This page explores “writing-to-learn” (WTL) teaching practices. These evidence-based strategies can be useful for both in-person and remote teaching, and in both small- and large-enrollment courses. While the focus of WTL is fostering understanding through writing rather than teaching the skill of writing, instructors often find that students learn how to write as a collateral benefit of WTL. Thoughtfully-designed WTL assignments can help students make sense of complex ideas, and connect ideas from both within and outside course content. These activities are designed to help students think through key concepts (both skills and content) presented in a course, and they can be particularly useful in helping students move from rote learning toward deeper understanding of concepts and disciplinary ways of thinking. They are often short, low-stakes writing assignments which can be designed as in-class activities or as take-home/at-home assignments. After describing the benefits of WTL, this newsletter will provide ideas for using WTL in your own course.

Writing is among the most effective ways to help students develop their thinking in a way that is meaningful and enduring. A study by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) included writing-intensive courses on a short list of high-impact educational practices, inclusive learning strategies which have been shown to increase student retention and engagement (Kuh, 2008). These high-impact educational practices are effective because they tend to require students to devote substantial time and effort to purposeful tasks, encourage students to regularly interact and collaborate with faculty and peers, and involve frequent and substantive feedback (NSSE, 2007). Researchers found that when courses across the curriculum emphasized writing, undergraduate students showed marked improvement in quantitative reasoning, oral communication, and information literacy (Kuh).

Most educational theorists, cognitive theorists, and educational psychologists agree that writing is a proven way to promote critical thinking, improve understanding, and encourage information retention (e.g., Britton et al., 1975; Galbraith & Baaijen, 2018; Menary, 2007). In this way, WTL supports a number of learning objectives, including science practice skills, disciplinary thinking, scientific reasoning, conceptual learning, argumentation from data/evidence, and representation competency (Bangert-Drowns, Hurley, & Wilkinson, 2004; Rivard, 1994). Additionally, students are more likely to remember the things they write about because writing slows the thinking process, enabling the writer to think carefully, intentionally, and analytically. Writing requires numerous individual decisions: what to argue, what evidence to use, how to organize ideas, what style to adopt, and so on (Berthoff, 1982; Griffin, 1983; Raimes, 1980). When paired with faculty feedback, WTL activities have even been shown to improve student performance on summative assignments such as exams (Linton et al., 2017; Moore, 1993).

In addition to improving student learning, WTL can be beneficial to the course instructor. Reading student writing can often be an educative experience for the instructor; students often have unique insights on course readings and discussions, and make creative connections between various courses and other learning experiences. WTL can also provide instructors with a tool for identifying gaps in students’ understanding of the course material.

The benefits of WTL may also extend beyond the classroom. In a study of seniors at three different universities, researchers found that writing can be an especially meaningful element of the undergraduate experience. Well-designed writing activities, this research suggests, can connect students’ development as writers to their overall cognitive and social development (Eodice, Geller, & Lerner, 2017). Another survey of more than 70,000 undergraduate students across the United States revealed that writing assignments can have a positive impact on students’ personal and social development (Anderson et al., 2015). In his Language, Culture, Identity and Citizenship in College Classrooms and Communities (2016), Juan Guerra suggests that writing in the classroom can be an important meaning-making tool through which students can better understand their social, cultural, and civic engagements. As a way to connect students’ cognitive and intellectual development with their communities and interests beyond the classroom, WTL can be an important teaching tool in Brown’s Open Curriculum.

A well-designed writing assignment will prompt students to think more deeply about what they’re learning. Assignments may also ask students to bring in ideas and observations from outside readings and experiences. WTL assignments are usually low-stakes assignments: short, informal writing assignments which, if they are evaluated by the instructor at all, are evaluated for quality of content, analysis, and reflection rather than polished prose, grammar, and structure. For example, Africana Studies professor Lisa Biggs notes that “students have to first access their existing frameworks of knowledge on a given topic,” and so she asks her students in Contesting the Carceral State (AFRI 1030) to “write about what was considered good or bad behavior at home and how they were ‘punished’ when they did wrong.” She adds that “this exercise helps prepare them for a conversation later about whether people have the capacity to address wrongdoing outside of the criminal legal system.” Patricia Sobral, Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, recently added writing prompts to both her courses, Mapping Cross-Cultural Identities (POBS 0990) and Performing Brazil: Language, Theater, Culture (POBS 1080), which “created a space for students to write about the experience we are living through right now.” Professor Sobral “felt that documenting this experience might help [her students] make sense of it, or at least release some of their emotions.” 

In order to manage the amount of time that instructors spend on providing students with useful feedback, and to make WTL activities scalable for classes of all sizes, many of these types of writing assignments can be reviewed and commented upon by fellow classmates. Studies have shown that when instructors provide students with proper guidance on how to give useful feedback, the student who reviews a peer’s writing receives as much benefit as the student who is being reviewed (Cho & MacArthur, 2011; Lundstrom & Baker, 2009).

The following are ideas for implementing WTL in your classroom. You will see that many synchronous WTL activities can be repurposed as asynchronous activities, and vice versa.

Sheridan Center/Writing Center staff are available to help instructors integrate these approaches into their teaching. To connect with a Sheridan staff member, email sheridan_center@brown.edu or see the Sheridan staff directory.

This page was authored by Charles Carroll with input from Sheridan Center staff and Jonathan Readey, Associate Director, Nonfiction Writing Program, and Senior Lecturer in English.

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