Writing helps students become actively engaged with course material—in other words, writing facilitates learning. But what should your students be writing? Creating effective writing assignments can be challenging, even for veteran instructors. Here are a few suggestions:

Writing professor advocates a pedagogical approach to curbing academic dishonesty.

Better detection and stiffer punishments are often considered the best deterrents to student plagiarism. But a more effective long-term solution might be to change how we teach, according to Rebecca Moore Howard, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Syracuse University and the author of Standing in the Shadow of Giants: Plagiarists, Authors, Collaborators (1999).

As Writing Matters went to press, Howard was scheduled to give the keynote address for Texas A&M’s Academic and Professional Integrity Week, an event cosponsored by the University Writing Center. In advance of her arrival in College Station, Howard offered some thoughts via e-mail about why she advocates a pedagogical approach to dealing with plagiarism.

Chuck Kenerley’s students explore the power of writing.

Twenty years at Texas A&M have turned Chuck Kenerley, Professor of Plant Pathology, into something he never expected to be: a teacher of writing.

Professor Chuck Kenerley of the Department of Plant Pathology has become a strong advocate for increasing the amount of writing expected of undergraduates. He encourages his students to keep their readers in mind and revise their work.

The reason is simple.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re in bioremediation, biochemistry, or Latin,” says Kenerley, “the ability to express yourself well in a written format carries tremendous weight.”

That ability is something Kenerley feels is crucial to his students’ success, which is why he’s made writing assignments an integral part of his undergraduate course in Microbial Processes in Bioremediation. In fact, he’s now such a proponent for integrating writing into the undergraduate curriculum that he serves on the university’s W Course Advisory Committee, which reviews proposals for new writing-intensive courses.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to the first issue of Writing Matters, a publication created to assist Texas A&M faculty members as they fulfill the University’s mission to improve writing instruction in all disciplines.

I believe our title, Writing Matters, represents a changed attitude at Texas A&M toward the teaching of writing; while we as faculty have always known that writing is important to our students and to our own professional lives, we have not always agreed that it is a university-wide responsibility to teach writing. When the Core Curriculum Review Committee began its work in 1998-99, they learned that other universities were seeing significant improvement in their students’ writing thanks to programs integrating writing instruction into courses throughout the curriculum.

A&M’s new writing courses debut this fall.

Texas A&M President Dr. Robert M. Gates chats with University Writing Center Executive Director Dr. Valerie M. Balester during the Center’s grand opening. Dr. Gates approved new W courses in 2003, seeking to improve students’ writing skills.

This fall will mark the first offerings of Texas A&M’s new writing-intensive—or “W”—courses, designed to improve the writing skills of A&M undergraduates. The W courses, first proposed by the Core Curriculum Review Committee in 2000 and approved by the Faculty Senate and President Gates in 2003, herald writing, and the teaching of writing, as a university-wide priority—a key step in meeting the university’s Vision 2020 goals.