Developing a Writing Program to Serve
North Dakota State University

Teaching writing to college students seems naturally to mean teaching composition to first year students because nearly everyone any of us know have had to take some sort of composition course in college. 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. Competing interests include:

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. Administrators 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. Most of us learn on the job.

The problem:
Your job is to sort through the range of approaches to teaching writing, with input from students, administrators, future employers, and instructors to come to conclusions about what sort of writing program would be good for North Dakota State University–students, teachers across campus, administrators, writing faculty; what sort of a program would be possible here; and why you think that approach is appropriate. 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. Each group will approach the problem from the interest of a specific group:

1. Students
2. Administration
3. Writing faculty
4. Faculty in other disciplines
5. Future employers

Although your group will very likely reach a solution different from the other groups, in the end, we will need to develop a single report that describes the complexity of the situation, but offers a recommendation of how NDSU should proceed.

Your tasks:
With the entire class, in groups, and independently, in several discrete steps, you will compile research in order to write a final proposal report suggesting what the class thinks is the best sort of writing program to develop at North Dakota State University. In order to do this, you will write three individual papers of 3+ pages, 3 group papers to summarize and analyze the individual work, and a class report.

The projectss will be:

1. A paper describing a composition program–either one that exists, or a theoretical program.
2. A group paper analyzing and drawing conclusions about the individual programs your group investigated.

1. A web survey. Your group will design a web survey and post it on-line.
2. A paper analyzing data collected in your group's web survey.

1. A paper interviewing an individual from your interest group about college writing programs.
2. A group paper combining, summarizing and analyzing the information from the individual papers.

1. A final group proposal.
2. A class proposal.
3. A coordinated class oral presentation of this material.

Goals:
1. Self-directed learning.
2. Group/team interaction skills.
3. Research skills.
4. Learning specific technical skills: Powerpoint, Word processing, document design, web design.
5. Engaging the complexity of a real-world problem and recommending a group of solutions.

I hope you will leave this class with confidence in your ability to analyze and complete complex tasks, to write and speak logically and clearly about issues central to understanding a problem, and to work in teams to effectively compile research and solve problems.

Assignment #1
Assignment #2
Assignment #3