We have to take University Writing. We do not have a choice. If you give any student a chance, they will not take a four credit course with a lot of work and a small chance of completing the course with an ‘A.’ Most students enter the class thinking that they already know how to write, that they already know how to research, and that University Writing is just one more thing the university does to make our lives difficult.
This article was written by UW20 Alumn, Stefanie Fischer
It's true, the course was a shock at first. It turns out, I quickly learned, students do not really know how to manage their time. Most of us rarely had to exert even the slightest effort in high school and we enter college thinking we can manage it all. Micro-assignments, readings (that originally take us upwards of four hours apiece because we were never really taught how to read anything that does not come easily to us), and three research essays rarely makes for an enthused effort. We stress over completing the assignments in time, and sometimes we don’t. We think about not going to class, and again, sometimes we don’t.
But if you try, just once, just a little bit, you start to realize something: this is interesting, hard and complicated and sometimes above our comprehension, but we want to get it. We want to feel like we can graduate into the real world in three years and publish a book and go to seminars and maybe even be considered a knowledgeable expert. Most of us will not continue into whatever specialized topic our UW20 course focused on, but most of us will find ourselves held to a higher level of academia and knowledge in three years time.
By the time we leave, at least by the time I left my course, we feel a little bit better about it. We have figured out how to read and analyze at least some parts of essays and papers and publications we do not know. We did not just write a research paper composed of research compiled by other scholars and occasionally the inclusion of a critical review of that research. We conducted our own research, we make our own conclusions, we complicated our own theses, and we left feeling semi-confident that we can be scholars.
A funny thing happens then: you start to care about your work. You find yourself in the library until three in the morning, not because you have a paper due, but because you know it is not perfect and that bothers you. Because you know it can be better, that you can do better, and that someday, your work will mean more than a grade. You find yourself in the library at three in the morning writing a paper that you think could actually mean something to the scholarly world, and you want to make a real contribution. That is what University Writing, or a good University Writing, does for a student. It shows us how to be a scholar, and convinces us that we can be one.
Monday, May 11, 2009
UW20 Alum Stefanie Fischer reflects on her UW20 Experience
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
University Writing & Research Symposium Held This Week
Over 600 first-year students slated to exchange insights and advice in the 6th Annual Writing & Research Symposium, a campus-wide capstone event sponsored by the University Writing Program. In addition, the Symposium features a Keystone Lecture by the Hon. Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment. Ms Claussen's lecture, entitled "Answering the Climate Challenge: Reflections on the Journey," is co-sponsored by the Women's Leadership Program and the University Writing Program.
2009 Symposium Poster Design by Mi Sun Kwon
Where & When
The Foggy Bottom & Mt. Vernon Campuses
of The George Washington University
Thursday-Friday, April 23-4.
The 6th annual University Writing and Research Symposium will take place on Thursday, April 23 through Friday, April 24 on the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses of The George Washington University. Over the two-day event 170 student-panelists will be speaking to a combined anticipated audience of over 600 people.
In panels of three of four speakers, in roundtable discussions, in research poster sessions, or even in dramatic readings of original works, students in the first-year writing course (UW20) present their research and writing in a public forum that includes fellow students, faculty, and members of the broader DC community.
The event offers student-researchers the opportunity to present their research in order to see how the concerns they address in their own projects connect with concerns of other researchers and matters of public interest. Since students present their work while it is still in progress, get the opportunity to see what their peers in other first-year writing classes are doing and to get useful feedback on their work. As a result, discussion at the Symposium focuses as much on the uses, values, and processes of research and research-based writing, as it does on the topics of the research projects themselves.
Dean of Freshmen Frederic Siegel describes the Symposium as "one of the year's best programs," noting that "the intellectual engagement of freshmen is one of [the University's] most important priorities and the Symposium works perfectly in this regard."
The 2009 Program includes panels on a wide variety of topics, including "Faith, Doubts, & Suspicions," "Enforcing Moralities," "Personal Transgressions," "Labor Issues," "Rethinking Constitutional Democracy," "Traumatic Events," "Holocaust Studies," "Cold War Comics," and "The Packaging and Promotion of (Post)Mdern Identities" to name just a few.
On Thursday evening at 6:45, at the Eileen Claussen lecture, student Mi Sun Kwon will be recognized as the winner of the 2009 UWRS Poster Design Contest. Congratulations are also due to runner-up Cynthia Figueroa.
The Symposium is co-directed by Professors Kathy Larsen and Michael Svoboda, of the University Writing Program.
The Spring 2009 University Writing and Research Symposium was organized by the First-Year Writing Faculty of the University Writing Program, with sponsorship and support from the UWP, the Elizabeth J Somers Women's Leadership Program, Mount Vernon Campus Life, Gelman Library, the University Bookstore, and the Office of the Dean of Freshmen.
For more information on the Symposium, please visit the Symposium Website at http://www.gwu.edu/~capstone/symposium.htm.
Friday, April 17, 2009
How to Make Key Rhetorical and Intellectual Moves in Expert Writing
In UW20 student-writers are asked to make complex intellectual, analytical, and rhetorical moves in their thinking and writing. Often our everyday language forms are not particularly well suited to such tasks as handling multiple perspectives at once, to forging connections between abstractions and examples, synthesizing ideas from a matrix of sources.
Fortunately, discourse communities (like disciplines, professions, and fields of study) develop specialized traditions of language used to do this complex kind of communicative work. Part of what UW20 students learn is how to recognize, appropriate, and revise these specialized language forms for their own expert writing situations.
The following post provides sample language templates developed by UW20 Professors Eric Drown and Rachel Riedner (inspired by and in dialogue with Graff's and Birkenstein's They Say/I Say) to handle some of the more frequently encountered rhetorical situations that will arise in argumentative writing.
Note: Some instructors may be concerned that such templates might stifle students' originality or do too much of the hard work of thinking for them. We disagree. Professor Drown agrees that "students should think for themselves, but I don't think these templates do the thinking for the students. I'm persuaded by my experience that these templates help students in the ways described by Birkenstein and Graff: which is to help them "bring out aspects of their thought" that they wouldn't have recognized without the templates' prompt. I think these sentence-forms give order to student's ideas, invite students to question their beliefs, and to situate their ideas in relationship to the ideas of others. What the templates do is make key rhetorical moves available to students in way that enables them to develop their ideas in much the same ways more seasoned scholars do."
Professor Riedner uses these templates in her UW20 classes not as formulas but as exercises to begin the writing process. The templates get students to recognize moves of academic writing and to make explicit how they're working with the writing of other authors. Professor Riedner stresses that as students develop their ideas and develop their own language, they should move beyond the templates.
Arguing for an approach to your material and setting up an argument (that will emerge in the paper). These sentences could be worked into an introductory section of a research paper, helping you set up what the paper is doing, what your approach adds to existing knowledge on your subject, and why your approach is important. A strong argument makes a claim that requires analysis to support and evolve and offers some point about the significance of your evidence. It promotes thinking, prompts further questions and draws attention to specifics. It often tends to “push back” against a different view of the topic.
Describing your topic: I am studying __________, in order to learn/explain ___________, which is significant because _________. NOT: I’m “doing” X.
Justifying your approach: I approach [my material/object of study]___ [in this specific way] _______ to support and expand points about the significance of ________. My approach allows us to see evidence __________, prompting further questions about _________ and drawing attention to ________. As a result, my work expands/challenges/argues against _______ view of evidence, and allows us to see ________ [that may have not been considered or understood before].
Developing your ideas and claims: These strategies allow you to produce analysis and develop arguments based on your analysis. These strategies can help you work rigorously with your evidence, help you explain how you’re interpreting it, how you’re adding to existing analysis, how you’re developing key ideas and concepts, how you’re contributing to existing scholarship and knowledge on your subject.
Complication: This explanation gets us __ [only so far] __ as we try to explain [whatever it is we’re explaining]. ___ [Key pieces of evidence] __ don’t fit this explanation in ___ [this particular way] __. Consequently, [Reformulate the argument in light of this]. Repeat.
Complication: Unfortunately, what I have just said is not enough to explain _______. To adequately understand _____, we’ll have to consider ________. Or, The case isn’t so simple, rather _______.
Querying key terms: [These key terms in my argument] __ need to be queried because ___ . Having developed these terms, [reformulate the argument and retest against evidence analyzed in the new terms].
Considering argument as part of something larger: While it may appear that _________ are insignificant, when understood as________, they [significance of new understanding].
Reformulate argument by refusing to go along with the conventional wisdom: Most commentators on ______ tend towards [their understanding] ________. If we consider it in [different] _________ terms, it becomes possible to generate such new insights as _________.
Clarification: Although it might appear that I am saying ________, I really mean ________. Or, Said another way, _________.
Definition/Redefinition: Although this term is usually understood in this [simple] way __________, in the context of my work it means this [more complex, nuanced, specific, specialized thing] __________ . This more subtle meaning is important because ____________.
Introducing and exiting a quote: According to X, a scholar of [source of authority], ________ [paraphrase of the larger argument of the quoted piece]. In “___title___” she writes: _____________. What she means in the context of this paper is _______. If X is right about ______, then __[return to your own ideas considered in light of the quote or as a way to redirect the insights of the quote] ___.
Attributing Sources: According to X, ________. In historian X’s view, ________. In “title of piece,” essayist X argues that “__________.”
Revealing an implication: [Following a discussion of specific details in a writer’s piece] These details add up to the unstated assumption that _________. Or, Although X doesn’t say so explicitly, she appears to mean that ___________.
Revealing a questionable assumption: X’s claim that _____ rests on the questionable assumption that _______.
Contextualizing a specific insight: [This specific thing I’m talking about] is best understood as part of _______ . Or, [This specific thing I’m talking about] is specific example of ___[this larger pattern] ___. By seeing this thing in context, we discover that _______.
Specific insights confirm a more general claim: So as we can see from these aspects of _________, that X more generally tends to ________.
Moving from a general claim to a specific piece of support: [After making the general claim]. For instance, ________. To take a case in point, ________.
Representing the state of dialogue in a field: Such scholars as X and Y have argued recently that ______. This view stands as an important correction to that of Z who classically argued that ______. This shift has enabled the field to ______, producing a better understanding of _______. In light of my own research, ________.
Extending and developing a point of agreement: I agree that _________, and would even add ________. This extension of this idea is productive because ________.
Using summary of someone else’s work to develop a point: In light of what I’ve been arguing, it’s instructive to consider what X has to say about a similar topic: _______. As s/he argues __________. If X is right/wrong about ______, then my ideas __[need to develop; should alter what X thinks…]__.
Allow a counter-argument to develop your point: Some people object that ______. Although I concede __________, I ________[reformulate my point to account for the apt criticism]______.
Conclusion
Getting at the significance of your work [NOT just summarizing what you’ve already said]: At stake in this argument is _______. Or, While most other scholars have argued _______, my work reveals ______. This new insight is significant because _______.
*Developed in response to Gerald Graff’s and Cathy Birkenstein’s work in They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (NY: W. W. Norton, 2006).
Friday, April 10, 2009
UW20 Students Ensure that Children of the Holocaust Are Not Forgotten
In Prof. Cayo Gamber's Legacies of the Holocaust UW20 course, research is more than just an exercise. Working with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, her students seek to learn what happened to the school children of the Lodz Ghetto in Poland.
Prof. Gamber writes: "My UW20 class, Legacies of the Holocaust, has had the good fortune to be able to make use of the resources of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM). Not only do we have access to USHMM’s oral history and photo archives, all the sections I teach have been invited to be part of the beta-testing of the Lodz Ghetto Project.
"The Lodz Ghetto Project is the innovation of David Klevan, Education Manager for Technology and Distance Learning Initiatives, and one of his fellow colleagues at USHMM. The Project was inspired by a single artifact: a list of signatures. The signatures appear in an album of hand-drawn New Year's greetings presented by ghetto schools to the Jewish Council chairman, Chaim Rumkowski, and signed by thousands of Lodz ghetto schoolchildren.
"USHMM is preparing to launch a worldwide collaborative volunteer project to find out what happened to the student signatories in this album. At this point, 1500 (approximately 10%) of the 13,000 names of the signatories are listed on the site. Over time, all of their names will be added to the list.
"My goals in this project are for students to learn how
"These goals are translated into vital research steps. Once researchers register with the site, they are invited to choose a student signatory and try to find out when the student was born, where the student lived in the Ghetto, whether or not there are hospital records or death records related to the student, if the student was sent to a labor camp, whether or not the student was transported to Auschwitz or another camp, and, sometimes, whether or not the student survived.
"The students in Legacies of the Holocaust initially conduct research on one of the signatories to learn to conduct research into various archives. Their primary role, however, is to become advanced researchers. After a half-day workshop conducted for them at USHMM, they learn to review the research conducted by others in order to see if all the research venues have been exhausted and if the researcher has reached viable conclusions about the possible fate of a given student.
"In the process, they communicate, one-on-one with individual researchers in order to discuss the research process. Moreover, in the process, they ensure that these individuals existed and that their fates mattered. Given that 200,000 people were imprisoned in Lodz, and only 10,000 are believed to have survived, the chances that individual students survived are small, but the effort to discover what happened to them remains meaningful.
"It also is worth noting that this Project expands, and sometimes changes, our understanding of history. In the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names in the Yad Vashem archives, the majority of the students from the Ghetto are listed as having perished. Those students whose names are on the list of Lodz ghetto inmates found in “The Lodz Names - List of the ghetto inhabitants 1940-1944” were believed to have “perished in the Shoah” and all were recorded as such when the database was originally constructed; however, the research that is performed by my students, and others, is able to draw from a variety of data sources via the Project and has revealed that this was not always the case.
"The success of this Project is testified to, in part, by the following e-mail in which Maria, a former student, welcomes my current students to the Project.Dear Lodz Children Project Participants, I want to welcome you to this amazing project!
"Like Maria, I hope more of my students will continue this work beyond the current semester. It is projects like these which demonstrate that the research we conduct has ramifications beyond individual classes, beyond classroom walls, beyond the strictures of time and history, for to engage in this work is to bear witness to those whose lives may otherwise be disappeared, to engage in this work is, as Maria has stated, to redress someone’s legacy."
This will be my second semester participating and I know that if you find it as fascinating as I do, you will continue beyond this semester as well. This project has helped me take my research skills to the next level and has given me the satisfaction of knowing my work has already been recorded in history. I had the opportunity to research and review research done by other students, but this time around I will mostly be reviewing your research.
Throughout the next few weeks you will have many challenges while researching and the wonderful satisfaction of finding survivors. You will also have the privilege of experiencing a research rush and at times giving up will seem like the only answer. Just remember in times like these that you are possibly correcting a person’s legacy.
Best of luck,
Maria V**********
m******@gwmail.gwu.edu
UW20 Prof. Caroline Smith Named "Phenomenal Professor" by Student Organization
According to the GW Hatchet, Prof. Smith received the award from Phenomenal Women of GW, because of "her accessibility to students and her extraordinary teaching style." The Phenomenal Women of GW work to give "voice to the idea of resilience, success and leadership among women." Congratulations to Dr. Smith!
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
How to Use Sources Effectively in Expert Writing
Prof. Phil Troutman says, "It's not how many sources you have, but how you USE them that counts!" Read on as Prof. Troutman explains a simple but effective way to think about using sources effectively in expert writing. He also offers sentence templates to help you signal these uses to readers.
Prof. Troutman says: "Having amassed a broad range of sources, emergent research-writers often find themselves a bit confused as to how to use them. I recommend using the I-BEAM (fn1) heuristic of sources to figure out what work you mean each source to do in your piece of writing. I-BEAM stands for Instancing, Background, Exhibit, Argument, & Method."
Instancing is the use of sources to indicate the context and nature of the question, or even its very existence. These might be scholarly articles (e.g., demonstrating an ongoing dispute or consensus you find problematic). Or they might be journalistic or web-based items that simply point to or reflect some specific aspect of the problem. These constitutive sources will probably show up in your introduction, helping define your project in light of what has come before and establishing a context in which your reader can see the importance of your project. (Therefore, if you like, you can substitute the terms Interest or Import here, since these sources are establishing these qualities.)
Background source use is for facts or "objective" information. You expect your reader to simply trust these outright, so they must be widely accepted in your field as credible sources for facts and information. This is the least significant use of sources in a research essay; you might not even cite some of these if the facts are commonly known. But you should cite any kind of specialized encyclopedias or other repositories of knowledge.
Exhibit sources are those you analyze in your essay, ultimately for evidence to help you sustain your claims and deal with counter-claims. Your analysis of these sources—through detailed description, quantitative analysis, or other methods—will likely constitute the bulk of your research essay. These are your most important "primary sources." Their genres will be determined by your central questions.
Argument sources are ones you draw on for key claims, concepts (with stipulated definitions), and theories you are using and responding to in your essay. In many fields, these will be considered your most important "secondary sources." Most of these will be academic sources (academic journal articles, books or book chapters, essays in anthologies, dissertations, master's theses, etc.), though important non-academic theorists may be more relevant to the question or problem you are addressing. Include here any works from which you are borrowing key concepts or theories, including those you are importing from another field or discipline. Your essay might be doing any combination of forwarding (applying, extending, revising) or countering (rebutting, refuting, delineating) these arguments (fn2).
Method sources are those you use for the methods they model, especially in cases where the method itself is unique, innovative, or particularly applicable to your project. For example, you might cite and describe a certain quantitative method, adapting it for your own purposes in your essay. You might also consider as "method" sources those from which you derive your own mode of questioning, way of thinking, or style of writing. Sources influential in these more subtle ways are sometimes noted in acknowledgements or epigraphs rather than citations.
I-BEAM is useful especially in the drafting stage. Ask a peer to mark I, B, E, A, or M next to each source quotation/citation, based on how he or she thinks you are using that source at that moment. See if she or he can tell what you thought you were doing (if you knew yet). Discuss to figure out exactly what role(s) that source is playing in your essay at that moment. This little exercise can help you figure out your own stances as well, e.g., whether you agree or disagree with a particular source's claim.
For example, if you are quoting from an academic article or book, are you are using that source (at that moment) for its Argument (one you plan to extend or respond to)? Or are you using it merely to establish some factual Background information that no one has any reason to question? There is a big difference in how you use the source, and how you signal your usage to readers.
Clearly marking your source uses with rhetorical cues will help your reader see the difference. For example, what differences can you infer about a writer's use of sources framed in these ways?
Exhibit use of sources will be marked by language that signals your own interpretive voice:
Instancing is the trickiest. Any time you use a source to help establish the reason for you to write--and this often happens in the introduction--you are instancing. Note that these sources might also be serving another purpose simultaneously, Background fact or Argument, for example.
Along these lines:
The first Instancing template above is also establishing Background, and the second one is an Argument use. But both cases also work as instancing: establishing the reason for this writer to write, to fill some gap in our knowledge or to take an intellectual path overlooked.
Instancing sources are critical to giving your reader a sense of what motivates you to write this essay in the way that you do, and a sense of why they might want to read it.
(fn1)This heuristic was first articulated in Joseph Bizup, "BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing," Rhetoric Review 27.1 (January 2008): 72-86. Available by searching for Articles on the Gelman Library Website. My colleague Mark Mullen and I have modified it somewhat and added the Instancing category.
(fn2)These moves are explained in Joseph Harris, Rewriting: How To Do Things With Texts (Logan: Utah State Univ. Press, 2006).
Monday, March 30, 2009
Guest Lecturer Abdur-Rahman Muhammad Teaches UW20 Students the Fact and Fiction Behind the Nation of Islam
Late last month, UW20 Professor Kevin Bryant invited author and lecturer Abdur-Rahman Muhammad to speak in both of his classes, which focus on the life of the legendary Malcolm X.
This article was written by UW20 student, Jared Brenner.
Mr. Muhammad centered his lecture on a topic crucial to any study of Malcolm X: the origins (both factual and mythological) of the Nation of Islam. He described the truths and fallacies behind the organization’s founder, W.D. Fard, and explained how he believed Fard to have manipulated the early 20th century African-American social construct in creating the NOI. His lecture provided a great deal of historical context and insight into an era that Professor Bryant’s students continue to write about frequently as the semester progresses.
Says Professor Bryant: “I continue to invite Abdur-Rahman to participate as a guest lecturer in my Malcolm X course because my students appear to have a profound respect for his vast knowledge not just of Malcolm X in particular, but for his knowledge of African American history, Islam, and other religions. […] Abdur-Rahman is an engaging and eloquent speaker; you can sense [his] enthusiasm [and] he has a way of captivating his audience with fresh interpretations and analyses of the bygone era of Malcolm X.”
Mr. Muhammad describes his interest in the subject as having been primarily drawn from his experiences growing up in the post-Civil Rights Era 1970s, “particularly pertaining to the forced desegregation of public schools.” As a college student, he says he “met students who were part of the NOI, as well as many older Sunni Muslims who were once part of the NOI and educated me on their teachings.” He has been a regular lecturer on college campuses for over 20 years, with the past seven of them spent doing classroom lectures.
In addition to his work as an author (his first book, concerning Black American Islam, will be available this summer) and a blogger (at his website, A Singular Voice), Mr. Muhammad is a participant in an upcoming documentary, entitled Militant Islam and the West. As part of his contribution, the producers of the documentary filmed Mr. Muhammad’s visit to Professor Bryant’s classes.
A producer for the documentary described it in a recent e-mail as “seek[ing] to answer questions about the true nature of political Islam and how it is addressed in American society by Muslim American groups. This piece will particularly focus on the impact that adherents of political Islam and/or members of the Muslim Brotherhood have upon American Muslim organizations and the institutions with whom the groups interact.”
When asked what makes GW students stand out from those to whom he has lectured previously, Mr. Muhammad commented, “What I enjoyed most about lecturing to GW students was their obvious intelligence and genuine interest in the subject. They ask compelling questions which show that they have thought about the material. […] I am motivated by a desire to inspire young people to study the history of our country, and the social movements that contributed to it's greatness. My lectures have always been greatly received by students, for which I am entirely grateful.”
Mr. Muhammad’s website is A Singular Voice. His book, From the Back of the Bus to the Back of the Camel, will be available this summer. For more about the documentary mentioned in this article, please visit http://www.wemakedocs.com/.