Presentation given

1. 10 TIPS FOR
INCORPORATING
WRITING IN TO YOUR
NURSING CLASSROOM
Dr. Robert E. Cummings
Center for Writing and Rhetoric
University of Mississippi

2. Who said this ?
“Those of us who have been doomed to read
manuscripts written in an examination room –
whether at a grammar school, a high school, or a
college – have found the work of even good
scholars disfigured by bad spelling, confusing
punctuation, ungrammatical, obscure, ambiguous,
or inelegant expressions. Everyone who has had
much to do with the graduating classes of our best
colleges, has known [students] who could not write
a letter describing their own commencement
without making blunders which would disgrace a
boy twelve years old.”

3. Who said this ?
Dr. Adams Hill
Harvard University
Creator of Harvard’s writing program(and,
by extension, the Composition
requirement in all of American higher
education)
Speaking of Harvard’s students
In 1879!

4. 3 main problems
 I don’t have time to assess writing.
 I don’t have the training (or authority) to
assess writing.
 I don’t have the room for writing in my
curriculum.

5. Main Problem 1: I don’t have the
time to assess writing.
 I have too many students in my course.
Some sections of our core courses have more
than 200 students. If it takes the fastest, most
accurate, and experienced rater of freshman
essays a minimum of 20 minutes to grade a
three-page essay, how can I possibly spend a
minimum of 67 hours (and more likely 130
hours) reading and responding to one student
essay?

6. Tip #1
You don’t have to read and respond to all
student writing.

7. Tip #1 You can collect writing and
grade it only for completion.
In truth, there is a range of responding to student writing
(Gottschalk):
1. Writing you do not collect.
2. Writing you read briefly but do not grade.
3. Writing you collect, read briefly, and acknowledge for
credit.
4. Writing you read, with a few comments, and grade
with an alternative system (check minus, check, check
plus)
5. Writing you read with comments, but do not grade.
6. Finished papers you evaluate with comments and
grades.
Don’t assume all writing means level six of response!

8. Tip #1 You don’t have to read and
respond to all student writing.
 Employ “Writing to Learn”
Writing to learn is different. We write to ourselves as
well as talk with others to objectify our perceptions of
reality; the primary function of this "expressive"
language is not to communicate, but to order and
represent experience to our own understanding. In
this sense language provides us with a unique way of
knowing and becomes a tool for discovering, for
shaping meaning, and for reaching understanding.
-- Fulwiler and Young

9. Tip #1 You don’t have to read and
respond to all student writing.
 What do some writing to learn assignments which you
will not read look like?
Writing you do not read:
Informal writing students can do in class.
 Ask students to create study questions which they will
share with one another.
 Reserve the last five minutes of a class for summative
writing. Create six prompts which you rotate
throughout the semester. These could be questions
such as “What is the most interesting idea you have
heard today?” and “What concept in this discussion is
most difficult for you to understand”? And “What do
you want to learn more about?”

10. Tip #2
You can collect writing and grade it only for
completion.

11. Tip #2 You can collect writing and
grade it only for completion.
 Writing to learn you might collect and grade for
completion:
 Examples. You might ask students to create a
learning journal, which is dedicated to their
thoughts about their learning experience. It could
simply be a collection of those summative
questions you ask at the end of each class, i.e.,
“What is the most interesting idea you have heard
in class today”? If you make it worth a small
portion of the grade, you could collect it twice a
semester and simply count pages.

12. Tip #2 You can collect writing and
grade it only for completion.
 Writing to learn you might collect and grade for
completion:
 Alternatively, you could ask students to post
their learning journal entries (1/2 page in
length) to an online format. Then at specific
points, you can instead of writing more
learning journals, ask students to read the
class’s postings and nominate ideas they want
you to focus on in the next lecture.

13. Tip #3
You can adopt peer review assignments.

14. Tip #3 You can adopt peer
review
 Any of the assignments already mentioned can be
collected and read by students themselves.
 Peer review sessions need not be done in class,
though they can be.
 Successful peer review assignments demand that
you think through two key elements:
1. the mechanics of how students exchange and
respond to writing; and
2. design specific, tactical, questions for students to
answer which refer to the learning goals of the
assignment and/or course.

15. Tip #3 You can adopt peer
review
 Example
 Initial writing assignment: Ask students to develop
a research proposal (1-2 pages) where they
identify a research question and develop methods
for answering these questions.
 Out of class peer review: students bring a copy of
a research proposal to class, and give it to
another student. They also take home two
questions to answer about the proposal, perhaps
(1) is the question proposed one that can be
answered with the methods proposed? And (2) is
the question one which our field studies?

16. Tip #3 You can adopt peer
review
 In class peer review: Collect six student
research questions, anonymize them, then sort
them in three categories: “High,” “Medium,”
and “Low” in terms of how they answer the
assignment criteria.
 Share them in class, without your ratings, by
projecting them or handing them out.
 Ask students to determine which are “High,”
“Medium,” and “Low.”
 Vote on each sample, and discuss ratings.

17. Tip # 4
You can adopt Calibrated Peer Review.

18. Tip #4 You can adopt Calibrated
Peer Review
 Originally developed for chemistry courses at
UCLA, this system poses tightly defined
writing assignments/problems to students.
 Students the rate each other’s responses.
 Grading can be shifted to develop the ability to
read others’ work accurately.
 I can get more information to you on this topic.

19. Main Problem 2
 I don’t have the training or authority to assess
writing in my classroom.
 (What are you people teaching them in
Freshman Composition anyway?)

20. Tip # 5
You can limit your responses to grammar
and/or the form of student writing.

21. Tip #5 Limit your responses toward
grammar and/or form.
 Simply circle grammatical problems.
 Our handbook for all courses in Freshman
English, A Writer’s Reference, includes
content for Nursing.
 The handbook introduces typical Nursing
writing assignments, such as: statements of
philosophy, nursing practice papers, case
studies, research papers, literature reviews,
experiential or reflective narratives, and
position papers.
 Students will be trained in the use of the
handbook; they can refer to it themselves.

22. Tip #6
When responding to student writing, choose
a lesson to teach.

23. Tip #6 Choose a lesson to teach
when responding to student writing
 Dr. Nancy Sommers encourages us to
consider responding to student writing as a
chance to teach a lesson.
 Avoid the “deficit model.” You cannot mark
every problem.
 Focus instead on your end comments.
 Put your response in the form of a short letter.
 Begin with the general, and move to the
specific.

24. Tip # 7
Incorporate the Writing Center.

25. Tip # 7 Incorporate the Writing
Center
 We are expanding the Oxford Writing Center
services to offer remote video conferencing for
the School of Health Related Professions at
UMMC.
 The WC can help students at any stage of the
writing process: invention, research, revision,
response.
 You set the tone for students’ use of the WC. If
you see it as valuable, so will they. If you see it
as remedial, so will they.

26. Main Problem 3
 I don’t have room for writing in my curriculum.

27. Tip #8
Develop writing assignments to support
your existing curricular goals.

28. Tip #8 Develop writing
assignments to support your
existing curricular goals.
Writing Assignment Development Sequence
1. Decide on the main idea of the project for the
writer (specifically in terms of course outcomes).
Describe what the final writing product does.
2. Break the final product into distinct cognitive
tasks.
(e.g., summarize, describe, analyze, evaluate,
propose)
3. Sequence those tasks into assignment stages.
4. Relate the tasks, and final product, to the course
outcomes.
5. Provide examples of student writing on this
project.
6. Provide assessment criteria.

29. Tip # 9
Design writing assignments for inquiry.

30. Tip # 9 Design writing assignments
for Inquiry
 Design writing assignments for inquiry. Invite
students to participate in your field as you do.
 Avoid “writing as a container for knowledge”
 Reinforce the value of writing in your
discipline. How do the leaders in your field
communicate their results?
 Define the basic goals of the assignment at the
top (e.g., What were we investigating and
why? How did we pursue this investigation?
What did we find out? What do these results
mean?)

31. Tip # 9 Design writing assignments
for Inquiry
 Design writing assignments with a clear
definition of the rhetorical situation:
1. Who is the audience?
2. What is the message/purpose?
3. What is the medium?
 Remember: your students don’t know the
rhetorical assumptions of your field (i.e., the
conventions of a lab report). You do. You
can’t explain it to them enough.

32. Tip #10
Incorporate Reflection.

33. Tip # 10 Incorporate Reflection.
 Students write a short essay near the end of the semester.
This essay asks them to choose one learning outcome from
the syllabus and reflect on how well they feel they have
achieved this outcome, pointing to various class activities as
evidence, and evaluating the significance of the overall
experience.
 The content of the essay is assessed by the instructor of
record. The instructor decides what credit to assign the essay
within the context of the course.
 The essay, with student and course identification removed, is
assessed by a team of instructors specially trained by the
CWR for this purpose. They employ a rubric which assesses
the writing for its cognitive development, unity, arrangement,
presentation, and how well it answers the question.

34. Tip # 10 Incorporate Reflection.
 Faculty receive genuine insight in to students’ learning, since
students will articulate course outcomes in their own language and
attempt to persuade readers of the depth, accuracy, and worth of
their learning experience. Since students select the outcome,
faculty also understand which outcomes students have engaged.
 Since students reflect upon the course learning outcomes and
synthesize disparate strands of course learning, they are more likely
to transfer knowledge from the course sooner. In other words,
students have greater meta-cognition. They also have another
occasion to “write to learn.”
 The essay, with student and course identification removed, is
assessed by a team of instructors specially trained by the CWR for
this purpose. They employ a rubric which assesses the writing for
its cognitive development, unity, arrangement, presentation, and
how well it answers the question.

35. Tip # 10 Incorporate Reflection.
University of Mississippi Outcomes Writing Prompt
After reviewing the learning outcomes listed in the syllabus for this course, and reflecting on the
assignments you have completed for this class, please write a short essay of approximately 750
words to answer the following questions:
Which course learning outcome would you identify as being the most significant in your
personal learning experience this semester? What one assignment, completed for this course,
would you point to as significant work toward fulfilling this outcome?
•As you compose your response, be sure to:
•Identify or reproduce the learning outcome;
•Interpret the outcome in your own language;
•Describe the work you completed for one assignment which is significant in light of fulfilling this
outcome;
•Apply the work of that one assignment to the learning outcome, explaining how your work is evidence
of having made progress toward fulfilling the outcome;
•Analyze why your work toward this outcome is significant to your class learning experience,
explaining what makes this work valuable to you;
•Evaluate or assess the overall significance of this experience.
You might consider what this learning experience means to you now, or what it might it mean to you
in the future. You might consider if this experience has made a difference in your life as a student of

36. Works Cited
 Fulwiler, Toby and Art Young. Language
Connections: Writing and Reading Across the
Curriculum. Urbana, IL:NCTE,1982.
 Gottschalk, Katherine and Keith Hortshoj. The
Elements of Teaching Writing: A Resource for
Instructors in All Disciplines. Boston: Bedford
St. Martin’s P, 2004.

37. cummings@olemiss.edu