Teaching Writing in the Humanities

Nora E. Carr & Stefania Porcelli

INTRODUCTION

Starting in their second year at The Graduate Center, PhD students in the Humanities are likely to teach composition classes, writing-intensive courses, or content courses that require students to complete a number of written assignments. We are convinced that writing as a learning tool can and should be used in every class, and that formal and informal writing activities improve the learning process of students at all levels and in all disciplines. Although we’ll focus especially on composition, writing-intensive, and literature classes, there are low stakes assignments, reflective writing, and assessment strategies that can be implemented in other disciplines, including the sciences – at least until we have a handbook for that.

At CUNY, first-year college students have to take composition classes that introduce them to academic expository writing in English, with an emphasis on the link between critical thinking and critical writing. Subsequent courses with a focus on writing are classified as writing-intensive. CUNY campuses define writing-intensive courses based on the amount of polished written outcome the students are required to produce (usually a total of 15 pages per semester) or by the percentage of the final grade that should be based on written assignments (usually more than 50%). However, writing is a significant element in most classes, regardless of whether they are officially writing-intensive or not.

The resources for instructors of composition and writing courses are not homogeneous across CUNY. Sometimes workshops are offered by individual departments, sometimes courses and bootcamps are organized by the writing center on the campus where we work. Written guidelines for composition or a writing course also vary greatly, and are usually put together by the senate of the institution. Therefore, instructors should make sure to review the guidelines and be aware of the learning objectives of the classes they are teaching. Here is a sample of the guidance for writing-intensive courses at several campuses. You will find that some are more detailed and complete than others:

Hunter College

Lehman College

Queens College

York College

Kingsborough Community College

City Tech

Like writing itself, teaching writing takes time and labor, as well as patience and creativity. It is important to be open to new perspectives and strategies, and the ability to learn from others (including your students!). The complaint that students can’t write is probably as old as college education itself. But do students really write poorly? Maybe better questions to ask would be: when and why do students write poorly? What can make them better writers? One of the objectives of this handbook is to provide both practical classroom advice and strategies for re-examining our notions of students’ weaknesses and strengths. For instance, do students care about what they’re being asked to write? Do they have anything to say about the prompt we’ve given them? Studies have found that “students do not do particularly well in writing papers just for the sake of writing papers” (Davidson 93), while they perform much better if they care about the subject and they feel that their writing has an impact beyond the classroom. Moreover, we can’t expect students to turn in polished pieces of writing if we don’t give them the opportunity to revise multiple times. This means that we have to teach students that writing is never completely done. It is a process that involves pre-writing (reading, thinking, and writing), the actual writing (or better, drafting), revising, and editing. Moreover, this is a recursive process: in the revising stage they might need to read more or think more, and then revise again.

This handbook is structured with the writing process in mind. Similar to when we write, when we teach we need to think and plan in advance (the before section), to implement the teaching principles (and adjusting the strategies if needed), to evaluate both the students progress and the syllabus effectiveness (after). After teaching a class or two, we have a better sense of what is likely to work in a future class, and we become more confident about our teaching philosophy while also remaining open to ongoing adjustments to  our pedagogy.

PART 1: BEFORE

Writing doesn’t happen in a void. There are several reasons why people write: they have something to say, a request to make, or an argument to prove. Moreover, there is somebody to inform or convince. Teaching writing can be difficult because students feel they have nothing to say, and that they only write for their professor. Teaching writing poses the double challenge of getting the students to engage with our discipline (so that they will have something to say) and find, if possible, a way for some of their writing to have meaning beyond the student-professor exchange and possibly even beyond the classroom.

Selecting a Theme or Adapting a Theme
        When we write, we write with a specific purpose and with a particular audience in mind. Similarly, when we teach, we do so with a set of specific learning goals in mind, as well as a particular audience--our students. As you design your course, it is important to consider not only what you are teaching, but to whom you are teaching it.

Let’s start with learning objectives. Any course is meant to develop different skills and familiarize students with different topics. First: What are the conventions of writing in your discipline that your students will learn? They might need to learn thesis-driven essays, textual analysis, interpretative papers, etc. Second: these genres alone don’t say anything as to what they will write about. What aspects of society, culture, history or arts are they going to discuss in class and in their writing? Third: while drafting your learning objectives, remember that your students will also be learning how to approach a text in your discipline. In other words, they will learn how to read and how to discuss before they learn how to write.

Sample Learning Objectives from a First-Semester Writing Course at Baruch College

Sample Learning Objectives / Outcomes from a Second-Semester Writing Course at Queens College

At times, you might be able to choose your topic, but as a GTF or adjunct at CUNY, you might also be asked to teach a class about particular subjects, periods, or authors. Even in this case, you have some room for personalizing your course. We encourage you to include topics and materials you are interested in. This has several benefits:

• Students can sense your excitement and appreciate your commitment to the subject
• Excitement is contagious
• It might be easier to teach!

Even if you are teaching a theme you haven’t chosen, you can make it your own by choosing secondary sources and drafting assignments that are in line with your research, interests, or approach.

Once you have a theme, make your readings as varied as possible and include several genres and media when possible to cater to students with different learning styles. Try to think of as many genres as possible to include as writing activities. Creative writing, exploring a museum, and answering guided questions (especially in the Manhattan campuses), reviews, songs, wikipedia entries, etc. are all possibilities. Here are some examples:

Met Museum visit developed by Julie van Peteghem

Re-writing Boccaccio. Assignments created by Karina F. Attar

Video performance assignment by Nora E. Carr

Our suggestion is always to try one new activity at a time as well as including something you are comfortable doing (or at least willing to learn how to do!). Always consider the learning curve of new initiatives.

Planning the Course: Sequencing Reading and Writing Assignments

Writing classes should be a balanced mix of reading, discussions, and writing (where writing includes drafting and rewriting). We refer to reading in the broader sense of experiencing and engaging with a text, a show, a film, an exhibition, etc. Make sure that each of these components of your class reflects and contributes to your learning outcomes.

Think of a general theme for your class and divide it into units or subtopics (this can be divided by authors or by genres). Make a list of your reading materials and try to deliver the content in pre-class readings and viewings, so the class becomes a space for students to do active learning. Bonwell and Eison define active learning as “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing” (2). Discussion, problem solving, writing, and peer reviewing are all types of active learning and student-centered activities. Writing requires the higher-order thinking skills that only active learning can develop in students – “analysis, synthesis and evaluations” (2). At the same time writing helps develop those skills.

A typical week may look like this:

Pre-class reading 1

In-class discussion of reading 1

In class pre-draft 1

Pre-class draft 1

In-class peer review of draft 1

In-class discussion of findings

At home: revision of draft 1

Sample Reading-Writing Sequence (1 week)

Syllabus Excerpt, Writing About European Literature and Culture, Nora E. Carr, Fall 2021

Sample Weekly Sequence (2 weeks)

Syllabus Excerpt, Resistance Writing, Stefania Porcelli, Spring 2017

Sample Research Paper Assignment Sequence: English 130: Persepolis Research Paper Assignment Sequence

Making space for writing in each class period is even more important at CUNY. Not all CUNY students have the time or even the space to write at home. Some might not have reliable access to  a computer.  Even a few minutes in class of informal writing in response to a prompt or freewrites can be extremely beneficial to your students. You can model this kind of writing by participating in it yourself. Research your campus and plan some of the classes in a computer lab, if necessary (especially if students need to work on a longer assignment). Inform your student that they have access to free Microsoft Office 365. Direct them to spaces available on campus where they can use a computer.

Assembling a Syllabus

As with learning outcomes for a specific class, your college might have a template for your syllabus, like the Hunter College Syllabus Checklist, or guidelines, such as those contained in The Baruch College Faculty Handbook. While it is important to comply with your institution’s guidelines, your syllabus also is an opportunity to develop and communicate your teaching philosophy.  You might include a formal teaching philosophy section on your syllabus, or you could communicate your teaching philosophy by including a “letter to the students” that outlines the central values of your approach. As a writing instructor, your syllabus also models effective writing (it can also be used to support applications for teaching positions. Your syllabi might make you stand out later when you are on the job market).

Your syllabus will set the tone for your course and give the students a sense of the kind of teacher you are, while providing them with a plan of recurring activities (e.g., in-class discussion and in-class writing every week, and peer-reviews before major assignments are submitted) and assignments which will progress from less to more complex ones.

Before putting together your syllabus, think about the assignments that would allow students to demonstrate the acquired skills, i.e. the learning objectives. In this “backwards course design” (Baecher, Principle and Practices in Syllabus Design), the learning outcomes are defined first, and the week by week readings and activities are listed last. The assignments, possibly increasingly complex and combining several skills, are the playground where students can practice and reflect on their writing. For example, from summarizing a text, to analyzing it through an interpretative lens, to challenging another opinion about the text, and putting together an annotated bibliography. All these assignments cumulatively build skills that students will bring together in a final paper or semester-long project.

        Think about how you would like to conduct a typical class (or a typical week) and space out the major assignments. Some courses have regular weekly response papers or blog posts and four or five major assignments. Some instructors prefer to assign three papers. Whatever the case, each assignment should have separate instructions and evaluation explanations so that your syllabus can be consulted at a glance.

        Finally, we like to leave some space in the syllabus for the students to provide input. It could be one learning objective (and therefore at least one assignment and the related assessment), or some of the readings. Their first writing assignment might be a short paper in which they advocate for the inclusion of a text in the reading list for the course, as per Chris Walsh’s The Blank Syllabus. Giving the students a say tends to produce increased engagement with the material (see McMurtrie, What Happens When You Give Students Control of the Syllabus?).

PART 2: DURING

Introduce a Shared Vocabulary

Because our students enter the classroom with varying levels of writing experience and instruction, we find that it is extremely valuable to establish a set of shared terms for talking about the different aspects of academic writing (e.g. thesis, motivation, stitching, stance, etc.). One very popular vocabulary is Gordon Harvey’s “Elements of the Academic Essay,” but there are others, or you can come up with your own. Over the course of the semester you can continue to define and discuss these terms. Encourage students to use this vocabulary when discussing their own writing and the writing of their peers. Use this vocabulary in your classroom teaching and in your feedback.

Offer a Variety of Opportunities for Writing

We find that students learn best when they are offered a variety of opportunities for writing. Most composition and writing-intensive courses will require a certain number of pages of formal writing – that is, longer papers written and formatted in the vein of professional academic discourse to which you will provide formal, graded feedback. But the formal paper is not, nor should it be, the only opportunity for writing in the classroom. Students should also be encouraged to write regularly in informal settings – this type of writing encourages students to use writing as a tool for critical thinking. Informal writing can take place in the classroom, as a free write or in response to a prompt, or outside of the classroom as a discussion board, blog post, wiki, or other type of assignment. Encourage students to interact with the writing of their peers by asking them to read and comment on other students’ posts.

Meta-writing, such as self and peer assessment, is also an extremely useful writing opportunity for students. Requiring students to write a “cover letter” for major writing assignments in which they reflect on their experience completing the assignment, what they feel confident about, how they revised an assignment based on feedback from you or from their peers, and/or the challenges they faced, is one way to incorporate this kind of meta-writing task into your course. If you are using a blog or discussion board, you can  assign meta-blogs in which one or more students comment on their peers’ blog posts. A self assessment assignment such as a writing portfolio can help the students reflect on their own writing and see their own progress.

Craft Meaningful Writing Prompts

The writing prompt that you provide your students will have a huge impact on the kind and quality of the writing produced. A well-framed writing prompt will elicit more successful writing from your students than a prompt that is vague or ill-defined.

A few suggestions:

• frame prompts as questions rather than topics or statements--that is, prompts that encourage students to take a stance
• use verbs that communicate specifically what you want students to do in their writing (“analyze” is more specific than “discuss,” for example)
• encourage interpretive thinking rather than identification/summary
• clarify both the audience and the purpose of the assignment
• give students advice: describe briefly what a successful response to the prompt might look like

Students are generally not used to the idea of thinking about or using critical lenses to look at a text or other object of study. Introduce, explain, and model a few kinds of critical lenses. Plan to revisit this topic. We like to assign a final research paper in which students decide on a critical lens for their own research, a type of assignment that will hopefully get students to really grapple with what it means to use critical lenses and how their choice of lens is reflective of their own value systems and backgrounds.

Sample Prompt for a Short Writing Assignment Analyzing a Single Text

German Literature in Translation, Nora E. Carr, Fall 2021

Sample Prompt for a Short Paper Using Secondary Sources

Italian Masterpieces in Translation, Stefania Porcelli, Fall 2016

Encourage Students to Think About Writing as a Process

As professional writers, we come into our classrooms with an understanding of writing as a process. We know that it is very rare for a piece of writing to feel “done.” There is always more revision we can do, more information to include, further research to pursue. Our students, however, often think about writing as a task to be completed, and that once the due date has arrived and the assignment has been turned in, there is no need to revisit the work that they’ve done (sometimes not even to look at the feedback!). For this reason we recommend building the writing process into your course by assigning writing projects over a sequence of well-defined steps. You might even consider assigning a semester-long project which students must add and revise throughout the semester.

There are many ways to encourage students to think about writing as a process of brainstorming and pre-writing, drafting, workshopping, and revising, rewriting, and reflecting. Offer exploratory pre-writing assignments. Schedule peer workshop days where students read and provide feedback on each others’ drafts. Review practices such as writing an abstract or proposal, outlining, and compiling an annotated bibliography. Discuss what revision means, and offer strategies to go about it. Often students think revision is something like copyediting--it is important to clarify that revision means something much more significant than making surface-level changes to a piece of writing. What are your own strategies for revision? Acknowledge that sometimes revision is difficult, painful, even embarrassing. We can relate! Explain what makes it worth doing. Encourage rewriting if your syllabus allows for it. Schedule individual conferences with students to talk about their writing one-on-one. Assign self-evaluations.

Foster an Inclusive Dialogue About Writing

Writing is hard! It’s hard for us, too. Many of our students have learned to automatically think of themselves as “bad” writers, a kind of thinking that sets them up for failure. Writing becomes some kind of unwinnable battle, something at which they feel they will simply never succeed. Although it can be extremely difficult to help break students out of this kind of thinking, there are a few strategies that can help:

• Return to the idea that writing is both process and practice. The most important part of our work as writers is that it helps us think through complicated problems. One piece of writing is only ever one part of a much larger, ongoing conversation. Encourage your students to get comfortable with the open-endedness of writing, and to see this as a source of strength;
• Students often come into our classrooms with the idea that academic writing means following a bunch of extremely specific, extremely arbitrary rules (one that I’ve heard several times, for example, is that a paper’s thesis must be stated in the third sentence of the introduction). Obviously, thinking about writing in this way discourages critical thinking and creativity, as students become so focused on following the “rules,” seemingly terrified that they might inadvertently break one (and further increasing the feeling that they are “bad” writers). Inform your students that as writers in college, they can make their own informed decisions about the “rules” of their writing. Encourage them to advocate for themselves and their own choices in their writing;
• Talk to your students about your own struggles as a writer. What do you struggle with? What habits have you fallen into that you’re trying to get out of? How has your relationship to writing changed over time? Maybe show them a paragraph of a paper you are working on which still needs  revision and ask for their feedback.

Build Writing Workshops and Individual Conferences Into Your Course 

Keep in mind that you can schedule full or partial class meetings devoted to peer workshopping and/or individual conferences. Peer workshops can be done in pairs or small groups, and give students the opportunity to see how their peers are thinking and writing about the assignment as well as allowing them to practice writing feedback for their peers. Student writers will not necessarily be comfortable in an independent workshop format, so we find that it is  good practice to provide a lot of scaffolding. And it’s always important to emphasize that a workshop is not a copy-editing exercise! Some students will go into correction mode- encourage them to focus on the bigger picture. You can find some examples of some possible workshop formats and resources here:

• Queens College's "Learning through Writing" handbook (pp. 48-53)
• Writing Workshop Worksheet 
  

Meeting students one-on-one is another way to foster engagement and accountability regarding writing. Even five minutes of your complete and undivided attention can mean a lot to your students. If, when, and how often you decide to schedule these meetings is up to you, and will probably depend on the size of your class. Some instructors like to check in individually a few times throughout the semester, others prefer to meet one-on-one only about big final papers and projects. If you do decide to schedule individual conferences, it’s best if students bring something with them to work on with you-- a draft of an introduction, a paper proposal, annotated bibliography, or outline, for example. It can also be useful to have them jot down a few questions or concerns that they have before the meeting.

You might be thinking that five minutes is WAY too short for a conference. It is totally possible to schedule longer conferences! But this time adds up, and can result in hours of uncompensated labor on your part (not to mention exhausting marathon sessions if you have a large class). Put your own time and your own sanity first.

Problem Solve with Your Students, not for Them or at Them

One of the most difficult aspects of teaching writing is that there always seem to be so many issues to deal with all at once. However, you should not attempt to deal with everything all at once. Organize yourself and your course so that you teach one main concept at a time-- it might be helpful to structure your class around the writing vocabulary you outlined to your students. Start with thesis and motivation, then move on to evidence and citation, and then on to issues like paragraphing and organization. You will probably not get to everything in the end. You will almost certainly need to revisit concepts you thought that you had already finished explaining. Probably more than once. That’s okay. Do one thing at a time.

Strategies for problem-solving:

• Meta-writing tasks: Ask your students to assess their own writing and writing process. These kinds of assignments allow students to position themselves as the experts regarding their own work, which often results in useful insights regarding both individual students as well as the course more generally. Some instructors also assign meta-posts, in which students reflect on how the entire class or a group has responded to a certain assignment. (See this assignment created by Elizabeth Alsop.)
• Student assessment: Halfway through the semester, check in with your students. You might consider giving students a brief feedback form to fill out, assessing their experience in the course, what has been challenging for them, and what suggestions they might have for the second half of the semester. Here is one of the 2019-2020 Teaching and Learning Webinar Series organized by Lehman College Faculty about The “Why” of Using Mid Semester Student Feedback to Improve Your Course.
• Office hours and individual meetings: All students should be encouraged to make use of your office hours. These kinds of individual meetings can be intimidating for many students, so make sure that they know that you are here to help! Make an effort to meet individually with students who seem to be struggling--often, our students have a lot going on outside of the classroom. While it’s certainly not your job to play detective, giving them some individual attention outside of the class environment can help give you a sense of what they are struggling with.
• Writing center: All CUNY campuses have a designated writing center where students can go to get even more individual support for their writing. Find out about the writing center at your campus and encourage your students to go!
• Other on-campus resources: It’s always a good idea to know some campus basics- where can students go to get the documentation they need regarding accommodations? Where can they go for counseling services? What specialized support groups (BIPOC, LGBTQ+, religious clubs, etc.) are available at your campus? Many students need support and either don’t know where to go to find it, or don’t know that it exists at all. If they come to you with a personal or other issue, remember that although it is not on you to get them through it, you can help them out by directing them to the resources they need.

PART 3: AFTER

Efficient Feedback and Grading

For each writing activity, students should receive feedback. However, this doesn’t mean that you should be grading every single piece of writing they do. Some low-stakes assignments will prompt discussion in small groups or as a class (and will be in this way assessed by the group); early drafts can be peer reviewed; students can self-evaluate some of their activities (they are usually stricter evaluators than their instructors!). For some assignments, however, the instructor will provide feedback. Subsequents drafts are finally graded. Both activities can be daunting and time consuming. We spend a lot of time grading and trying to figure out how to be more efficient graders.

When we started teaching we thought it was necessary to give students a lot of feedback and ask them to fix all the issues of their writing by the next draft. This is not a realistic goal. We mentioned that you should be focusing on teaching one aspect of writing at a time. Similarly, try to focus your feedback on one or two major issues in a student’s writing. Providing feedback on everything is exhausting--for you as well as for them--and ultimately unproductive. Try not to mark every big or little error on the page. Focus on what you think is most important for the student to work on for next time. This will give everyone a clear and hopefully achievable goal. Make sure you point out one place in which the student did well, so that they can see they have the potential to do better.

Designing and Using Rubrics

Rubrics can be useful and can help reduce the time you spend grading. There are many kinds of rubrics, and you might want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with them. John Bean offers examples of both analytic and holistic rubrics, generic and task-specific rubrics, and rubrics with and without grids (270-279). He also gives accounts of the controversies about rubrics, which can appear inhumane or teacher-centered in their pretended objectivity. They can, for example, make you feel you are giving points instead of valuable feedback.

        If you feel rubrics are helpful, go ahead and use one of the rubrics available, or design your own. You might also consider giving your students a say and use some time to build your rubric with your class. Instructors who do use rubrics tend to appreciate them because they provide students with a clear sense of the expectations for the assignment, they can cut down on grading time if used wisely, and they can provide a kind of “justification” for the grade earned in the case of complaints. Keep in mind that assessing points on a rubric is not an excuse, however, not to provide some written feedback on an assignment.

On the other end of the assessment spectrum there is a movement called ungrading: Jesse Stommel, a proponent of ungrading, provides some possibilities for grade-free portions of a class, even for instructors who are obliged to assign a final letter grade to each individual student. Among his suggestions are some strategies we have already discussed in this handbook and used in our classes: students’ self evaluation (students are often very honest about their effort and the amount of time they spent reading or revising), peer evaluation, student-made rubric, and midterm and/or final reflections. Consider also simplified rubrics or minimal grading for “assignments that count for credit but that individually, don’t bear heavily on the final course grade” (Elbow 128). This means using a scale with three levels of grades (for instance, strong/satisfactory/weak or excellent/OK/no credit); a scale with two levels (for example, pass/fail, satisfactory/no credit, or check/minus); a “scale” with only one level: the assignment is acceptable if it is simply turned in at all. However, you should always tell the students what a satisfactory, strong, or weak paper looks like in advance.

Ideally, your class will have occasions for authentic assessment, which answers the question “how can we create reasons more meaningful than points for students to do the work of a course?” (Stommel) In a film course, authentic assessments might be a festival where real audiences give their feedback (Stommel). In a writing class, you can think of a publication (even in the department’s journal), a wiki entry, or public reading.

CONCLUSION

Rethink Your Syllabus

Once you’ve submitted your final grades, you’re done for the semester--take a moment to congratulate yourself! Give yourself an opportunity to rest and decompress. It’s also a good time to make some notes to yourself about your course: now that it’s over, assess what went well, what did not go so well, and where you would like to make changes for next time (it can be difficult to remember this stuff by the time a new semester is about to begin, especially after a summer off, so it really is worth making some written notes). Use student feedback and your observation report to further assess strengths and weaknesses. Maybe a particular reading wasn’t popular with your students, or maybe a certain assignment didn’t generate the results you’d hoped for. Keep in mind that every group of students is different, so sometimes a particular text or project will work really well with one group and less well with another. Even if something didn’t seem to work once, it still could be worth tinkering with and trying out again. What you keep, what you change, and what you get rid of is all totally up to you!

Reframe Negative Thinking

If you are a new, newish (or even an experienced!) teacher, you might reach the end of the semester feeling frustrated or disappointed with yourself and your course. It might be hard to look past what you feel went wrong and see the progress and accomplishments of both you and your students. If you find yourself feeling this way, know that you’re not alone. We all have days, weeks, and even whole semesters where nothing seems to go quite right. Take this as an opportunity to prepare for next time. Don’t forget to consider the students that did well, instead of focusing on those students (or sometimes that one student) who didn’t progress. A classroom is a constantly changing, constantly evolving environment--it’s very rare that an assignment or an activity will go exactly as you planned (in fact, that probably never happens). Each time you work through an assignment with your students, you gain more information about how students approach the work, what they get out of it, what might be difficult for them, and what other kinds of scaffolding and support they might need. Use this information to anticipate future challenges.

And finally, student learning often happens in ways we may not even realize. By taking their work and their thinking seriously, you will encourage your students to engage-- critically, productively, creatively--with the world around them. Many of our students end up using and responding to course material in unexpected ways-- visual art, music and video, creative writing projects, and more. Remember that when we help students practice writing, we are doing the even more important work of helping them practice thinking.

Stefania Porcelli obtained her PhD in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center with a dissertation about narrative intensity (2020). Her research interests include 20th-century Italian, English and German Literature, history of emotions and affect theory, affect and pedagogy.

Nora E. Carr holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the Graduate Center. Her research focuses on literary translation, translation theory, and heterolingual texts. She teaches at Queens College and NYU.

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