Faculty Resources for Writing Instruction

You are an expert in your discipline and the kinds of communication that take place there. Reports, memos, grant proposals, business plans, emails, cover letters: these are all acts of written communication. These require an understanding of the audience, context, purpose, and style of disciplinary genres that you’ve likely been writing in for years. 

Teaching written communication is not solely a matter of teaching grammar. Error-free writing is only one criterion of the university’s written communication rubric and only one element of “good” writing. Different faculty will have different strengths, and this is normal. Gaps can be filled through professional development opportunities, strategic instruction, University Writing Center support, embedded tutors, or technological support.

Students learn disciplinary writing conventions in a number of ways. It is likely that your students are already practicing disciplinary writing conventions that could be used for assessment as individuals and in groups. The following is a short list of assignments that are likely familiar to your students.

• Project or lab notebook
• Progress report
• Research essay
• Management plan
• Position paper
• Interpretive essay
• Casebook
• Review of literature
• Journal or professional article
• Project proposal
• Grant proposal
• Lab/field report

More information on incorporating the writing of your discipline into your assignment schedule can be found here.  https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/resources/teaching/intro/wid/

There are a number of ways to include individual writing assessment in a class whose primary focus is producing a group project. Some ideas include:

Evaluating individual component parts of group projects

• Project application: If students spend the semester working on a group project, individual group members might be tasked with writing specific disciplinary documents (e.g., an email updating the team’s boss on progress, a grant proposal based on the findings, a Popular Science article, a SCCUR or SRC symposium presentation)
• Assigned roles: A group project using a “POGIL” (Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) method assigns roles to individuals: manager, recorder, spokesperson, analyst. Each individual in their role can be assigned unique writing tasks that reflect or advance the project (e.g. a manager produces a timeline, org chart, and clear job tasks; a recorder’s notes, a spokesperson’s presentation; an analyst’s reflection)
• Assigned portions: A classic strategy, but a single group project might require individual group members identify their specific contributions to the paper.
• Peer Assessment: Students help design a rubric and then write feedback on other projects in the class; this can be done at multiple points in the project’s development.

Process-oriented individual work:

• Writing checkpoints: At certain checkpoints during the project, students submit individual assessments of their project’s progress: its strengths and weaknesses, the group’s dynamic, and/or their own contributions.
• Self-Reflection: Students submit work evaluating their engagement in the project and what they’ve learned.
• Planning documents: before a group project begins, students write about their anticipated workload, project steps, and what results they anticipate. You can pair this with a self-reflection project to have them consider their progress.

Just as the enrollment caps for GWAR courses structurally limit how many students you see, faculty should place some personal limits on the feedback they provide. While you can use a timer or give yourself a word count limit for your responses, often the best strategy is a targeted reading (e.g., draft 1 we read for argument, draft 2 we read for grammar). Some ways to do this:

• Use an analytic rubric; by listing out the specific learning outcomes for the assignment and evaluating students on their achievement of those metrics leads to a faster reading, more equitable scoring, and more productive feedback. Pair this with brief summative comments (3-5 lines).
• Target your feedback on specific, preset standards. Think about what each draft is supposed to do and what information/resources you’ve provided to your students in advance of that draft, then provide feedback only on those specific elements. If the first draft of a lab report is where students need to demonstrate they understand the “Organization” and “Development,” and you’ve provided handouts or devoted time in class to discussing what this means, focus your feedback on those elements. The second draft might be better suited to provide feedback on “Context” and “Grammar,” once the higher order concerns about content knowledge, argument development, and lab report structure are already met.
• Training students to evaluate their peers and practice self-reflection are powerful alternatives to analytic rubrics and help reduce the grading burden. Empower students to design (or draft) the grading rubric, have them apply the standards, then hold them to it.
• Instead of providing written feedback, meet with students in individual conferences. You can read the paper with them in a 10-15m conference, or come prepared with a couple of prompts for a 5-10m conference. Oral feedback has the benefit of creating personal connections with students, and when you set a timer on these discussions, it creates structure and prevents time-creep. Be mindful that it’s harder for students to retain info this way, so either let them record it or expect some of it to be forgotten!
• Create a template and comment bank for your feedback. You may be familiar with the “complement sandwich” structure to written feedback, but it often shaves some time off to have some personalized stock phrases pre-written. You can copy/paste, but variations on a theme works better, reads more naturally, and is still way faster than trying to write new material from scratch every assignment. Similarly, common issues often lead to common feedback—put these in a “bank” and copy/paste them as necessary. Pro tip: eventually, those comment banks become excellent handouts and worksheets to prep students for the assignment. 
• Grading grammar is not everyone’s jam, but you don’t need to diagram sentences to help improve students’ clarity and grammar. Create a short style guide (5-10 rules) for your class: a list of the most important (to you!) grammatical issues you encounter. When you grade, focus only on the style guide—and if you number the style guide rules, you can reference those in your feedback directly. 
  • For more on developing style guides—including shared, departmental style guides—check this out. 
  • For an example of a class-specific style guide, check this out.

There are three kinds of faculty right now: those who want to treat ChatGPT as a new front in the “academic integrity” war, those who want to embrace ChatGPT as a learning tool, and those who just don’t want to deal with it right now. We respect all your journeys, but the truth is that students have it and they are using it, and not always to cheat.

• Know what it can do; know what your students can do: run some of your assignment prompts into ChatGPT to see what its responses look like. Keep those in the back of your mind when you read your students’ work. But also, over the course of the class, you should be mindful of your students' unique writing styles and be attentive when there are significant deviations. When there are deviations, talk to students—but don't make assumptions. They may have gone to the writing center, had a friend look over their work, or just learned!
• Make a pact with your students: tell them when and where it is acceptable, and enculturate them to the class so that they recognize some assignments can use that tool while others can’t.
• Assess differently: if your focus is on clarity of students’ writing and essay structure, try switching the focus to other competencies like information literacy and critical thinking. ChatGPT does not cite its sources and often makes generic claims. If ChatGPT is helping them with writing and structure, then hold students to a higher standard in other areas.
• Build around the tool: Have ChatGPT write the first draft, and then grade students on their revisions and corrections.