Traditional first year college writing programs struggle to meet the needs of today's
students: however, learning which needs aren't being met – and how to meet them– has
been ignored. At The University of of North Texas, we're changing that by redeveloping
our First Year Writing (FYW) program based on current reseach of our student's needs.
Here's how.
Our Goal
Developing a curriculum is a difficult and complex process, but as our colleague Matt
Heard suggests, “…when fostered as an inventive act, curriculum design can posture
instructors to understand and engage with commonplace values in the wider disciplines
of composition and English studies more broadly” (Heard 321). To embrace our activities
as an inventive act, the FYW team sought to listen and learn from as many sources
as possible. Specifically, we:
- Surveyed the faculty who teach FYW
- Surveyed students who take FYW courses
- Conducted townhall meetings with all FYW faculty
- Conducted a focus group with the students who piloted our new textbook
- Conducted a focus group with the instructors who piloted the new textbook
- Reviewed the First-Year Writing University of North Texas Curriculum Guide (Revised
August 15, 2020)
- Reviewed the materials on the FYW website
- Reviewed the materials in UNT: An Insider’s Guide to Academic Writing for UNT’s First-Year
Writing Program
- Conducted research in current trends in the teaching of developmental and first year
writing
Insights
Based on what we learned from these many sources, we realized that our current curriculum
needed to be modified to meet the needs of our many stakeholders and to reflect current
research on best practices. Specifically, we came to understand that the following
issues needed to be addressed:
- Our students lack close reading skills:
- They don’t understand the assignments
- They don’t understand the readings we provide
- They have difficulty evaluating the success of their own work
- Many of our students lack basic digital literacy skills which affects their ability
to complete their course work:
- They do not understand how to upload assignments to Canvas
- They are unfamiliar with how to leverage digital tools (creating a bibliography in
Word) to improve the quality of their work
- Many of our students struggle to be independent learners:
- They do not know how to ask pertinent questions
- They do not make use of available resources
- They do not know how to problem solve
- They lack time management skills
Solutions
To address these issues, we have tried to build a curriculum focused on teaching students
the following skills:
Skillset |
Specific Exercises |
Critical Reading and Thinking |
- Guided reading activities
- Critical discussions
- Use of culturally and politically relevant themes
|
Digital Literacy |
- Adding Canvas instructions to major assignments
- Embedding instructional videos into modules
- Addressing AI in the writing classroom
|
Independent Learning |
- Instructor led peer review
- Collaborative grading
- Increased self-assessment
- Increased written reflection
|
Community Engagement |
- Thematic assignment sequences that encourage students to engage with different communities
|
Our Values
Every aspect of our FYW program – from courses, to assignments, to classroom activities–
builds on these core values.
- Through writing we inquire, experiment, and discover ideas.
The act of writing encourages intellectual and personal development, and leads to
greater knowledge retention, deep reflection, and empathy. We are able to understand
ourselves and others through the experience of putting ideas into words and listening
to responses from the people around us. Writing can also help us develop a sense of
belonging in our communities.
- Writing encourages critical thinking.
When we write, we practice offering clear, coherent, and concise responses to complex
problems. While a minority of students will go on to write in academic genres after
graduation, academic writing gives students practice in precision and logic, while
developing attunement to audience and purpose.
- Writing is a complex, lifelong process.
Writing is not an isolated skill or a set of rules to learn. The writing process involves
planning, reading, collaborative talk, and substantial revision, often with multiple
drafts. In addition, writers must develop flexibility and learn to reflect continually
throughout their lives as they encounter new writing tasks.
- Writing gives writers power.
Academic audiences expect well-researched writing to provide evidence for solutions
to problems or reasoning for difficult questions. Nonacademic audiences also rely
on written arguments to persuade, explain complex issues and bring insight to the
concerns of their communities.
- Writing is inseparable from digital literacy.
Because so much of what we read and write is produced electronically and published
electronically, we need to understand how to use digital tools, databases, and resources
ethically and effectively.
- Writing is inseparable from critical thinking.
The process of writing is vitally interconnected with the ability to read sources
carefully, think about content critically, and decide how use information effectively.
- Writing allows us to speak in many voices.
We don’t speak one English, and we don’t speak in one voice. We become empowered as
writers by recognizing the diversity of language.
- Writing is challenging to learn and to teach.
We provide instructors with initial and ongoing training, professional development
opportunities, and individual support to encourage best teaching practices based on
research. We create leadership opportunities and award instructors to create a culture
that facilitates high quality teaching and fosters student success.
Our Team
Last Updated: November 5, 2024