Senate Document #20 PROPOSAL: For a Sense of the Senate: As part of your consideration for general education, the Department of Literature and Language would like to request a formal sense of the senate on the following resolution: Resolved, that the Faculty Senate endorses in concept, and encourages the Department of Literature & Language to develop a program in Writing Competency Across the Curriculum. Rationale: Most faculty at a liberal arts college would agree that the ability to write well is one of the essential accomplishments we desire of our graduates, indeed, that it is an essential accomplishment of an educated individual. Some would also acknowledge that writing is, in fact, not merely a way of communication what one already knows, but an important means by which we explore and discover ideas. Current research in rhetoric, psychology and linguistics confirms that the activity of writing stimulates thought, raises questions, and prods the imagination. Students who write are students who explore a subject more deeply, who wrestle with its subtleties, and who ultimately develop more intellectual acumen. But a serious misunderstanding exists about what writing is and how one learns it: Many believe that writing is a skill, somewhat like pedaling a bicycle--once learned, forever retained. Based on this concept, writing can and should be taught in one or two courses at the freshman level. At any future date students should be able to perform at least as adequately as they did in their final class on the subject. Presumably this concept may underlie the 1984-85 Faculty Senate's request for a "Competency Exam" in writing. The assumption behind such an exam is that once competency is achieved and demonstrated, writing, as a skill, need never be taught again. Yet the fact is that learning to write is not like learning to pedal a bicycle. It might more accurately be compared to playing a piano: without constant practice, the skill rapidly deteriorates. Students who leave the freshman writing program and who are not required to write in other classes or disciplines will almost inevitably lose a significant degree of ability. In a greater sense, however, writing is much more than a skill. Language is, after all, the symbolic structure by which we think. Without continuing and constant development of that structure, the thinking process itself is left stunted and underdeveloped. And the principle means by which language ability can be expanded--and hence by which the ability to reflect, to question, to analyze, and to discover subtle relationships is expanded--is through significant writing activity at every level of a student's career and in every discipline. In other words, unless writing is valued and assigned by faculty members in all their specialties, a single competency evaluation at the end of the freshman year will guarantee only that competency was once achieved, and then only at the freshman level. Students who do little or no writing after the freshman year or who are then required to write only random papers as a junior or senior, will experience severe difficulties. Even worse, they will not have continued to expand their own potential for sophisticated, symbolic reasoning. Multiple choice exams, and even "short answer" questions on exams, no matter how well intended, do not maintain any language ability the student may have begun to acquire in freshman writing classes; the lack of sustained and continual writing exercise causes language skills in general to deteriorate. The function of a freshman writing class is to introduce students to the discipline of being a writer; to introduce them to writing as a process--an activity with clearly defined but recursive phases; and to introduce and help students understand how language (through writing) functions as a tool for liberal inquiry. But all this assumes value for the student only when writing is then used as an activity in a content discipline. Only when it is a required part of learning the subject in a student's major does it become, as it should be, a part of his or her total intellectual development. The key phrase here is, "a required part of learning." Writing--that is, the development of language ability--must be seen as a method by which one learns a subject, not as a separate skill, acquired somewhere else, which may merely enhance one's ability to communicate the subject. In this sense, then, writing is not a subject that instructors in other fields must teach; it is instead the method by which students teach themselves how to think about and in their own discipline. General Outline of Proposed Program To promote writing competency across the curriculum (sophomore through senior year), the literature staff proposes to conduct a detailed assessment of the faculty's perceptions about writing problems and needs within individual disciplines. In response to the findings, a series of workshops for interested faculty will be offered over a three-year period beginning Spring 1987. Each workshop will discuss methods of making writing an integral part of the learning process within a given content-area and will demonstrate methods for incorporating writing into the learning experience of the student in that field--i.e., how to help students think and reason through writing, how to use writing to explore a subject, how to use revision as a means of probing deeper into ideas and concepts in the field--and how all this actually increases a student's depth of understanding in his or her major. These workshops will also offer techniques for evaluating papers without requiring instructors to "teach" writing as a discipline separate from their academic specialties. In addition, specialized workshops may be offered, when appropriate and when requested, on ideas for designing writing and research activities in coordinated ways through a given major. The University Writing Center will coordinate all aspects of the workshops as well as provide on-going assistance to those faculty and those students in disciplines which participate. The project will be accomplished on a strictly voluntary basis. We are strongly opposed to any mandatory system of attendance or of implemention. Finally, an on-going review and evaluation of each element of the Writing Competency program will be conducted by a committee composed of one member of the writing staff and three faculty members from other disciplines. The committee will report its findings to the Academic Programs Committee and to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. It is the feeling of the Department of Literature and Language that only if a broad program of this type is developed at UNCA, will the goal of "writing competency" be achieved. In a far more important sense, it is our conviction that such a program will make all our students better scholars in their chosen fields. Competency will not be merely something we concern ourselves with at the end of the freshman year, but something we ensure of our graduating seniors.