The Elements of Teaching Writing: A Resource for Instructors in All Disciplines

by Katherine Gottschalk, Keith Hjortshoj

Offering reliable advice about how to design effective writing assignments and respond to and evaluate student writing in any course, Elements of Teaching Writing provides time-saving strategies and practical guidance for educators.

Genres: Writing, Education, Nonfiction, Teaching

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 24, 2003

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book fairly helpful and inspiring overall. It is clearly meant for college professors, but I found much of the material relevant to my high school classroom. The book went back and forth, essentially, between describing ways to motivate and inspire students to begin writing well and describing ways to revise, improve, and grade students writing that has been begun. I couldn't help but feel that, as a teacher, I am quite a ways "beyond" the motivational aspects of the book. The authors suggest that teachers have students fill out a survey of interests at the start of the course. This will, of course, show them that the teacher "cares" about them as individuals and inspire them to bare their souls in class . . . yawn. That is exactly what EVERY high school teacher in the county currently does on the first day of school. It is most decidedly NOT motivational. I would rather have my students get up and play games, try memorizing each other's names and appearances, throw some stuff up about themselves on the walls, and maybe play a bit of guitar and discuss our favorite music during the beginning of a course. I don't feel that I got much out of their discussions of building a relationship with students and creating a community in the classroom. This is probably mostly a result of the fact that the book is meant for a college audience. However, I really liked the sections on how to approach grades and revising writing. The authors promote "reading" papers rather than grading them: waiting until you have read ALL the papers and made comments and some future plans before going back to assign grades. Even better than that, they suggest postponing having students turn in a "finished" product for grading as long as possible by framing assignments in clever ways. The book explains (and it's TOTALLY right) that anytime you assign a "first" draft to be turned in, you will undoubtedly get a classful of "final" drafts. Once students have completed a draft of a paper (no matter how crappy it is and no matter how many excellent suggestions you or others give them), they will almost never make substantive changes. I thought that was a great point that I hadn't really given much thought before. Instead of assigning "drafts," they suggest assigning quick freewrites on what they might write about or letters to the teacher explaining what they know about the topic. You can use these to provide suggestions that the student will actually take into consideration when you finally assign the draft that you know is essentially the final one. I'll definitely be using some of these ideas in my classes next year, and for that I think it is worth a read (for fellow teachers, anyway). If you teach high school, however, just skip the motivational/inspirational sections . . . you don't need them.

[Olivia R · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of good advice, but also a lot of white supremacist ideals regarding “standard” English.

[Nathan Nicolau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never agreed with a book more in my life.

[Mary Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I participated in a Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) workshop series just recently, and I received this book as part of the "class". We actually only read the first 25% of the book as part of the workshop, but I couldn't put the book down. And though it might be mean to say, I can tell you that this book was more significant and useful than the workshop itself. Burn!

Anyway, I've been teaching writing for the past four years and have been itching to make some changes. This book helped me to make some practical changes. It's important to note that this book is most helpful for teaching writing to college students. And while the authors themselves seem to regularly teach relatively small writing classes (under 17 students, typically; sounds like a dream to me), they do acknowledge and have strategies for writing instructors with larger class sizes.

What I really loved about this book is that it provides so much context. It's easy to complain about our students and their lack of good work, but the authors really try to debunk that myth by reminding you that college students have an awful lot going on, and they're young adults. Instead of playing the blame game, it's about working with what you have. And it means that teachers, occasionally, have to change their ways in order to be current and effective. That's true in other areas of study; why would it be any different for writing?

There are a lot of excellent strategies for writing assignments, descriptions for those assignments, and assessment for those assignments. There are a lot of examples from different types of disciplinary writing classes (or just discipline-specific classes that necessarily require written assignments), which can be helpful for many. (I didn't find them directly useful, but I'm sure some would.) There is extensive coverage of using multiple drafts, strategizing, instructor feedback, and peer work. Again, a handful of the activities that they talked about (class presentations about rough drafts) were interesting but just not possible in a class with more than 15 students, but I really like the ideas.

I mean, it comes down to what you want as an instructor. I'm tired of fighting an uphill battle with my students, and I really don't like reading their crappy work. It might be crappy because I've not done a good job framing the assignment. And sure, some of them might be generally crappy, but I kind of doubt it. If you teach a writing course in college, you can't go wrong with this book. I also think it's a good idea for teachers of classes that are not specifically writing classes. It's creative and practical, and I am keeping this book by me as I cleverly revamp my entire class.

[Amy Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

In April 2003, attention was called for a “writing revolution” in education. A report called the “The Neglected ‘R’: The Need for a Writing Revolution” by the National Commission on Writing in America’s Schools and Colleges, described their findings in which writing was being ignored in favor of other subjects. This was due to the fact that learning was still being seen as the ability to collect facts and writing was considered a separate, more formal way of establishing what one has learned. Katherine Gottsschalk and Keith Hjortshoj, directors of First Year Writing Seminars and Writing in the Majors in the Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines at Cornell University, were revising this book when the commission’s report was released. It could not have been more timely. Gottsschalk’s and Hjortshoj’s work expresses the same ideals of the report, largely, that writing should be seen as part of a larger discourse and is a form of learning and discovery. However, “The Elements of Teaching Writing” does not mention change happening on a national scale. It was composed with the leaders of the writing revolution in mind: teachers and students.
Due to an increased emphasis on communication skills throughout the years in all professions, many schools have been mandated to “write across the curriculum.” The quick and quantitative approach to these mandates have placed new pressures on teachers, especially those who teach a discipline other than English. Gottschalk and Hjortshoj preface their book with a detailed understanding of how teachers are grappling with the question of “How can I teach writing in my course?” They drew their work from participating with teachers and students at Cornell University. As common themes became noticeable, they narrowed on elements of writing that any teacher can refer to. The book is divided into ten chapters each with a brief introductory listing of the key elements. While the chapters range from “Integrating Writing and Learning in Your Course Design” to “Teaching as a Work in Progress,” the need for clarity in assignments and guidance for completing them is repeated throughout. The format of the book itself is a prime example of the benefits of clarity and guidance, since its intention is to be a resource for teachers. Easily accessible and efficient, it is inspiring for teachers grappling with stuffed curriculums and deadlines.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This guide is comprehensive and does and excellent job synthesizing and presenting advice for (as its subtitle notes) instructors in ALL disciplines (capitalization mine). Though the authors note that their desire to generalize prevents them from providing as many specific examples of assignments as they might otherwise, they do a nice job culling the few examples that they do, as well as explaining how such examples might be modified depending on the type of course you are teaching. While much of what they say was familiar to me, I found myself latching on to a few key ideas (such as asking students to do pre-writing to discover what they know about a subject before teaching them about it). More importantly, I thought they did a very nice job of making the case for designing courses around writing objectives and assignments rather than beginning with content and working backward to see how writing assignments might “fit in.”

[D'Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not exactly exciting reading, but there is a lot of really good stuff here that I will definitely be using when I teach.

[Olam Panox · Rating 5 out of 5]

i just wanna read this book, i need it

[Catherine Siemann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful overview.