Transfer of Writing Skills into Discipline-Specific Courses

Matthews, D. and Wetzel, D.

This research examines the transfer of writing skills that students acquire in first-year writing courses into writing tasks in their discipline specific courses. Students in 19-101 Introduction to Engineering and Public Policy are mostly second-semester first year students who have just completed or are completing the first-year writing requirement. The choices for the first-year writing requirement have now been expanded to include not only the traditional Interpretation and Argument, but also mini courses Writing about Public Problems and Writing about Data. The latter two courses teach writing skills that are included in project-based work for Intro to EPP. We are investigating the correspondence of skills between the writing courses and writing assignments, and how well students who have taken those courses perform on the discipline-specific writing tasks versus students who have completed the traditional Interpretation and Argument course. At present, the research is in its initial stages, investigating methods for evaluating written materials, collecting course-level assignments, and examining writing samples. Presented work will show materials, sample writing, and discuss potential methods for examining skill transfer. 

Deanna Matthews, EPP
Danielle Wetzel, English