Sociologist says learning to write critical for students

Katheryn Dietrich, a senior lecturer who has taught in the Department of Sociology since 1987, always has made writing a significant part of her courses. Having students write papers is, Dietrich believes, crucial to their understanding of her course material.

“In their tests, sometimes students just throw this stuff out that they’ve memorized and it’s not connected,” she observes. “They can sometimes just memorize material for the test and still not understand it. By writing a paper, they literally have to understand it.”

Katheryn Dietrich, a senior lecturer who has taught in the Department of Sociology since 1987, always has made writing a significant part of her courses. Having students write papers is, Dietrich believes, crucial to their understanding of her course material.

Dietrich is particularly committed to using writing in the courses she teaches on sociological theory. As she puts it, “There’s no reason to learn sociological theory if you can’t apply it to the real world.” Dietrich uses her writing assignments as a chance for students to make that application.

“Writing helps students work out in their mind if they really understand the theories,” Dietrich explains. “If they don’t logically understand them, then they really can’t write about them. And so I use the writing as a way to get them to come to me and say, ‘Well, I started to write about this, but I really don’t understand it.’”

When she heard about A&M’s new W course initiative, she was quick to jump on board: “They announced that we were going to have these W courses, and I thought, ‘Well, my students are always complaining about having to write these papers in my course. So why don’t I make mine writing-intensive?’ Because, in all good conscience, I couldn’t teach sociological theory without writing.”

For Dietrich, the process of proposing her course for the W Course Advisory Committee was very straightforward.

“I asked more questions of the committee members than they did of me,” Dietrich recalls. “It was really an information-gathering session for me. I had the proposal and I had ideas, but I wanted to know what the committee members would suggest. I found it a helpful session.”

Dietrich believes she herself learned to write only when she had to do so on the job. “I had very poor writing training in school,” she notes. “But I began in rural sociology as a research associate, and my job was to do research and write papers and articles.” She worked closely with a colleague who was extremely helpful to her.

“I would write something,” she remembers, “and he would take it and critique it and give me lots of feedback. Then I’d rewrite it. It’s that rewriting process that I think is absolutely invaluable. That’s how I learned to write, and now I love writing.”

Dietrich is looking forward to teaching her W course in a future semester and giving her students a chance to learn for themselves the importance of revision. While some instructors of W courses worry about grading papers, Dietrich has found a tool that makes responding to written work much easier for her: WebCT.

“Using WebCT is so much simpler than grading papers by hand,” she explains. “My problem was always that I had to write in the margins and I never had room and the students couldn’t read my handwriting. I also had to carry these stacks of papers around. Using WebCT is less intimidating than seeing those stacks of papers.”