Writing in the Major

It 1s a truism among teachers of writing that the only way for their charges to improve is to write, rewrite, and then write some more. Writing, of course, is not only valuable for its own sake, but as a vital educational tool as well: the best way to understand something fully is to write and rewrite what we think we know. “He who writes badly thinks bad­ly,” wrote William Cobbett. And, ac­cording to John Updike, “Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what it is one is saying.” For their part, most teachers of history acknowledge the val­ue of student writing and routinely as­sign term papers, book reviews, and other writing projects; most of us also utilize essay exams.

But how much written work can his­tory teachers assign each semester? How much dare we assign? We usually have more than enough to keep us busy each day, so there is a clear limit to what we will require of our students and be able to grade constructively. Besides, we are not English teachers! Some of us might think twice, moreover, before asking our students to work significantly more than do our colleagues. We could, as an alternative, devote additional time to extensive written suggestions and criti­cism of fewer papers, but this solution too is fraught with problems, since both the amount and frequency of writing is vital for learning. So, to borrow Lenin’s prerevolution words, “what is to be done?”

At California State University, San Bernardino, we are engaged in what appears to be a novel and effective solu­tion that goes beyond the domain or responsibility of a single department. The program at CSUSB has its origins in an April 1976 directive by the Board of Trustees of the nineteen campuses of the California State University mandat­ing that all graduates demonstrate writ­ing proficiency prior to graduation. Each campus subsequently developed a method of defining and certifying that writing ability for all degree candidates.

CSUSB came to offer five courses, all numbered 495, through the Schools of Administration, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Sci­ences, which in 1981-82 became part of our upper-division general education requirements. Prerequisites for 495 are freshman composition and upper-divi­sion standing. Significantly, most of the courses are taught by teachers from within the schools themselves. And this is how I, a historian, came to teach Social Sciences 495 to history and other majors from the school.

Social Sciences 495 takes more time than any other course I teach, but I gladly offer a couple of sections each year, as do several of my colleagues, for one simple reason: it works! Most students leave the course improved writers, more aware of the relationship of writing to thinking, of language, nuance, style, grammar, and what generally makes for good writing. Those who begin the class with poor skills can, with effort, leave with minimum levels of competency, while those with ability have the opportunity to refine their skills.

. . . I seek to emancipate energy, imagination, style, creativity, and a feel for a subject when these need an inevitable boost.

Most students think  of writing in su­perficial ways—consisting primarily of spelling, grammar, and  punctuation. But I try to help my students become aware, both implicitly and explicitly, of the vital link between writing and think­ing. They learn, I hope, that writing is thinking, which means that every time they write they have another opportuni­ty to discover just how perceptive they are, or are not. That is, there really is no writing equivalent of “true gift of gab”; we may be able to fool ourselves and others with our words, but with writing, if no thought is in our minds, nothing substantial reaches the page.

My particular qualifications, apart from willingness and enthusiasm, in­clude my own writing and publications (in several fields and to diverse audi­ences), seven years as editor of CSUSB’s annual self-study and accreditation re­ports, current editorship of the “Ad­vanced Placement Teaching” column in this newsletter, and my participation in a series of faculty seminars (funded by an NEH grant and supported by CSUSB’s Writing Reinforcement Pro­gram) designed to assist college teachers in improving their own assignments and the written work of their students. Other teachers with less writing and editing experience are trained by a program coordinator, and most of us exchange materials and ideas.

The course itself (five quarter units, meeting four hours per week, with class size limited to a maximum of twenty) is one in expository writing, and it empha­sizes the techniques of analysis, summa­ry, review, research, and argumenta­tion. Students are instructed to consider the class a writing workshop where they write, edit, and rewrite their own work, critique the writing of others, and dis­cuss the critiques of their own writing. Grades are A, B, C, and No Credit, with the latter meaning that students must repeat the course.

Students are required to develop and complete five short papers (three to four typed pages) and one longer paper (about ten pages), as well as take mid­term and final exams, which, like the other assignments, are geared to enable them to work in and think about their academic majors. Papers are initially drafted in class, criticized by fellow stu­dents, edited and rewritten at home, and then handed in for grading.

My comments and marginal markings are such that students can learn from them and rewrite their papers for a higher grade. (For example, I call atten­tion to inconsistencies in the use of verb tenses and places where nouns and verbs or nouns and pronouns do not agree. It then becomes the student’s job to correct the errors. Or, rather than scribble the overused but always vague “awkward,” I specify why a sentence or clause needs rewriting. And where a paper is cluttered with unnecessary words, I write the abbreviation “EUW” in the margin next to the offending line, which students are instructed to recog­nize as “eliminate unnecessary word”; the student must then determine which word may safely be eliminated without altering the meaning. Other abbrevia­tions and notations focus on problems with punctuation, clarity, and choice of words.) Assigned readings and a steady flow of handouts help round out the course, all of which is described in more detail below.

Before I assign the first paper to be graded, students write two short papers, one an autobiographical essay, the other a review of a film on the revolution in Nicaragua. With these ungraded tasks we go through the motions of what is about to become standard operating procedure. Further, all assignments are explained in detail so there are no mis­understandings (there is always time for questions) and students can budget their time accordingly. Students are also familiarized with a minimum number of editorial markings and instructed in what to look for as they critique one another’s papers. These first two un­graded essays give me a chance to be­ come acquainted with my students so as to anticipate strengths and weaknesses, and it gives them an opportunity to learn how I will respond to their work. In other words, this is good practice for all of us.                                      ·

In addition, students keep a journal in which they make entries for five to ten minutes at the start of each class. They can write about anything they wish, and I neither grade nor read them. The actual writing is what is im­portant, and at the end of the quarter I have students compare early, mid-course, and late entries to determine if they see any changes. Some observe few differences, but a comment by one stu­dent illustrates what I hope most will ultimately realize: “When I began these journal entries, I simply described what I had been doing, but by the end I was writing about what I was thinking.”

Since students in the course must be at least juniors, they have usually begun taking courses in their majors. I con­ struct all graded assignments with that in mind. These include an abstract of an article from a prestigious journal in the student’s discipline, an essay comparing book reviews from a professional jour­nal and the popular press, a review of a book read or being read in a course in the major, an interview in essay form with a professional in the student’s field, and an essay analyzing a contemporary issue from the perspective of the stu­dent’s major. These are the short pa­pers. The longer one, a research paper, is a bibliographic essay, an analytic re­view of the literature of a subject within the major. A tour of the library, de­signed to help with assignments, is con­ducted by a librarian during an early class session; most upper-division stu­dents, I have learned, profit from this since few have used the library for more than checking out books.

In addition to detailed explanations for each assignment in the syllabus, I discuss all assignments in class before any work is actually begun, and I dis­tribute handouts that provide supporting information. For example, one handout describes what abstracts are and how they may be composed. Another suggests guidelines for writing sum­maries and  critiques for book reviews. Students read about interview techniques and the use of interviews in their discipline, and they  help each other prepare the questions they will ask. Other handouts suggest writing strategies and procedures (including organization and style), alert them to uses and abuses of paraphrasing and the dangers of plagiarism, instruct them in note taking, and call their attention to a host of common writing errors. And they have available on reserve in the library samples of successful student papers.

Despite what may sound dry and me­thodical, to me it is not. I also try to have fun. For example, to demonstrate that even serious subjects can be entertain­ing, I distribute copies of satirical and humorous writing, including a brief ar­ticle I wrote on robots and the labor force. Integrating some of my own writ­ing is a convincing demonstration that I practice what I teach; and, not inciden­tally, my writing has become more pre­cise due to my now keener editorial eye.

But the course can be fun in other ways, especially by looking at the lighter side of writing that is meant to be seri0us. The Quarterly Review of Doublespeak publishes some of the worst misuses of our language. Its editor, William Lutz of Rutgers University, spoke at CSUSB and provided these examples, among others: the military has referred to an invasion as a “predawn vertical inser­tion”; politicians pledge not to raise tax­es but instead vote for “revenue en­hancements”; the Environmental Pro­tection Agency tries to pacify us by describing acid rain as “poorly buffered precipitation.”

I am always on the lookout in what I read for anything that can help students approach writing more positively. Jack Smith, in his column in the Los Angeles Times, ran a series of bloopers collected by teachers (e.g., “When you put Roose­velt and Wilson side by side, you can see that they had few differences but their contrasts weren’t that similar.” “In the Middle Ages, the Black Pledge was going around.”) William Safire’s column, “On Language,” in the Sunday New York Times Magazine frequently is useful. Dear Abby has devoted several columns to word abuse. I even use jokes and cartoons. Comedian Steven Wright says he once went to a place to eat that said “Breakfast Any Time,” so he ordered French Toast in the Renaissance. A New Yorker cartoon shows one tycoon sitting by a fireplace at his club saying to another: “Feeling poorly? Thank heaven! I thought you said you were feeling poor.” Another pictures an elderly couple looking down at a mat in front of an apartment door on which they are about to knock; the mat reads: “Not Unwelcome.”

Another instructive technique is to examine the corrected drafts of a pro­fessional’s writing. Zinsser’s book repro­duces two pages in manuscript form complete with all word and phrase changes and editorial markings. This is a helpful way for students to see that what appears effortless in print actually took time and concentration. As Samuel Johnson said, “Easy writing makes damned hard reading.” Then I circulate a typed copy of a review I wrote for the American Historical Review with all my own editorial markings, which collec­tively represent some eight editing read­throughs. The effect of all this is salu­tary and enables students to reconceptu­alize what writing is—that it is a form of thinking, not merely a matter of gram­mar.

Most of my course time is devoted to evaluating papers. But I do not rewrite or correct spelling and grammar. Instead, as described above, all marginal comments and editorial markings are meant to enable students to make cor­rections themselves. Thus, I encourage students to eliminate unnecessary words, substitute suspect words with more appropriate ones, rephrase with more feeling or style, use punctuation properly, communicate an idea more effectively, express a view in grammati­cally correct English, and—most impor­tant—rethink their ideas. I might, for example, ask if they have in fact con­nected evidence and arguments to con­clusions. My written comments focus on major problems and strengths, and I do my best to provide encouragement and note improvement, especially since the early going can be difficult, if not de­pressing, for many students.

Comedian Steven Wright says he once went to a place to eat that said “Breakfast Any Time,” so he ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.

The mention of grammar may dis­courage some readers from considering teaching such a course. A common reac­tion might be: “I know how to write well enough, and I even know how to spot many grammatical errors, but I am nei­ther trained nor able to teach gram­mar.” Actually, this was my initial re­sponse when first asked to teach the course. In fact, I still am not able to teach grammar, nor do I wish to. (The best writers in our  English department, I am told, share this view.)

Good writing involves much more than grammar, and that is what I con­centrate on. I try to restore life to writ­ing that functions poorly, if at all, and I seek to emancipate energy, imagination, style, creativity, and a feel for a subject when these need an inevitable boost. However, I call attention to grammatical errors and, to help students overcome problems with punctuation, I distribute handouts that provide both rules and specific examples on the use of the comma, semicolon, colon, dash, apos­trophe, and hyphen. Further, I sched­ule two conferences with each student to review graded work, often page by page, and many see me more often.

I require that students read for class discussion throughout the course On Writing Well, an extremely helpful and readable text by William Zinsser (Harper and Row, 1985). I urge them to make active use of a dictionary and thesaurus, and I recommend Kate Tur­abian’s Manual for Writers and J. Heffer­nan and J. Lincoln’s Writing: A College Handbook (which is also required in our university’s freshman composition class­es). I expose them to other kinds of writing about writing, such as George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Lan­guage” and Kurt Vonnegut’s “How to Write with Style.” And I encourage them to learn to recognize, appreciate, and emulate good writing—examples of which I distribute—as an additional route to the goal of improvement.

Finally, some class time is also devoted to the skills involved in writing essay exams. I focus on techniques for brain­ storming, the use of notes and outlines, and the value of organization. I stress understanding directive word mean­ings, addressing the question, and keep­ing within time limits.

I view Social Sciences 495 as I see the history I teach; it is a means to a larger end and serves a higher purpose. Just as history is instructive in the way it illuminates life, writing is both a potent means of communicating a subject such as his­tory and a vehicle for individual devel­opment. My ultimate goal in teaching this course is to help students realize their potential as educated human be­ings through their writing, their think­ing, and in finding their own writing voices. I want them to recognize that growth is possible, with effort, and that however much a chore writing may be—and it usually is—it can also be fun and rewarding.