1.  The major benefit of adding more writing in any course is that students focus and think better if they have to write about a given topic.  It's possible to obtain this benefit even if the writings are very short.

2.  Ungraded and informal writing is the best way to start.  The students don't have to write research papers in order to gain focus and generate some new knowledge.

3. You don't have to grade or correct these exercises in order for them to work.  In fact, too much written correcting tends to overwhelm the students and deflect their attention from the subject matter at hand.  It's called Communications Across the Curriculum, not Editing across the curriculum.

4. Good examples successful ungraded writing assignments are on the CxC Web Page.   See “Writing to Learn,” and tweak the assignments as needed for your own courses.

5. Here are two such assignments as deployed by Dr. Amy Van Buren (Psychology):

Both of these ideas come from a workbook I have on classroom assessment (Angelo & Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques).

• The one-minute paper. After a lecture or class discussion, you ask students to spend one minute summarizing (in writing, of course) what they think was the most important (or interesting or surprising) point covered. You can also ask them to write down whatever lingering questions they have about the topic matter. I usually ask students to read what they have written. I am sometimes very surprised by what they have absorbed. I find this a great way to get students to integrate course material. I've also found that some students are more willing to speak up in class if they have written down their thoughts first.
  
• The “muddiest” point: This is an exercise in which you ask students to write a short paragraph describing what they think was the “muddiest” or most unclear point covered in class and why. This encourages them to think about what they have just heard and whether it makes sense to them. I find that when I do this, students are much more willing to ask for clarification than if I simply ask who has questions.

In addition to helping students make sense of class material, both of these exercises get them writing without worrying about writing perfectly, since I never collect the exercises. They also really help generate class discussion.

6.  Once you are comfortable with writing to learn assignments, you may want to develop further writing opportunities.  Feel free to contact me for a personal or departmental consultation: <cainj@sacredheart.edu>

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