Writing-To-Learn: Engaging with Course Material

It's syllabus day for EN370: History and Practice of Rhetoric, a class mandatory for my degree plan, and my peers and I have already been assigned a mini-paper due the next time we meet.As a matter of fact, it isn't just one mini-paper to start off the semester, but ten mini papers that are spread throughout the 16-week course.These minipapers, as the instructor explained, will be completed before class, incorporating information from the readings that will be discussed that next class period, serving as a "writing-to-learn" assignment.With the outlined criteria, I realized it meant I'd need to create a cohesive and thoughtful mini-paper about material I not only read, but also digested myself; I didn't have the aid of in-class discussions to write these daunting assignments.To meet the goals of engaging with theoretical texts more deeply and preparing for in-class discussions, we were required to reflect on each week's assigned reading(s) with an analysis and application of the concepts in these mini-papers, learning to work closely and complexly with primary texts.In turn, these papers scaffolded my skills to create a higher-stakes, rhetorical analysis paper at the end of the semester, encompassing what we had learned about theories of rhetoric, using a rhetorical lens to analyze, and working closely with a primary text of our choosing.As the semester progressed and I wrote more mini-papers, I began participating in discussions more often, learning the material more deeply, and even talking about the course outside of the classroom.These writing-to-learn assignments, almost initially intimidating enough to drop the course, became a valuable tool in which I could engage and interact with the readings in a closer, deeper way.Spending time with the material on my own, sitting with the text and exploring the ideas, the words, and the message instead of solely reading it provided me with a better understanding and a firmer confidence in my ability to interpret and communicate information.According to the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Clearinghouse website, writing-to-learn assignments encourage students to better digest course material through low-pressure writing exercises.These activities could potentially take as little as 5 minutes to complete in class or be assigned as a "brief" out-of-class activity, but even with the distinct ways to implement this learning strategy, the benefits remain the same (WAC Clearinghouse, 1997-2024).Writing-to-learn assignments are different from high-stakes formal assignments because the former is both relaxed and impromptu with the primary goal being to help students learn and explore new ideas and topics introduced in the classroom (Nathan et al., 2022).The Georgetown University Writing Program defines low-stakes writing as assignments that are "short, typically ungraded, and focused on thinking through a problem or question" (n.d., para.2).While the writing-to-learn assignments I completed in EN370 were worth points (though only added up to ⅕ of our grade, acting as a cushion for other assignments), the professor made it clear what was expected of us.Instead of providing a summary of the assigned readings, students were graded upon their demonstration of critical thinking and exploration of the assigned readings.As American composition scholar Janet Emig ( 2003) states in her piece, "Writing as a Mode of Learning," both learning and writing are based on making "active, engaged, [and] personal" connections between hand, eye, and brain (p.27).Through the active use of three different parts of the body, writing as a mode of learning promotes deeper learning and engagement with materials.With the help of low-pressure writing-to-learn assignments, especially as they capture the thought-flow of the writer, students can create these deeper connections with material, allowing them to learn and retain class material more easily and effectively.Emig (2003) emphasizes that successful learning also entails "engaged, committed, personal learning" (p.12).The mini-papers assigned to my class certainly fit into Emig's criteria for successful learning; the prompts encouraged students to engage with the text by asking students to commit to understanding it, further promoting successful learning by challenging students to create personal connections with the readings.These mini-papers were also lowstakes assignments, allowing me and other students to complete short, low-pressure writing activities that, as Georgetown University Writing Program states, prepares students for longer, higher-stakes assignments (n.d.).These writing-to-learn assignments that provide students the opportunity to write can help "build student fluency in speaking and writing" and even allow students to "gain confidence by creating a safe space for learning," as stated by Tonya Leal, a teacher in California (Nathan et al., 2022, p. 14).In other words, through these exploratory writing assignments, students will not only grow in their own writing ability, but they can also build confidence within the classroom, both being skills that students can continue to grow and nurture past these writing-to-learn assignments.