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Compiled by the ������-Dearborn Composition & Rhetoric discipline

Recommended by the Dearborn Discovery Core Subcommittee of the UCDC 

Members of the Composition & Rhetoric discipline at ������-Dearborn cite the following strategies identified as best practices nationwide* for courses certified as “Writing Intensive.” The following practices foster sound writing pedagogy to help ensure students achieve learning outcomes for this DDC category. 

Writing Intensive courses should: 

• Offer substantial and meaningful opportunities for revising one’s writing.
• Involve students in guided, peer review of their classmates’ writing. Useful peer feedback emerges when students receive specific questions or a heuristic linked to the writing assignment before them. Even in courses where students might be producing longer project papers, peer review can be structured around genre conventions, introductions and conclusions, etc., i.e., structured such that a peer would not read the whole paper but instead read portions of it alongside other examples.
• Include formative (not just summative) feedback from the professor.
• Include low-stakes as well as high-stakes writing that further emphasizes writing as a process. Such low-stakes activities could include in-class writing as a prelude or as a prompt for discussion, reflective responses to course readings, and the like.
• Make use of writing-to-learn activities geared toward helping students use writing as a way to negotiate difficult disciplinary content and make connections between what they are learning in multiple contexts.
• Include clear, transparent, communicated support for international and other second-language students.
• Include exposure to and advanced competency in disciplinary and/or discipline-specific genres, conversations, methods, (writing) technologies, platforms, sources/databases/archives/sites.
• Make use of writing as a means for critical inquiry into sophisticated questions and for synthesis of ideas and diverse points of view. 

This list is necessarily partial given the impossibility of foreseeing all possible details that may arise with regard to Writing Intensive courses. Faculty can consult with Composition and Rhetoric faculty members on matters ranging from course design, effective strategies for assessing and giving feedback to students on their writing, and such logistical and material issues as managing the “paper load” in Writing Intensive courses.

*These recommendations are based on Composition and Rhetoric faculty members’ research and teaching expertise in various subfields; on administrative and teaching experiences at ������-Dearborn and other institutions; and on knowledge of the benchmarking done by professional organizations such as the International Network of Writing-across-the Curriculum (WAC) Programs, the Conference on College Composition & Communication and the National Association of Writing Program Administrators.