Writing Assignments—Pathways to Connections, Clarity, Creativity

The processes of writing and learning are fundamentally and powerfully linked. Fulwiler (1987a) asserts that “writing is basic to thinking about, and learning, knowledge in all fields as well as to communicating that knowledge. ” Elbow (1986) concurs, observing that writing leads to more detailed and complete thinking as the writer explores connections and different organizational patterns in the material to be learned. Adherents of the Writing across the Curriculum movement (Young and Fulwiler 1986, Fulwiler 1987b) have cited substantial benefits of writing assignments in facilitating learning, especially in subject areas like science and mathematics that do not normally involve such assignments. An additional potential benefit of writing assignments has to do with what Marton (1975) calls surface and deep approaches to learning. Many college teachers are frustrated by the tendency of most of their students to take a surface approach, meaning that they pursue their studies with a minimum of personal engagement, satisfied to memorize facts and problem-solution procedures without attempting to understand them. Only a small minority routinely adopt a deep approach—wherein they try to understand rather than just to memorize—delving into the meanings of lectures and readings, asking probing questions, voluntarily doing outside reading, and relating class material to material in other subjects and to their own experience.