Slides and Text from my presentation to the UNLV Grad Council - 23 September 2015
(SLIDE 1) I want to give you a brief preview of the upcoming report on
graduate student writing that will be distributed on campus by (hopefully) late
next week. I promised Kendall that I would keep this presentation to 5 minutes,
so I chose a format that will advance the slides fairly quickly and I’m going
to read prepared notes. Hopefully, we’ll have some time after for questions. I
hope that the report itself will generate lots of questions and lots of
conversations after it’s distributed. So, without further ado . . .
(SLIDE 2) I went to Kate and Kendall last fall and proposed a study on
graduate writing. I’ve been curious about graduate student writing practices
since my own doctoral study, and I was hoping a study might help describe the
expectations for and about writing and the role that writing plays in the
graduate student experience.
(SLIDE 3 and 4) We began with a primary goal of gathering information that describes and makes visible writing practices and the
culture of writing in the various graduate curricula at UNLV. By doing
this, we hoped to address much of the myth and lore that circulates freely
among graduate students and, quite frankly, among graduate faculty by making
these practices more transparent, thereby creating momentum for assessing (or
reassessing) writing practices in the graduate curricula on campus and
assessing appropriate and necessary levels of support for graduate writing and
teaching graduate writing at UNLV.
(SLIDE 5 and 6) The study used four
primary tools for collecting information: 1) An online survey of graduate
students about their writing practices and attitudes toward writing; 2) An
online survey of graduate faculty about their writing practices, attitudes
toward writing, and use of writing in their graduate courses; these were
distributed last spring; 3) Over the summer, we gathered three graduate student
focus groups and two graduate faculty focus groups to discuss key issues from
the survey findings; Finally, we performed external research of current
practices and support for graduate student writing across the country.
(SLIDE 7 and 8) 1,047 graduate
students responded to the survey, and 365 graduate faculty responded to the
survey. Faculty rank was equally represented in the respondents. All in all, we
were quite pleased with the response.
As you can see, there is a contrast in gender
identification among student and faculty respondents, which raises some
interesting questions: Does gender play a role in writing practices in our
disciplines and at the graduate level? How might these gender differences
influence our approach to writing? Or our approach to teaching writing?
(SLIDE 9) Beyond demographics, we are pleased to
note that, while most believe writing is hard work, the vast majority of
respondents actually enjoy writing (at least sometimes). We “see” ourselves as
writers, have an understanding of our strengths and weaknesses, and have
confidence in our ability to write well in our discipline.
(SLIDE 10) When we looked at the writing process, an
underwhelming number of students discuss their ideas with others before
drafting, which seems to perpetuate a myth of the individual thinker working
alone to achieve intellectual greatness.
(Slide 11) This myth is only heightened when we see
surprisingly low numbers for how much, how often, and with who graduate
students share their writing. There appears a real lack of trust among graduate
students when it comes to writing.
(SLIDE 12) And while a majority
of respondents believe that collaborative writing is a key to their
professional development, very few of us actually participate regularly in
writing groups. Now this might reflect different definitions of collaborative
writing and how we might use writing groups, but these low numbers surprised me.
(SLIDE 13) And despite the fact that almost all of us in this
room go through multiple drafts before submission (almost endlessly, it seems
at times), we don’t create the same expectations for graduate students in our
courses. And they respond in kind.
(SLIDE 14 and 15) There is general
disagreement about when faculty provide feedback for graduate student writing
assignments (and even if they provide strategies for revision). Students state
that they only receive feedback after a paper has been submitted for
evaluation, while faculty indicate that they provide feedback both after the
planning stage and after a first draft. While this led us to a number of
interesting questions that we would like to answer in the future, it also
speaks for a need to make more transparent the process of writing and the need
for a common definition of writing terms and concepts.
(SLIDE 16) The overwhelming majority of faculty
use disciplinary standards for developing evaluation criteria for graduate
student writing, and most offer a combination of formative and summative
strategies for providing feedback to our novice professional writers.
(SLIDE 17) While the number of pages that we
assign are similar, the kinds of writing that we assign varies greatly, and
it’s hard to determine if the sheer number arises from differences in programs
or disciplinary practices. How are
faculty developing their assignments? How do they stay current with the kinds
of writing being practiced in various professional contexts?
(SLIDE 18) Different universities across the
country offer a range of initiatives to assist graduate students write more
effectively, including boot camps, writing center services, graduate writing
courses, writing groups, and writing institutes.
(SLIDE 19 and 20) Finally, the kinds of writing initiatives and workshops that
graduate students want compares favorably with what graduate faculty feel they
need. But are these initiatives and workshops enough? While 71% of graduate
students believe that faculty expectations for the quality of writing at UNLV
is Very High or High, only 30% of faculty believe this.
Do the graduate faculty numbers reflect
a distrust of other faculty on campus? Do they reflect a concern for the
quality of the graduate students? Do they reflect a belief that they have
lowered their standards based on their current experience with graduate student
writing? What discussions do we need to have to
improve the quality of writing in graduate curricula at UNLV?
(SLIDE 21) Virtually everyone agrees that writing at the graduate level
is an important skill that students at UNLV must develop more fully, and
virtually everyone agrees that support for graduate student writing is an
institutional necessity. Our analyses have only scratched the surface and, in
most cases, lead to more questions than answers. From our perspective, this
only heightens the need for more constructive conversations about graduate
writing practices and teaching writing to graduate students on the UNLV campus.
(SLIDE 22) Thanks for your time. I know that my time is limited here,
but I would be happy to discuss this issue in much greater detail with anyone
who is interested. Don’t hesitate to drop me an email or give me a call at
5-5073.
Thank you.
