writing courses in various disciplines that students could take after their freshman writing seminar and before embarking on independent work. Departments are being encouraged to develop such courses.
"Writing isn't something you learn in one course," Malkiel said. "Learning to write is a process in which repetition and experience are really important. We have a progression in challenges in writing from freshman writing seminars to upper-level courses to junior independent work and the senior thesis. So the idea of the second-level writing course is to build on the skills that students develop in the freshman writing seminar, but then to enable them to practice writing within a discipline likely to be one that they may wish to pursue for the major."
Launching the program
A new director will be hired for the writing program and charged with hiring and training the teaching staff for the freshman writing seminars, setting the standards, advising departments on the development of second-level writing courses and evaluating the effectiveness of writing instruction. In addition, the Writing Center's capacity to provide tutorial assistance in writing will be expanded.
New funds will support the hiring of additional teaching staff members for the approximately 100 freshman writing seminars that will be offered each year. The seminars will be led by regular Princeton faculty members, postdoctoral scholars, post-enrolled graduate students appointed to the faculty as part-time lecturers and Princeton administrators with appropriate academic credentials. In addition, individuals will be appointed to the faculty as full-time lecturers for the express purpose of teaching freshman writing seminars. Normally, these individuals must hold a Ph.D. in a subject taught at Princeton; in exceptional cases, professional writers without Ph.D.'s will be considered.
Initial reaction to the program on campus has been favorable, according to Malkiel. "What the students have said basically is, 'Yes, it's going to be more work to take an extra course, but the trade-off in terms of really learning how to write is well worth it.'"
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January 8, 2001 Contents Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4-5 Page 7 Page 8
Editor: Ruth Stevens Staff writer: Yvonne Chiu Hays Calendar editor: Carolyn Geller Contributing writers: Marilyn Marks, Steven Schultz Photographer: Denise Applewhite Design: Mahlon Lovett, Laurel Masten Cantor Web edition: Mahlon Lovett |
