Since Dr. Runyan doesn't usually assign formal grades to these kinds of writing assignments, students are afforded opportunities to engage the text and course materials less formally and more freely than they are typically able to do with the more extensive writing projects she assigns, such as term papers.

Note Cards

Note cards count for points and are graded for content and ideas, not for grammar. She finds that providing students with opportunities to really grapple with and question what they're encountering-as they encounter it-can often help students think and write more critically.

Dr. Runyan has recently been using another kind of informal writing to get students thinking more deeply about the course material. She has required journal writing assignments that again allow students room to explore topics outside the formality of a term paper, but at the same time she requires that they think deeply about issues and apply them to a larger context. These assignments are generally two to three pages long and must be completed weekly, although Dr. Runyan may collect them only every few weeks at a staggered rate to ease the burden of responding to a class of 25-30 students.

1. Explain terminology from the readings and give examples of it at "micro, meso, macro, and global" levels.
   
   
2. Consider the relevance of topics to their own lives by writing an "autobiography" describing certain aspects of themselves and their social situation. They must identify factors that may represent "privilege" and other that may represent "disadvantage."
   
   
3. Apply critical reading skills by summarizing an article in a recent issue of a magazine that deals with issues arising in class. Students describe the article's arguments and examine the perspectives from which it operates and the recommendations it may make.
   
   
4. Compare their experiences (in terms of issues covered in class) with those of older family members to discover how things may have been different.
   
   
5. Explore the field by preparing a bibliography of books, academic journal articles, press releases, and websites that address an issue covered in the course.

These assignments get students to practice writing-and thus thinking-from different perspectives. The journal writing allows them the freedom to grapple with their ideas, to grasp concepts and try to express them on the page. Dr. Runyan intends for these journal assignments to go beyond personal reflection and instead push students to consider how the readings and course material affect their own views. In essence, she hopes that this forum for student writing challenges them to "integrate their own opinion with informed understanding" of the topics and issues.

Dr. Runyan also notes that the kinds of writing described here can easily be adapted for use in the classroom. Students may pause to pose questions before beginning a class discussion. Journal writing may be performed quickly in class when students are often most actively engaged in discussion of the topics. Students may work in pairs to discuss a problem or question for a few minutes before then writing about it. What Dr. Runyan intends is to promote an environment in which students "can't be passive observers," an environment that encourages students to think and write critically about what they're learning.

-Scott Geisel

To register or to obtain more information about any of these workshops, call the CTL at x3162. You can also register on the CTL Web page.

COURSE DESIGN

Distributed Learning (Luncheon). Led by George Frey, Associate Director, CTL. Tuesday, May 25, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in 104 Television Center.

PRESENTATION MODES: Improving Classroom Teaching

Changing College Classrooms (Book Group Luncheon). Led by Virginia Nehring, Associate Professor, Nursing. Call x3162 to make your reservation and to receive your complimentary copy of Diane Halpern's Changing College Classrooms. Tuesday, May 11, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in E156A Student Union.

Teaching to Types: Applying Type Theory in Your Classroom (Luncheon). Led by Richard Baker, Department of Aerospace Studies, and Terri Limbert, University Division. Tuesday, May 18, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in E156B Student Union.

POLICY ISSUES

How to Address Issues of Academic Dishonesty (Luncheon). Led by Gary Dickstein, Assistant Director for Judicial Affairs, Residence Services, and Robert Adams, Associate Professor, Political Science. Thursday, May 27, 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. in E156A Student Union.

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND APPLICATIONS WORKSHOPS (IDA)
ALL IDA WORKSHOPS WILL BE HELD IN 215 LIBRARY

Introduction to PowerPoint (WIN) Friday, May 14, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon. Led by Dara Bornstein-Tudor, Multimedia Consultant, CTL.

Advanced Features with Astound (WIN) Wednesday, May 19, 2:00-4:00 p.m. Led by Terri Klaus, Associate Director, CTL.

Graphics and Information Design 101: Creating Effective and Engaging Presentations Friday, May 28, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon. Led by Denise Tanka, Senior Produce/Director, CTL, and Bruce Stiver, Supervisor, Graphics Production and Photography, CTL (A comfortable, working knowledge of PowerPoint or similar presentation software required.)

Among the fields covered were history, music, philosophy, foreign language, physics, mathematics, sociology, political science, and economic geography. The coverage of class levels ranged from elementary through college, taking in middle school and high school along the way.

This new volume is considerably slimmer. It is much more narrowly focused, dealing only with technical and professional programs at the college level. Among the topics now covered are engineering and computer science, teacher training, and preparation for various medical and legal professions (see sidebar for complete listing of contents). A number of the selections deal with using electronic journals, a possibility not widely available when the first Journal Book was published a dozen years ago.

Despite the range of academic subjects covered, the essays have a good deal in common. The first twelve essays are practice oriented, concentrating on the immediate utility of journals for students and teachers alike and referring readers to other sources for supporting pedagogical theory. Most draw heavily on student journals to provide evidence of the level of critical thinking students engage in. Several writers describe failed journal assignments and subsequent modifications; a number include the directions they provide for students.

These illustrations, together with the detailed discussion of the aims of the various assignments, make it easy to see the ways particular strategies might be adapted in other academic fields. The discussion of ways journals promote problem solving for computer science students, for instance, has implications for classes in most other fields. Likewise, the solutions provided for the problems of evaluating journals can easily cross most disciplinary boundaries.

The final essay takes a different direction from the rest, turning from specific practices and assignments to the issue of evaluation in a larger sense, considering the kinds of assessment that might go on with journals. In fact, the two questions posed by Kathleen Blake Yancey and Brian Huot ought to underlie all assessment, not just the assessment of student journals: "(1) What do we value in student work? and (2) How can we communicate what we value to students so as to enhance their learning?" (162).

No simple answers are forthcoming, of course, but the discussion that follows should challenge readers to examine their own expectations of students and their responses to student writing.

The collection concludes with a pair of brief but extremely useful supplements by the editors: "Setting Up Successful Journals," Gardner's highly practical set of tips for getting started, and "When Journals Don't Work," Fulwiler's suggestions for dealing with the difficulties most commonly identified in connection with journals. The latter section includes at least one surprise.

CONTENTS

1. "Journals in Medical Education: Experience of a First-Year Class," Janet Ashbury, Barbara Fletcher, and Rick Birtwhistle

2. "Connecting Classroom and Clinical Experience: Journal Writing in Nursing," Ann Dobie and Gail Poirrier

3. "Developing a Professional Identity with Journal Reading and Writing: The Advanced Composition Course for Nursing, Social Work, and Pharmacy Students," Sandra J. Balkema

4. "Encouraging Active Learning: Adding a Journal to Engineering Lecture Courses," Douglas E. Hirt

5. "Designing Conversations: The Journal in an Engineering Design Class," Joel Greenstein and Beth Daniell

6. "Using Journals in Compute Science Courses: Helping Students Connect," Bobbie Othmer and Terry Scott

7. "Electronic Journals: Encouraging Reflection in Preservice Teachers," MaryEllen Vogt and Keith Vogt

8. "Writing Letters Instead of Journals in a Teacher-Education Course," Jane Danielewicz

9. "TechJournals: Electronic Journal Keeping for the Technical Writing Classroom," Gian Pagnucci

10. "Traditional or Electronic: Using Dialogue Journals for the First Time in Accounting Classes," Alan Rogers and Jerry VanOs

11. "Confronting Issues: Criminal Justice Students and Journal Writing," Michelle Heward and Gary Dohrer

12. "Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion: Journals in a Legal Assistant Program," Kelly De Hill

13. "Assessing Journals in the Disciplines: An Inductive Inquiry," Kathleen Blake Yancey and Brian Huot

Perhaps not everyone will be as optimistic as Fulwiler on that particular point. However, anyone wishing to investigate some beneficial ways of employing journal writing to help students learn in technical and professional fields should find much of use here.

-Joe Law

The other suggestion concerns students' seeming failure to see connections between their various writing activities. Knowledge and skills addressed in previous assignments are left behind, with the new task approached as a totally new activity. The MWP points out that research in psychology shows that human beings are "situation-specific" learners, often seeing connections between and across situations only when they're pointed out. Student self-assessments can be used to help students see those connections. For instance, students may be asked to find concepts or ideas that connect different assignments. They might also be directed to reflect on what they have done in completing previous assignments, determine what has (or hasn't) worked, and describe how those strategies can be applied in the current situation. The full text of this discussion is available online at http://www.hawaii.edu/uhmwrite/wi/writmat5.htm.

PLEASE NOTE: You are strongly encouraged to refer your students to the Clinics; however, please refrain from making the Clinics a required class assignment When students participate voluntarily, the one-on-one sessions can be very effective, but they are much less effective when the Clinics are a compulsory assignment.

Three faculty members will represent Wright State at the Fourth Annual Writing Across the Curriculum Conference at Cornell University. Rebecca Berens Koop (Management Science and Information Systems), Michele Turner (College of Nursing and Health), and Joe Law (WAC Coordinator, English Dept.) will travel to Ithaca, New York, for the national conference held June 3 - 5.

The three will present a panel discussion titled Connecting WAC and Discursive Skills in Specific Disciplines: Three Approaches at Wright State University. Joe Law will present "Breaking the Codes, Breaking the Boundaries: Using 'Great Books' to Foster Critical Thinking Skills in Other Disciplines," describing how a general education course can introduce students to the idea of writing in other disciplines.

Rebecca Berens Koop's "Getting Top Billing: Linking Writing to Technical Success for Management Information Systems" discusses means of demonstrating to students how a series of writing assignments has practical value in developing a project.

Michele Turner explores how writing that develops critical thinking helps prepare nurses for work in the field in "Developing Critical Thinking Levels Required for Nursing Practice."

The September 1998 issue of the WAC Newsletter highlighted an assignment that Lt. Colonel Adrienne Campbell (Air Force ROTC) uses in her Aerospace Studies 200 course.

Two of Lt. Colonel Campbell's students have turned the autobiographical pieces that they wrote for that assignment into published work in Leader: The Air Force ROTC Information Source. Cadet Matthew Human's reflections on travelling to Mexico to help build a house for a homeless family was published as "A Family in Need" in February 1999. In the December 1998 issue, cadet Jenner Torrence's essay explores personal motivations and ambitions in "Cadet Shares Passion for Flying."

Colonel Campbell's assignment is available on this Web site.

WAC Office Has Moved

At the beginning of the spring quarter, the WAC coordinator's office moved to 027 Dunbar Library. This is just around the corner from the previous location. You can now find Joe Law right next to the tunnel entrance to the Library. All of the resources of the WAC office are still available to faculty. Contact Joe Law (x2155) if you're interested in looking at handbooks, texts, back issues of newsletters, or other teaching tools.

Workshops will be offered twice to accommodate different teaching schedules. All begin at noon and last about an hour. A light lunch will be provided.

Outcome-Based Learning and WAC

Wednesday, May 12, 12:00 noon-1:00 p.m.
E157B Student Union
OR
Thursday, May 13, 12:00 noon-1:00 p.m.
E157B Student Union

Increasingly, faculty in higher education have been discussing-and planning-their teaching in terms of learning outcomes. At Wright State, for example, the revised General Education program calls for each area of the program to identify its desired learning outcomes, and many agencies require programs or majors to identify a coherent set of learning outcomes as part of the accrediting process. This session will provide an opportunity to discuss ways that writing might figure in learning outcomes for individual classes, both to achieve and to assess learning within the class.