No Fear! by Kate Ronald

On the phone yesterday, a professor in SBA said to me, "You know you're scaring people, don't you, Kate?" The professor told me this in a laughing tone, and so I laughed too, and replied that no, I really didn't realize that I was engendering fear. But fear is a pretty common and natural reaction, if not to me (I don't think I usually scare people), then to the challenge of writing and of teaching writing. There's plenty of reasons to fear writing itself, for starts, which is, as we all know, one of the riskiest things we humans do. There's the fear of not having anything to say; a blank page/screen can be so very intimidating. Once we have written, the act of going public with ideas, evidence, and assertions carries with it the risk being misunderstood, ignored, or ridiculed. Private writing can be risky too; the words moving across the page can surprise, reveal, and change perspectives for good or ill. I'd be the first to acknowledge this power of writing, and to respect it.

Then there's teaching writing -- assigning, reading, and evaluating writing -- the messiest, most complicated, most subjective and most difficult part of teaching, certainly harder than testing, lecturing, leading discussions or listening to presentations. Just as when we write ourselves, we take chances every time we ask/require students to write for us. No matter how clearly we've thought through a particular assignment, students' work always shows us something we haven't considered, always challenges us to respond in new ways. And I realize that some professors are afraid that they don't know enough about teaching writing to do it well. Or efficiently. Just as when we write ourselves, we take chances every time we ask/require students to write for us.

Finally, writing itself is terribly hard work; so is teaching writing, and it's frightening in today's climate to imagine taking on more work, right? I suspect that's the real fear that the professor was alluding to in our phone conversation -- the fear of more and more difficult work at a time when demands are coming at faculty from all sides and it seems impossible to take on more work, no matter how good the cause. This is fear of time lost, and I understand that fear all too well.

What can the Howe Writing Initiative and the Howe professor do to alleviate fear? I can assure you that it's normal and natural. I can tell you that nothing worthwhile happens without some risk. I can tell you that it's good to be a little nervous. I can acknowledge, at the very least, that it's a disruption of your work and your rhythm to allow me into your classes, to talk with me and my team about writing assignments, to contemplate changes your course or your schedule in order to accommodate more or different kinds of writing.

I can also try to convince you that teaching writing is worth it. For nothing we do in classes is so akin to the rhythms of learning as writing: the very act of writing captures attempts at understanding, enacts revised thinking, categorizes and integrates; writing offers immediate feedback, a record of development, and operates simultaneously in personal and public ways. Writing, it also seems to me, is the perfect way for RTFSBA to fulfill its mission of combining knowledge with action, for writing is always active, never passive. For teachers, there is no better way, either, to stay in tune with what your students are, indeed, learning, than asking them to write it. And there is already a great deal of writing going on in SBA classes; one of my goals this year is to make everyone aware of the variety and depth of writing in the School of Business.

Is realizing the benefits of writing and teaching writing enough to counteract the fear of giving over all your time to reading student writing? Of course not. But, the Howe team can help SBA faculty, individually, as departments, in programs and in majors, to devise ways to incorporate writing into classes if not painlessly, then certainly without dread or terror. One way to alleviate fear of writing is to remember that good writing is not one thing; across the curriculum in SBA, there's room for all kinds of writing and all varieties of attention to that writing. I can assure you that my primary and basic purpose is to describe rather than prescribe; I have no preconceived notions about what you should do in your classes. My goal is to be of service to faculty who want to use writing in their classes. Call us. Respond to this Website. Let us know how we can help. We may even be able to calm.

I'd like to close my first column with two other items. First, I'd like to extend an open invitation to faculty and students to respond to my column -- and to serve as a "guest columnist" in this space. Lastly, I'd like to thank the faculty, students, and administration in RTFSBA for talking honestly with me about your work and mine, for graciously letting me into your classes, and courageously supporting this initiative. No matter how scared or dubious you might be, you've made me feel welcome, and I'm grateful. Coming in September: What the Howe team is doing this Fall.

Kate's Column #2: Not More, but More Explicit, Writing Assignments

I've been the Howe Professor for a year now, and I'd like to share with you one of the big lessons I've learned so far about incorporating writing into any curriculum. It may seem like small insight, but I've often found that the simplest ideas are the most useful and far-reaching. My buzzwords have become these: Overt. Obvious. Explicit. Even redundantly clear. That's what students need from us, and that's what we owe ourselves as a faculty -- to be clear about what we're doing and why. No writing assignment, formal or informal, will help students' writing or their business acumen if students do not understand why they are being asked to write, for whom, for what purposes, or how that writing connects to the other material they are learning, or to contexts beyond the classroom. And we can't expect students to "get it" on their own, to osmose our reasons for assigning writing and responding to it in specific ways. We need to tell them why good writing matters. And we need to make writing count. That's more important, I think, that simply writing more and more and more without knowing why.

Later this semester, we'll be reporting to you the first results of a longitudinal study of SBA students' writing. We have surveyed a sample of students from the Class of 2000, sophomores in SBA this year, about the writing they've done in all their courses so far. The results from their first year at Miami reinforce my growing belief in explicitness as a pedagogical necessity. As part of the survey, we asked students to describe the "most and least helpful writing assignments" during their first year at Miami. I want to give you some examples from both categories. (Remember, this is the students' first year, so they were not taking many Business courses yet. We'll have the data the first year of SBA courses later this Spring.) we can't expect students to "get it" on their own, to osmose our reasons for assigning writing and responding to it in specific ways Here are students describing the "most helpful" writing assignment they completed during their freshman year, along with my editorial comments: Writing in Calculus was the most helpful. You had to explain how to do the problems and I better understood the material when exam time came around. Notice what this student understands about how writing supports learning. The research paper in Geology required in-depth research and quality writing was necessary -- very helpful to my writing. This student appreciates the demand for intellectual work and excellence in writing. My Econ 201 research paper was most helpful. It encouraged me to gather a very large amount of information and organize it in the most informative manner possible. We not only presented our gathered knowledge, but we were also expected to analyze the material. Many students crave the challenge of analysis and understand that writing demands a unique kind of synthesis.

Most helpful assignments were in English 112. We read five books that were different and interesting. The professor made us think critically and write with deeper meaning. I never had a better writing experience than I did in this class. Had to get a plug in for English, right? But note, again, the appreciation of being challenged to think critically. My Spanish essays really helped me because I had to think about English grammar before I could translate it to Spanish. Also the essays in English 112 helped because my professor graded very hard. As I've said before, demand quality -- grade hard!

The Economics essay tests were really helpful. I thought that they were really hard at the time but they forced me to think analytically and not just pick a letter. Again, this student understands the connection between writing and learning. Now, here are students' comments about the "least helpful" writing assignment during their freshman year:

Least helpful was the performance critique for Theater. It did not develop or demand any insight into the performance. The writing was just a summary of the theme of the play. This student wants to be challenged. The Chemistry and Physics essay exams were the least helpful because it was only one time and it didn't matter how we wrote, only what we wrote. We weren't graded on structure or grammar, only content. This student wants writing to matter.

The least helpful assignment was the description of a magazine or newspaper article for Physics . We could write almost anything we wanted and still get a 10 out of 10. I'm not even sure the professor read them. This student wants an audience who demands excellent work. Math research paper. Basically, I just turned in an encyclopedia. Didn't develop any skills but stress management. We were not allowed to provide an opinion but merely reported information. I understand that perhaps "opinion" might be out of place in a Math course, but this student resists regurgitation and wants some real work to do. My Chemistry essay exams were just a regurgitation of what I read. They were in no way critical or involved. Ditto. The research paper I wrote for Architecture was the least helpful. I don't even remember my topic. I read things out of a book and basically just said the same thing and changed a few words. The teacher just skimmed over it. Distressingly honest, yes? Again, this student wants an audience who is critical and engaged. The least helpful assignment was the group report in Zoology. It was a struggle to write the type of report he wanted. We needed to have an understanding of complex environmental topics and because we didn't have that knowledge our papers weren't very good. This student, again, understands the necessary relationship between writing and knowledge.

Now, I suggest that the difference in these assignments lies not necessarily in what the students were asked to do, but in the ways the professors explained why they were asking students to do it. Students resent busywork and empty writing that no one reads; more writing assignments do not automatically make better writers. Students crave intellectual challenge and respect assignments that demand their best. And they want to learn -- really they do; we just need to be more explicit about what and why we're asking them to write. Writing assignments, formal or informal, must be explicit, clearly connected to course material and course goals. And our responses to that writing must show students that writing matters.