Abstract
Following American Sociological Association’s recommendations for a cumulative curriculum in sociology, sociology faculty at Pacific Lutheran University created cumulative writing competencies to integrate writing into the curriculum on a department level. In this article, I explore the rationale for this programmatic approach to writing, describe the process by which we developed cumulative writing competencies in our major, discuss implementation, and describe our plans for assessment. The writing competencies emphasize that good writing is about more than good grammar; it also requires clear and complex thinking. This model of writing instruction offers students an opportunity to develop their writing skills in a sequential, intentional, discipline-specific way.
Sociology instructors who want to integrate writing into their courses or improve the way they teach writing have no end of resources to turn to for assistance. For decades, sociologists have been writing about writing—how to develop more effective writing assignments, how to evaluate student writing, and how to teach students to become better writers. The focus of this literature is on individual assignments or individual courses, offering strategies for developing specific assignments or integrating writing into a particular course (see e.g., Anderson and Holt 1990; Cadwallader and Scarboro 1982; Edwards 2002; Grauerholz 1999; Massengill 2011; Stokes, Roberts, and Kinney 2002). Other resources, such as sociology writing guides, are aimed at undergraduate students (Edwards 2012; Johnson et al. 2009) or graduate students and professionals (Becker 1986).
I build on these individualistic approaches to writing instruction in sociology and present a model for integrating writing into the sociology curriculum on a department level. In this article, I explore the rationale for this programmatic approach to writing, describe the process by which we developed cumulative writing competencies in our major, discuss implementation, and describe our plans for assessment. Our experience offers one model for how to “institutionalize a culture of good writing” (Stokes et al. 2002:38) in the sociology curriculum.
Rationale and Background
In 2004, the American Sociological Association (ASA) updated its report on Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major (McKinney et al. 2004). In this document, ASA recommends that departments develop a cumulative and sequential curriculum:
Departments should structure the curriculum of required courses and substantive elective courses to have at least four levels with appropriate prerequisites. At each succeeding level, courses should increase in both depth and integration in the major while providing multiple opportunities for students to develop higher order thinking skills and to improve their written and oral communication skills. (P. 9)
This cumulative model advocates a sequential curriculum that builds on skills and subject matter learned in earlier courses. Kain (1999) discusses cumulative learning in the context of professional socialization into sociology, where to be appropriately socialized into the discipline, students should be trained in research skills throughout the curriculum. Similarly, Powers (2000) discusses the evolution of a sequential sociology curriculum at Santa Clara University, where the curriculum is built around four developmental objectives that are continually assessed and revised.
One large-scale application of this recommended cumulative curriculum was the Integrating Data Analysis (IDA) initiative, sponsored by ASA and the Social Science Data Analysis Network (SSDAN) project at the University of Michigan, which worked to close the scientific literacy gap among undergraduate sociology majors. This initiative advocated that departments “introduc[e] students to data analysis early, frequently, and sequentially throughout the curriculum” (Howery and Rodriguez 2006:23). Like Kain (1999) and Powers (2000), IDA emphasized the importance of creating curricular change at the departmental level, rather than focusing solely on individual courses. The cumulative writing competencies described here apply this “early and often” model to writing instruction in sociology.
Like the IDA initiative’s approach to quantitative literacy, the Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) movements emphasize that writing should be taught continuously over a student’s college education. Composition theory emphasizes the importance of repeated practice; writing is a skill that can be learned only by doing (Bean 2011; Johnstone, Ashbaugh, and Warfield 2002; Kellogg 2008). Advocates of WAC and WID also argue that students can learn to communicate effectively within a discipline only by practicing the writing conventions of that discipline and that learning to write and writing to learn are intrinsically intertwined (Bean 2011; Gottschalk and Hjortshoj 2004; McLeod and Maimon 2000). Thus, teaching writing in the sociology curriculum not only improves students’ writing skills, it also improves their ability to think sociologically (Coker and Scarboro 1990; Grauerholz 1999; Massengill 2011).
Using the ASA’s recommendations for a cumulative curriculum and the logic of WAC/WID as pedagogical frameworks, the sociology faculty at Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) developed sequential writing competencies for students in the sociology major. These competencies are developmental over the four-level curriculum and offer students an opportunity to develop their writing skills in a sequential, intentional, discipline-specific way. This model for writing instruction moves beyond individual courses and emphasizes the importance of writing for the entire sociology program. Although this model was developed at a relatively small university and the process by which we developed the competencies is unique to our program, the core principles with which we worked—open communication, sharing of resources and assignments, working toward specific learning outcomes that make sense in our departmental culture, and most importantly, using a grounded, bottom-up approach that emerged from our everyday experiences in the classroom—can be applied to departments in a variety of university contexts.
Cumulative Writing Competencies at Pacific Lutheran University
PLU is a liberal arts university in the Pacific Northwest with approximately 3,500 undergraduate students. The sociology program at PLU has five full-time faculty members and graduates 15 to 25 students per year. Though currently housed in a joint department with social work, 1 the sociology and social work programs are distinct, with independent faculty, curricula, and students. In 1998, the sociology program developed cumulative competencies for student learning (Beaman 2002); these competencies provide the structure for the sociology curriculum and for the skills-based content of our courses. Over the past 14 years, faculty have revised and updated the competencies several times, as we continually assess student outcomes and how best to meet learning goals (see appendix for the most recent version of the competencies).
Our sociology curriculum culminates in a two-semester senior capstone requirement. The capstone is organized around an independent research project in which students collect and analyze data and write professional-style papers that are presented at an on-campus conference at the end of the year. In fall semester, as part of the Major Theories course, students develop a research proposal, including a substantial literature review and methodological plan, and in spring, students collect and analyze their data and complete the paper. The spring class meets only occasionally, and instead students spend their time working independently and with peer groups and in individual meetings with instructors.
As seen in the cumulative competencies in the Appendix, writing is a central feature of our courses, as students are expected to write at all levels of the major and to use their writing to develop their sociological imaginations and research skills. However, before embarking on this writing initiative, the faculty had not discussed how we could teach writing, in a systematic way on the program level, to reach these learning outcomes more effectively. In spring 2010, after attending a university-wide faculty development workshop on teaching grammar and language, sociology faculty decided to have a series of conversations about how we teach writing in sociology. These conversations started informally at our monthly program meetings and then evolved into a more formal integration of writing into the curriculum.
We started by consulting with Matthew A. Levy, a faculty colleague in the English department and director of the PLU Writing Center, who attended one of our monthly meetings to lead a discussion about how to incorporate writing pedagogy into our courses. He led us through a grammar exercise, developed by Jonathan Bush, 2 which asked us to group and prioritize a list of writing skills (Table 1). Each of the skills was listed on a small piece of paper, and we were asked to organize the skills into high, middle, and low order concerns. We first did this in pairs and then as a full group. This process took about an hour, as we discussed, disagreed, made arguments, reconsidered our groupings, and eventually decided on an initial prioritizing of the skills. We also added a few skills that were not on the original list but which we perceived as lacking in our students’ writing and which we identified as being important to writing in sociology, such as use of inclusive language and demonstrating sociological relevance.
Writing Skills Exercise
By the end of that first meeting, we decided to develop a rubric that identifies writing goals at all four levels of the sociology curriculum, building on the cumulative competencies that we already had in place. We used a grounded, inductive approach to arrange the goals into two categories: basic writing skills and development of higher-level thinking. The former, called mechanics and arrangement, includes grammatical issues such as punctuation, inclusive language, and wordiness; the latter, argumentation, is about building sociological arguments and integrating these arguments into the wider field. It is important to emphasize that we did not begin this process with these two groupings in mind; rather, this categorization emerged inductively during our process of discussing the skills and our learning goals for students.
Once we had these two categories in place, we shifted our attention from the specific skills we wanted students to learn to considering at what levels and in which courses we wanted to teach these skills. Here, our conversation emphasized the cumulative nature of writing skill development and how to distribute the skills across the curriculum. Our initial stab at this resulted in a somewhat unbalanced distribution, as the skills focused on writing mechanics were concentrated in 100-level courses and argumentation skills were concentrated in higher-level courses. With ongoing conversation and revision, we arrived at the more balanced distribution of skills shown in Table 2.
Writing Competencies for the Sociology Major at Pacific Lutheran University
Note: At all levels, students will learn to respond to comments and feedback in revising their work, as appropriate. In addition, students in all courses will be exposed to the definition of and rationale for academic integrity in sociology.
The writing competencies in Table 2 were finalized in fall 2011. From our start in spring 2010 until now, the outcomes went through many iterations, and the final list of competencies in Table 2 includes very little of the exact language from the original exercise in Table 1. This underscores the inductive, organic, and iterative nature of the process, as we added, removed, and adapted the skills to reflect best the needs of our students. In addition, the length of the process, about 16 months, reflects the particular way we proceeded with the work, treating it as part of our ongoing business at our monthly one-hour program meetings and at our annual three-hour retreat. Our work on the project ebbed and flowed during the 16 months, as we fit the discussion in around other program priorities. With more targeted attention, such as a one-day retreat devoted to the process, the competencies could be developed in a much shorter timeframe.
Integration
After finalizing the competencies in fall 2011, we piloted their integration into our courses in spring 2012. We used several pedagogical strategies that were already in place to teach writing in the capstone course—including requiring students to purchase the ASA Style Guide, using peer writing groups, and holding individual meetings with students—and integrated these strategies earlier in the curriculum. We realized that if we wanted to “institutionalize a culture of good writing” in our program (Stokes et al. 2002:38), we should introduce these practices earlier and use them frequently.
One strategy we implemented in spring 2012 was to require students to purchase the ASA Style Guide in the 200-level research methods class, typically taken by sophomores and required for all majors. In spring 2012, students used the ASA Style Guide to learn about formats for references, citations, quotations, inclusive language, and capitalization; the instructor taught these skills through workshops and graded exercises, and the students were tested on their learning. For example, one graded exercise provided reference information for several sources as found in databases like SocINDEX, which students were asked to arrange correctly using ASA style, paying attention to format, content, punctuation, and capitalization and eliminating unnecessary information. Students were allowed to use their ASA Style Guide for the exercises and on tests in order to encourage them to become familiar with the book and how to use it. Because the use of ASA style is required for papers in all courses in our program, teaching the skills earlier and more in depth gives students more time to develop and master the style.
The use of peer writing groups is another strategy that we have successfully used in capstone for several years that we now introduce in earlier courses as well. Groups of three to four students, assigned to groups randomly or by the instructor based on research interests and learning style, work together throughout the semester to brainstorm writing ideas, review drafts, and support each other through the writing process. Groups have a required number of meetings with specific tasks to complete, such as identifying a challenge or issue in each section of the paper and discussing possible solutions. Peers also give content-based feedback, such as reviewing data collection instruments and helping to develop strategies for recruiting participants to a study. In addition to these required meetings, groups are also encouraged to meet more frequently on their own. Some groups do this with enthusiasm, meeting regularly to review drafts and troubleshoot research and writing issues, and other groups meet only when required.
Peer writing groups can also be used in a less structured way during class time. For example, in a 300-level Sociology of the Family course, one class session is set aside for a peer review workshop to go over drafts of their research papers. These sessions are most successful when students are given specific questions or issues to address with their peers and when they are provided with detailed instruction and support. Classes with group papers can also build peer review into the course rather seamlessly by requiring it as part of the group writing process. For an excellent discussion of using peer writing groups and organizing in-class peer review workshops, see Bean (2011).
A third strategy for integrating writing instruction throughout the curriculum is to hold individual meetings between students and instructors. In research methods, for example, the instructor meets twice with each student for 15-minute meetings: early in the semester to discuss students’ ideas for their research proposal and later in the semester to review a student draft of the proposal. The earlier meeting focuses more on argument building, as students are beginning to develop their ideas in a sociological context, while the latter discusses both writing mechanics as well as argumentation while going over a draft. Typically, research methods enrolls about 20 students, and instructors meet with as many students as possible during class time (i.e., meetings are in lieu of regular class sessions in a given week, not in addition) and hold additional office hours to meet with the rest. This makes for a busy week for the instructor, but the scheduling is possible, especially when instructors are strategic about not scheduling due dates for other courses during that same time period.
Plans for Assessment
Because these competencies were finalized in fall 2011 and piloted in spring 2012, we have not yet had an opportunity to assess our effectiveness in meeting these outcomes. However, we have begun to develop an assessment plan to measure how well these writing goals are being met. This plan will allow us to compare data from recent cohorts that did not experience this collective conversation about writing instruction with data from future cohorts that will receive this explicit instruction.
Assessment will take place in two primary ways. First, seniors are asked to provide subjective assessment of their learning in the major, focusing on how prepared they were for the capstone course. Several items on the existing survey are relevant to these writing outcomes, including their self-rated ability to complete a literature review, engage in critical sociological thinking, write a sociological research paper, and use ASA style conventions. As we continue to integrate the writing competencies into the major, additional items could be included in the survey, such as questions about their ability to structure an appropriate argument, use active and passive voice, and fairly present others’ perspectives.
A second part of our assessment plan is more direct. We will evaluate samples of student papers at all four levels of the curriculum on how well they meet the writing goals identified in the competencies. We have begun to collect electronic copies of assignments and papers in several required courses over all four levels of the curriculum: Introduction to Sociology (100-level); Research Methods, Social Problems, and Social Stratification (200-level); Sociology of Family and Sociology of Deviance (300-level); and Major Theories and Capstone (400-level). These courses were chosen for assessment because they span the four levels of the curriculum, they are required for the major, and, because they are required, they are the courses in which we focus our research and writing instruction. We are collecting electronic copies of ungraded papers from every student in every semester that the course is taught, and we will maintain an archive of these papers on our department server. The papers will be submitted to instructors via email or through our online course management system, depending on the preference of the instructor, and the instructor will transfer the files to the server. Requiring the electronic submission of papers does not necessarily preclude hard copy submissions for grading, as some instructors require students to submit the paper in both formats.
Once we have a sufficient number of papers archived, we will select a random sample of 10 papers at each level and evaluate how well they meet the writing outcomes. For example, papers from 100-level courses will be assessed, on a 5-point scale, as to how well they use basic ASA style, generalizing language, inclusive language, and so on. Papers from 200-level courses will be assessed on those 100-level skills, in addition to the skills emphasized at the 200-level, and so on. The department chair will take the lead on sampling the papers and distributing them to faculty, and at least two faculty members will assess each paper. This process will allow us to determine which goals are being met (and when) and which need more attention. This, in combination with the results from students’ subjective assessments, will also allow revision of the outcomes, as appropriate.
Discussion
Our interest in developing these writing competencies emerged organically from our somewhat frequent complaints about student writing. We realized that if we wanted students to be good writers and good sociologists, it was our responsibility to be more intentional about teaching students these skills. What we had been doing was not enough, as many seniors lacked the ability to articulate sociological arguments fully, use ASA style correctly, and adequately revise their work.
We faced challenges in the development of the competencies and continue to face challenges in their implementation. For example, it was difficult to keep our discussion of the writing outcomes a priority while we dealt with more pressing matters as individual faculty and as a program; this is why the drafting of the outcomes spanned three academic years. In addition, at several points during the process, we were overwhelmed with the thought of trying to teach all of these writing skills to students in addition to everything else we already teach them. How would we find the time? We continually had to remind ourselves of two things: (1) We cannot expect students to know how to do these things unless we commit to teaching them how, and (2) we already teach writing when we write comments on student papers and discuss assignments with a class. What the competencies do is help us focus this energy in a concerted and cohesive way and provide structure to the more informal writing instruction that already takes place.
We also face challenges in implementation. For example, even though we have developed a cumulative curriculum and have some prerequisites in place, students do not always take the courses in the recommended order. They jump into 300- and 400-level courses without having built the skills that are introduced in earlier courses. Many of these upper level courses are also general education courses that serve students from across the university, so we are constrained as to how many prerequisites we can include (e.g., we can include Introduction to Sociology as a prerequisite, but not Research Methods, which is taken only by majors). We also have many transfer students who do not take Introduction to Sociology in our department and thus miss out on the instruction, and socialization, that takes place in that course. However, our 200-level Research Methods class is required for all majors, even transfer students, and that class can make up for some of what is missed in Sociology 101 for those students.
We have addressed these course sequencing issues in several ways. First, we make sure that all students have access to information on ASA style. The ASA Style Guide is on reserve at the library, and some instructors have created ASA style guide “cheat sheets” that summarize the main points of the style. For larger writing issues, we also regularly refer students to the University Writing Center and the sociology tutor (a service provided by our Academic Assistance Center) for additional help on writing. Peer writing groups can also help with this, as more experienced writers can help their peers who need more training. Finally, it never hurts to reinforce the learning that students gained in earlier courses, and in most cases it is necessary. Instructors offer in-class workshops on the relevant writing issues for a particular course so that all students in the class can benefit, no matter what previous sociology courses they have taken.
Another challenge to integrating writing into the sociology curriculum is student resistance. Most students do not have experience writing multiple drafts of the same paper, except perhaps in a composition course they took during their first year in college. They may struggle against the expectations that they must continually revise their ideas and their writing, rather than finalizing a paper after a single attempt. We hope that resistance will diminish as students are socialized into revision as a necessary part of the writing process. Another challenge is incorporating visiting and adjunct faculty into our collective expectations and conversations about writing. Adjunct faculty are oriented to our cumulative competencies and writing outcomes when they are hired, but effective integration can be challenging, especially for a short-term visitor. One way we meet this challenge is by offering to have tenure-line faculty facilitate writing workshops in the courses taught by visitors.
Despite these challenges, we also have strengths in place that facilitated the process of developing the writing competencies and their integration. For example, we are a small, collaborative department that frequently has conversations about teaching and pedagogy; the initiative was a natural outgrowth of those conversations, and we had 100 percent buy-in from faculty from the beginning. In addition, the existing structure of our curriculum, which is built on research and professional socialization and which already included significant amounts of writing in most courses, provided an already existing scaffolding on which to build the writing outcomes. Our students also have a stake in improving their writing skills, as they know they will write papers in almost every sociology course, and that in their senior year, they will be spending almost eight months developing a professional-style paper and writing multiple drafts over the course of two semesters. Having clear and consistent expectations about the amount and quality of writing that is required in the major goes a long way toward minimizing student resistance.
Conclusion
These writing competencies are a big step forward in how we teach writing to our students. We moved from a model that simply assigns writing in our courses to one that teaches writing in our courses, creating a culture of good writing for students and faculty. Of course, developing the competencies is only the beginning. Creating change in departmental culture is never easy, as this requires “institutional support, departmental commitment, and faculty buy-in to be successful” (Howery and Rodriguez 2006:35). However, as the IDA initiative demonstrated, even in large departments, significant change can happen, as long as there was a “critical mass” of faculty who were willing to participate.
Faculty resistance to writing instruction is often rooted in the perception that it takes too much time and that it is too difficult to do in large classes. However, there are many resources, including the ASA’s teaching guide on writing in undergraduate courses (Stokes et al. 2002), articles in Teaching Sociology, and resources written by composition scholars (e.g., Bean 2011), that provide strategies for teaching writing without being overwhelmed by the time commitment. How to create curricular change in any specific department will depend on its local culture, but size in itself does not have to be an impediment to creating change. For example, in very large departments, required courses at various levels can be targeted as writing intensive courses that build on the skills developed in earlier courses. In addition, in departments with graduate teaching assistants, the lead TA or graduate teaching coordinator can facilitate the integration of writing instruction through shared workshops, assignments, and grading rubrics.
Training and support is also necessary to make lasting curricular change (Howery and Rodriguez 2006). Fortunately, training and support around writing instruction is readily available at most universities, for example, through a writing center or composition program. Chairs can invite a colleague who specializes in composition to talk to sociology faculty about writing pedagogy and then follow up with faculty about how they teach writing in their courses. Encouraging ongoing conversations among faculty and sharing strategies and assignments can also facilitate integration of programmatic change (Howery and Rodriguez 2006). Support for writing instruction can also be sought from administration, such as through innovative teaching grants or similar programs.
Through this initiative, the sociology faculty at PLU have committed themselves to being more intentional about teaching writing, sharing our ideas for writing instruction with our colleagues, and continually assessing our efforts. These are not easy tasks. However, if we want students to think critically, develop deep mastery of subject matter, and communicate their ideas clearly, writing instruction is a necessary part of the sociology curriculum.
Footnotes
Appendix
Cumulative Competencies for the Sociology Major at Pacific Lutheran University
| In 100-level courses, students will: | • Understand the sociological perspective | • Participate in oral discussions and/or presentations |
| • Know and use sociological concepts | • Be able to think critically | |
| • Know three major sociological perspectives | • Develop an appreciation for the impact of race, class, and gender and other hierarchies upon social life | |
| • Know research methods basics | • Become acquainted with the American Sociological Association (ASA) style conventions for writing and research | |
| • See sociology in practice (journal articles, newspaper articles, research projects) | ||
| • Begin learning to write sociologically | ||
| In 200-level courses, students will: | • Develop an integrated research paper, including a literature review, that addresses a specific social problem | • Explore intersection of race, class, and gender upon specific areas of social life |
| • Be able to demonstrate a synthesis of sociological terms, concepts, and theoretical perspectives | • See sociology in practice, through community service, field work, or academic literature | |
| • Begin to develop their ability to collect and analyze data on sociological topics | • Use ASA style conventions in writing and research | |
| In 300-level courses, students will: | • Continue to develop their ability to collect and analyze data on sociological topics | • Develop oral presentations |
| • Develop a conceptual argument that draws on a review of the literature | • Continue to apply theory and develop a more sophisticated understanding of the role of the fundamental sociological variables of gender, race, and class | |
| • Develop an expanded vision of how societal structures operate and shape lives | • Use ASA style conventions in writing and research | |
| In 400-level courses, students will: | • Trace the development and evolution of key sociological perspectives and concepts | • Demonstrate integration of analytical, methodological, and conceptual skills in addressing a sociological question |
| • Understand and critique sociological theories | • Demonstrate in-depth familiarity within a particular content area in sociology | |
| • Use and apply theory to explain social realities | • Demonstrate capacity to complete work independently | |
| • Strengthen critical thinking, oral presentation, and written communication skills | • Master the use of ASA style conventions in writing and research | |
| • Understand the many ways social research can have implications for themes of social justice and equality |
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge fellow Pacific Lutheran University sociology faculty members, Joanna Gregson, Anna Leon-Guerrero, Kate Luther, and Laura McCloud, for their leadership and insight in developing and implementing the writing competencies. Thanks also to Matthew Levy for providing the inspiration and springboard for the work.