Classrooms as Forums for Reasoning and Writing

One of the major assumptions underlying much scholarship in writing across the curriculum is that writing is a means of learning. Consequently, it should have an integral role to play in any course. While most of us accept this assumption, we are less likely to agree upon what we mean when we link writing and learning and how specifically to advise our colleagues to integrate writing into their courses as a means of learning. In the scholarship on writing across the curriculum, we find two quite different ways of defining that relationship, one which explains writing in classrooms from the perspective of a school community and a second which explains it from the perspective of a disciplinary community. One group of scholars, characterizing purposes and audiences for writing from the perspective of a school community, claims that writing can serve as a means of learning when it is used as a medium for students to engage in the process of thinking. 1 These scholars assume that this aim is realized through what Britton et al. term the expressive function of language, writing freely to test out ideas and the writer's feelings, mood, opinions.2 Given these assumptions, these scholars advise teachers how to create situations where students use expressive writing as a means of invention early in the process of composing any writing assignment, for example, by having students do journal writing.3 Further, they stress the importance of the teacher's role as an audience, assuming that students' perception of that role will determine in large part the extent to which writing will serve as a means of thinking for them. That is, if a teacher acts as what Britton et al. term an examiner whose sole function is to judge whether some end product (i.e., a completed writing assignment) is correct, then students are less likely to use writing as a way to explore their own ideas. Conversely, students are more likely to use writing for this exploratory purpose if the teacher acts as a par-