"There are lots of sites where good work on student writing is happening. The challenge is how to fit them together."

Across the UW campus, many programs and groups work with student writing. The goal of this Bulletin is to familiarize the campus community with writing opportunities that students have and resources that can help instructors build on the writing experiences students bring to their classes. Knowing what experiences and expectations students bring to your courses can help you improve students’ writing.

Writing experiences students bring to your classes can help them succeed with the writing you assign, but to transfer the skills they bring to your context, students need to know the conventions of your discipline. Explicit assignments, opportunities to write drafts and receive feedback, and sample papers are some of the things students say help them meet writing expectations in their courses. To read more about students’ perceptions of their writing experiences at UW, visit the UW SOUL report, Writing at UW: The First Year: http://www.washington.edu/oea/rptssoul.htm

The Expository Writing Program is responsible for teaching more than 4,000 students each year in one of four primary courses, each of which satisfies the University’s "C" course or composition requirement. These courses present students with various types of readings from which students draw concepts and evidence for their argumentative, academic papers. To read more about what students learn in these courses, visit this site: http://depts.washington.edu/engl/ewphome/ewphome.shtml

The Interdisciplinary Writing Program offers writing courses (ENG 197, ENGL 198, ENGL 199) linked with lecture courses in some 15 disciplines. Writing Links strengthen students' ability to read, write, and think critically in the context of disciplinary study. Assignments in a Writing Link always focus on materials, issues, and purposes relevant to the accompanying lecture course, and most students say that pairing a writing course with a lecture course enhances their learning in both. To read more about what students learn in Writing Links, visit this site: http://depts.washington.edu/engl/Undergrad/iwp.html

Writing Centers

Rather than a single campus-wide writing center, the UW has many smaller, department-based writing centers. These centers are staffed by undergraduate majors or graduate students whose familiarity with the kinds of writing done in their disciplines makes them valuable resources for student writers. To read more about the many campus writing centers, visit this site: http://faculty.washington.edu/jwholmes/uwwrite.html

CIDR staff are available to consult with faculty and TAs on all aspects of writing instruction:

• integrating writing into the course as a whole
• developing writing assignments
• designing draft, peer review, and revision opportunities
• responding to student writing
• grading students written work
• exploring the role that writing can play in student learning in your course

CIDR also provides print and web resources in these areas and CIDR staff can help collect and interpret data on students’ perceptions of their learning in your course.

To view CIDR’s collection of writing resources, visit: http://depts.washington.edu/cidrweb/resources/writingtools.html

To contact CIDR, call 206-543-6588 or send a message to cidr@u.washington.edu