The Villanova Center for Liberal Education Writing Philosophy

As stated early in this manual, the Villanova Seminar is writing intensive and serves as the required introductory writing course at Villanova. Faculty, no matter what their discipline, need to remember that we are all teachers of writing.

We hope that seminar instructors will teach writing not simply as a skill, but as a mode of thinking, understanding and communicating. It is important to integrate writing into the other components of the course, showing students the essential interrelation of thinking, speaking, reading and writing in the learning process. Writing can help students master their reading assignments, prepare for class discussion and convey their ideas to other members of the seminar. Teaching writing, therefore, does not jeopardize teaching content. On the contrary, attention focused on writing encourages the development of critical thinking, thus helping students to master material in more sophisticated ways.

Teaching writing is most effective when students are assisted in the process of writing rather than merely being evaluated on the success of their final product. The Portfolio method encourages the art of revision. Students benefit from prewriting writing activities such as brainstorming or class discussions of an assignment; they then need evaluative feedback on rough drafts; and finally they need instruction in editing for effective style and grammatical correctness.

The Writing Center can support faculty and students in a number of ways. All writers, not just the poor ones, benefit when a skilled writer reads and reacts to their work. We encourage faculty to structure Writing Center visits into their course syllabi and essay assignments. We also encourage faculty to remind their students to call ahead for an appointment at the center. (9-4604) With some 4,500 visits each academic year, the center is an extremely busy place, especially at midterm and finals.

Guidelines for ACS Villanova Seminar Courses:

• Students should produce at least 30 pages of assigned writing in 8-14 assignments. These may include ungraded writing-to-learn assignments. (One page in-class responses to the readings, etc.)
• At least 20 of the 30 pages are to be “formal”, polished writing. This assumes 4-6 assignments, rather than one long paper.
• Students should regularly revise formal assignments in response to evaluative feedback on rough drafts. Evaluative comments need not only come from the instructor; they can be provided by classmates during peer workshops and by tutors in the Writing Center.
• Assignments should aim to provide students with an integrated cultural and intellectual context that explores both meaning and value and encourages a critical examination of self and society in order to make human life richer, fuller, and inherently valuable.
• Instructors should hold two individual writing conferences with each student. This is a wonderful opportunity to review and discuss the student portfolios.

Reminders:

• Please give your students an ungraded diagnostic essay during the first week of class to identify weak writers who may need to meet on a regular basis with a tutor in the Writing Center.
• Core students are required to purchase Andrea Lunsford’s Easy Writer, 3rd edition. Don’t forget to include this on your syllabus.
• Please require every student to visit the Writing Center at least once during the fall semester. Instructors will receive a Professor Report Form discussing the visit.
• Don’t hesitate to contact Mary Beth Simmons, Director of the Writing Center, about any writing concerns or questions you might have. (9-5358)

The Portfolio Method of Teaching Writing:

In its most basic terms, the portfolio approach is an alternative assessment tool in the teaching of writing. In their book Assessing the Portfolio, Liz Hamp-Lyons and William Condon break down the 3 principles of portfolios as follows.

• Collection
• Reflection
• Selection

Simply put, the student writer collects all of her written materials in a portfolio, periodically reflects on her progress in writing in the form of written self-assessments and student/professor conferences, and at the end of the term she selects which writings she feels are her “best.”

While most writing theorists would agree that employing the portfolio method can be labor intensive for both student and professor, here are just a few of the benefits:

• Karen Mills-Courts and Minda Rae Amiran state that “it is extremely important to create situations in which students must think about their own thinking, reflect on the ways in which they learn and why they fail to learn…It’s clear that the more students are aware of their own learning processes, the more likely they are to establish goals for their education and the more deeply engaged they are in those processes.”
   
• Richard Bullock reminds us that “learning to write and read cannot be taught as processes yet evaluated as products, cannot be taught as integrated and interrelated yet tested as itemized and fragmented. Portfolios permit teachers and students to see their work over time, to see the growth of their abilities, to assess their best or most representative work, and to reflect on their progress.” He also believes “the single most important aspect of portfolio use is the means portfolios offer students to learn about themselves as writers, readers, and students.”
   
• Peter Elbow has said, “portfolio grading helps the learning climate because it reinforces continuing effort and improvement: it encourages students to try to revise and improve poor work rather than feel punished by it or give up. In a writing course, portfolios invite students to invest themselves and try for what is exciting, rather than playing it safe by writing ‘acceptably’ or defensively.”
   
• “The single most important aspect of portfolio use is the means portfolios offer students to learn about themselves as writers, readers, and students.” —Richard Bullock

Freedom of Content

The VCLE faculty enjoy great freedom of course design and content. So, how to implement the portfolio approach without taxing the faculty and impeding on their individuality? It must be emphasized there are various approaches to maintaining portfolios.

Some instructors will adopt a low-level of engagement, possibly collecting portfolios at midterm, meeting individually with students at this time and assessing a grade on the entirety of the portfolio. This would be repeated at the end of the term. Since professors are encouraged to meet often with their students in individual conferences throughout the semester, this added element of portfolio discussion should not be seen as an unnecessary burden on the instructor.

Other instructors might discover a deep sense of satisfaction with a higher level of engagement. This “other end of the spectrum” might include collecting portfolios after each “major” writing assignment, encouraging students to include multiple drafts of each paper assignment in their portfolios, asking students to write self-assessments after the completion of each paper, etc.

The experts all agree that instructors engaged with the portfolio approach are engaged more with their colleagues. Portfolios lead to a good deal of dialogue about teaching, assessment of writing, etc.

What about grading?
Some portfolio experts believe in the “holistic” approach to grading. This means a grade is not always attached to individual paper assignments, rather a midterm and final grade is given on the entirety of the portfolio.

Many writing theorists agree it’s a good idea to devote class time early in the semester to a class discussion of assessment. What makes an A paper? What about the B, C, D and F papers? By encouraging students to become part of the assessment process, the portfolio method makes much more sense to them. They “own” their writing in a more profound way if they do in fact have a “voice” about grades.

Even if a professor has a tried and true grade assessment sheet s/he distributes each semester, it’s a good idea to allow students to generate their own ideas about grades.

Sample Description of Portfolio Method for Syllabus:

The Portfolio
This is a Writing Intensive course. We’ll go beyond general responses to the works, concentrating on shaping thought-provoking, thesis-driven essays. We’ll also be engaged in a variety of writing. I ask that you buy a two pocket folder just for this course. Your in-class writings, free-writings, formal papers, exams and your self-assessments will all be kept together. I will collect the folders when each formal paper is due. Please do not forget your portfolios on days when a formal paper is due. At this time I will grade your paper and provide an assessment of the overall portfolio. When I have completed this work we will meet individually to talk about your writing and your thoughts about your progress in the course.

Portfolio Guidelines for the ACS Villanova Seminar:

• Collection
• Students must be responsible to collect ALL of their writings from their seminars in either a folder/binder or electronically.
• If the student collects everything in a folder/binder, the faculty member may suggest the class “drop off” and “pick up” their work at the faculty member’s office.
• Reflection
• The Reflection component is the hallmark of the portfolio method. Without it, the student merely has a folder of papers.
• Some questions you might want to pose before designing the Reflection component:
  1. Do I want the reflective writing to be a “letter” addressed to me or might it be written in a more traditional essay form?
  2. Should I ask for a reflective writing after each assignment? Or should I require only 2 reflective writings, one at midterm and one at the end of the semester?
  3. How much information should I give students about the reflective writings in their portfolio? How much coaching or how extensive the modeling? (If I model “too much” will the students merely reflect the model reflections? Will they master the rhetoric and simply write “what a teacher wants to hear”?)
  4. In order to indicate the seriousness of the reflective writing, should I devote 5-10% of the student’s final grade (or final portfolio grade) to these exercises?
• Selection
• The Selection component of the portfolio method remains the most flexible.
• Some questions you might want to consider before designing the Selection component:
  Should the faculty member “select” and grade every piece of writing?
  2. Should the faculty member “toss out” the two lowest grades of the semester?
  3. Should the student be responsible for the entire selection process? Might s/he only include the “best” of their writings in the final portfolio?

The Seven Components of Effective Formal Writing Assignments

1. Give the Writing Assignment in Writing and During Class
   Instructors need to provide a clearly designed writing assignment for the following reasons:
   • Some students might feel paralyzed by vague assignments that don’t specify “what the teacher wants.”
   • Vague assignments given orally or in writing can lead to plagiarism.
   • Students need something to refer to late at night when class notes or class comments are no longer clear.
   • Students will ask questions about the assignment if it’s handed to them in class. (Of course, some students feel more comfortable asking questions on email, but then not all students have the benefit of hearing your response.)
   • It helps the Writing Center tutors when students come to seek assistance.
2. Task
   We need to create tasks that ask students to:
• Take a position and defend it with evidence.
• Explain difficult material in a way that demonstrates understanding.
• Reflect on class reading in relationship to their own experience.
• Objectives
  What is the skill or knowledge you want students to master and demonstrate?
• Does the learning objective correspond to one on the syllabus?
• Specify the objective(s) on the writing assignment.
• Audience
  While the instructor, of course, is the grading “audience”, asking students to write to
  you can create an unnatural rhetorical situation.
  • Ask the students to write to another section of their peer-scholars or to a character/person in a text, etc.
• Textual Evidence/Sources
  If you require students to use sources, remember the following:
  • Be clear about which citation method they should use.
  • If only one work is being used for textual evidence, what are the expectations for internal citation?
  • How many references are expected? How current must they be?
• Format
  Clear formatting instructions tell students you expect a professional presentation.
  Consider including the following in your assignment:
  • Page length, type size and font, line spacing, placement of thesis statement, etc.
• Criteria for Evaluation
  If you have not covered evaluation in your syllabus, be specific in the assignment.
  • Will you grade holistically with a single letter grade? (If so, have you provided the specific grade expectations/criteria for the different grade levels) Or will you grade analytically by weighing different features separately? (Mechanics, organization, content, etc.)
  • Will drafts and peer reviews be graded?.

Final Concerns:

• Make sure the language is appropriate for students.
• Include a statement about the Academic Integrity policy here at Villanova.
• Indicate whether students may collaborate on the assignment.
• Consider allowing students to write in the First Person. There are no “I” centered papers to be bought on paper mill sites on the Internet.
• Share your writing assignments with colleagues for helpful feedback.

(This information was composed with the help (and some direct idea/word lifting) from John Bean’s Engaging Ideas and various internet sites—including Purdue’s online OWL and the University Writing Program at Virginia Tech.)

Responding to a Paper in Progress

(Form used by tutors in the Writing Center)

1. Evaluate Response to Assignment
   Is the paper appropriate for audience, subject matter, style, length? Does the paper actually address the given assignment? Does the paper probe subject in depth? If not, use “pre-writing” activities to generate ideas: research, conversation, free-writing; or who, what, when, where and why questions.
    
2. Evaluate Thesis
   • Should state main idea or purpose of paper
   • Should be a very specific and debatable opinion, not a vague generalization
   • Can indicate organization scheme
   • Should be rhetorically emphasized
3. Evaluate Organization
   • Information supporting thesis should be in logical order: chronological, spatial, importance, general to specific, cause and effect, textual, etc.
   • Check for unity within paragraphs
   • Be sure sections of paper are linked together with appropriate transitions
   • Transitions or other material should link paragraph to thesis
   • Paper needs effective introduction and conclusion
4. Evaluate Development
   • Is supporting evidence adequate? (Textual evidence, quotations, documented facts, authoritative opinion, illustrations, etc.)
   • Are complexities discovered and dealt with?
   • Are counter arguments refuted?
5. Evaluate Sentence and Word Level Concerns
   • Check for awkward phrasing, inflated language/wordiness, lack of sentence variety, documentation problems, poor word choice, ungrammatical constructions and problems with spelling and punctuation

Dr. Phillip Cary, "Good Things to Put in Your Papers":

1. What you think is true: This is not just “facts" (i.e. things you look up) because it's what you think. And it's not just "opinion" (i.e. how you feel) because it's what you think is true (i.e. it's something you could be wrong about, which makes it more risky and interesting) . Facts and opinions are OK to put in a paper, but they are pointless unless they help you figure out what you think is really true.
    
2. Reasoning: You can "support" your point, "defend" your view, present "evidence" etc. These are all forms of the basic activity of giving reasons for what you think.
    
3. Criticisms: You can say why you think some other view is not true. This means giving your reasons (#2) for disagreeing. Don't be afraid to disagree and criticize that's interesting. There's nothing nasty or mean about criticizing other people's views, so long as you're willing to have your own views criticized in return. That's how we all learn.
    
4. Inquiry: This means "the attempt to answer questions.” Many papers are built around an inquiry; they pursue one question for four or five pages. But even when your paper is not quite built like that, the way you get from point A to point B (from one sentence or paragraph to the next) is often by trying to answer the questions in your own mind or the questions you expect your reader is asking. 'You don't always have to write your questions down in the paper. The point, is that a question is your guide to what to say next. A question in your head is a solution to the problem: “I don't have anything to say.”
    
5. Interpretations: You can say what you think a text means – or what the author is trying to say, or what effect the author wants to create (is this book trying to make you mad, get you to change your mind about something, recognize something, see the beauty of something?)
    
6. Quotations: It's often a good idea to quote the passage you're interpreting. Since the questions you're pursuing in these papers are usually questions about the text, the text is your evidence (see #2) , and quoting the text is like presenting evidence for your view.
    
7. Examples: These both make your point more vivid and give your reader a reason to believe it (#2). If you're stuck, try giving an example to support what you just said.
    
8. Comparisons: These are like "double" examples. You can often make your point clearer by comparing it with something different. For example, you can bring out what Jesus is like by contrasting him with Moses. The more concrete and specific the better: e.g. notice what things Jesus does that Moses wouldn't do. That helps explain what is distinctive about Jesus.
    
9. Distinctions: This means saying what something is not. This is something interesting that students don't do nearly enough of. For example, you could begin a paper by saying, "Socrates is a philosopher, not a wise man." Notice how much more interesting that is than just saying, "Socrates is a philosopher." It also accomplishes several other things. It introduces an important idea of Socrates' (i.e. the distinction between seeking wisdom and possessing it) and it gets your reader surprised (see #10) and asking questions ("Well, then, what is the difference between philosophy and wisdom?"). And that gives you something to say next (see #4). Notice, to make a distinction you typically use the word "not." You'd be surprised how many students write as if that little word was not in their vocabulary There's about a very good chance that a paper without the word "not" in it is boring.
    
10. Surprises: Notice when you're surprised about something, and consider putting it in your paper. Surprises are interesting. It's especially interesting to note silences or absences in a text. (e.g. what sort of things does Socrates not do or say?) Often you can deliberately generate surprise in your reader's mind sometimes by making an interesting distinction (see #6) or by saying something clever (see #12).
     
11. Irony: Notice when things aren't quite what they seem, or a character's deeds don't match their words. That sort of stuff is interesting.
     
12. Beauty: You're allowed to say that you think that something is beautiful, wonderful, exhilarating, etc.
     
13. Cleverness: This does not mean telling jokes; it simply means saying things that wake up the mind of your reader, usually with a little tang of delight or curiosity. For example, imagine starting your paper with a line like "Plato's Apology is not an apology." There is just a little fun in this (and there is not nearly enough fun in most student papers). Notice also how much more interesting this is than an opening line like "The Apology is Socrates, speech in his own defense." Both sentences are designed to lead into the same material (what the title of Plato's Apology means) but the first one is clever and deliberately provokes questions ("Well if it's not an apology then what it is? And why is it called Apology if it’s not an apology?") This not only gets your reader interested, it gives you something to say next.

One final piece of advice: write intelligently. The word "intelligent" comes from a Latin word meaning "to understand." To write intelligently means to write stuff you understand. You'd be surprised how many students don't. Usually that's because they're trying to spit back "the right answer," and they figure the professor will understand it even if they don't. After all, the professor already knows the right answer, doesn't he? WRONG: if you don't understand what you're saying, your reader won't either even if your reader is a professor. Besides, writing is a lot more fun if you actually understand what you're saying.