Writing Across Engineering: A First Year Implementation

Plans for Export

For years 6-10, we will seek export and transfer opportunities for this course structure The first description of our writing approach was given as a paper "Team Teaching: A Combined Rhetoric and Laboratory in Freshman Engineering" at the 1996 ASEE meeting in Washington, DC.

With the separation of the writing and laboratory portions into individual courses in English and in Engineering, respectively, the designation Writing Across Engineering is adopted here for the English portion. This cleavage provides maximum independence for our instructors and those at other campuses to continue the spirit of individual experimentation within a rubric of accepted writing structures so that the no-added cost nature of the implementation can be maintained in English departments. A first invited workshop for this development will be held at Virginia Polytechnic Institute on March 14, 1996. It will be given along with a workshop on the first year Product and Process Engineering Laboratory concept.

Methods

The Writing Across Engineering composition course is an educational product developed with SUCCEED funding and implemented with the assistance of both the NCSU English Department and College of Engineering. It is the nature of experiments in education that they must be conceived and , if successful, reduced to materials suitable for export, sold to new constituencies, implemented at a variety of institutions, and evaluated (assessed) for performance after each new installation. We expect to follow this historical pattern by working with the assistance of the SUCCEED Focus Team on Student Transitions, and the local Curriculum Implementation Teams (CITs) of the SUCCEED campuses. We will also consider development of a common assessment form so that first year Writing Across Engineering experiments can be utilized to discern which students are most and least successfully served by this approach.

Materials

We are preparing a draft collection of readings in engineering and technology which will be ready this summer. Trial versions will be ready for export at summer’s end, and we will be pleased to discuss these and other potential materials, including videos and art works, with interested parties from other campuses, and to learn of related ongoing experiments at any undergradaute level. Interested parties may contact any of the authors at the following numbers: Ann Brown (919-515-3545), Steve Luyendyk (919-515-4122), or David Ollis (919-515-2329), or reach us by email at srlyend@unity.ncsu.edu or ollis@che.ncsu.edu .

Implementation

We seek collaborative opportunities with other campuses to help implement local versions of this Writing Across Engineering experiment. Specifically, we will be pleased to visit other SUCCEED campuses, campuses of associated colleges and universities, and any other interested campus to provide a short workshop and hear of related local experiences. Further, we are interested in preparation of joint proposals to receive SUCCEED funding for implementing this composition structure at other SUCCEED and other campuses.

Assessment

An old truism in science is that "An experiment conducted without subsequent analysis and interpretation is meaningless". A fortunate feature of our Writing Across Engineering experiment is that every campus has already installed a multitude of first year English sections which have been offered under many traditions of materials utilized, from a common set of readings to an "Every instructor for him/herself" approach to choice of reading materials. In all events, the ability to assess student outcomes for courses aimed at deepening skill and efficiency in writing compositions is perhaps the best developed evaluation portion of the undergradaute experience. Accordingly, we anticipate that creating assessment protocols acceptable to the SUCCEED assesssment team and to each local campus choosing to implement this experiment should be an achievable, if not easy, challenge.

Conclusion

"Write about what you know, write about what you like, write about what you want to be." Why shouldn’t engineering students, and many others on this increasingly technical earth, read and write about the technologies and technologists who are, for better or worse, in the spotlight as we head into the 21st century ? And why not do this on day one, rather than year four, of the undergradaute experience ? Engineering education should follow the lead of all composition teachers: "Tell’em where you are going, right at the start ! "

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