Review: Because nearly everyone any of us know has had to take some sort of composition course in college, teaching writing to college students seems naturally to mean teaching composition to first year students. But in fact, composition is something that widely exists as a required course only in American universities, and it exists in many forms other than first year (or freshman) composition. However, several issues have over the past 10 years come under fire:

1. Students often find these required classes unengaging, put little work into them, and learn little.
2. Researchers find that these courses rarely make a difference in student writing, unless the student is internally motivated to become a better writer.
3. Often, faculty want a single course (or two) taught in the first year to make up for the deficiencies in literacy—reading and writing—they see in students in today's university.
4. Teachers in disciplines want a general education writing class to help students write in specific environments, and often think students should be taught grammar.
5. Writing teachers are often not trained in writing instruction—or any instruction. They are often people with degrees in literature.
6. Students rarely are asked why they are being made to take writing classes, or if the way in which they are being taught writing is actually the best way for them to learn to write.

The problem: You are being asked why you are made to take writing and if the system NDSU uses is the best way to teach writing (for students). Your job is to sort through the range of approaches to teaching writing and to come to conclusions about what sort of writing program (if any) would be good for North Dakota State University and the students this university serves. To complete this task, you will work in teams, first gathering information about the present writing program at NDSU and other writing programs across the country.

Now your group has learned a few things about teaching writing. You have investigated a writing program other than NDSU, you have had experiences of your own within the program at NDSU, and you have interviewed someone in your own discipline of future field of employment about writing in that area. In addition, you have been exploring a variety of approaches to writing through your summary annotation assignments (I hope). Now your group will need to learn (a lot more, quickly) about why we teach writing, and the variety of approaches to doing that. Your research may involve reading more thoroughly about how and why writing is taught—as a group you can choose areas to explore. But your research could also involve focus groups or surveying—or, you could use the data my past class developed (ask me to e-mail you copies of the data sets). You will be combining all of these things in order to propose a new writing program—a new approach that would work better for students. As with any proposal, you need to support your ideas with evidence and research.

Your tasks: With your group, develop an 8-10 page (single-spaced, professionally designed) proposal outlining the program you would like to see NDSU develop. For this paper, you will employ the generic structure of a proposal—we will spend next week in class discussing how to do this. You and your group will need to be collecting research info at the same time. Related tasks: each group member will write a memo grading him/herself and other group members.

Goals:

1. Self-directed learning.
2. Group/team interaction skills.
3. Research skills.
4. Learning specific technical skills: word processing, document design.
5. Engaging the complexity of a real-world problem and recommending a group of solutions.
6. Writing in real world situations, which nearly always include compiling and disseminating complex information, writing in teams, writing in and for electronic environments.
7. The confidence to research and propose alternatives to situations you do not agree with or think could be handled better (civic engagment).

I hope this project will help you gain confidence in your ability to analyze and complete complex tasks, to write and speak logically and clearly about issues central to understanding an unfamiliar problem, and to work in teams to effectively compile research and solve problems. These are skills central to winning and keeping jobs in today's market.

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