Learning to Write Vs

Learning to Write Vs

Learning-to-Write (LTW)

vs. Writing-to-Learn (WTL)

Clyde Moneyhun, Department of English

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) specialists make a distinction between “learning-to-write” (LTW) and “writing-to-learn” (WTL) classes, emphases, and activities. The distinction can help instructors refine goals and purposes for assignments as well as focus feedback on student writing. It can also help teachers of classes other than LTW classes (that is, beyond first-year composition and other explicit writing classes) learn a new repertoire of assignments and wider range of responses to student writing.

The table below summarizes the basic differences, though of course there are few purely LTW or WTL classes.

Learning-to-Write / Writing-to-Learn
Takes place most often in composition courses, upper-division major courses, graduate courses / Takes place most often in a lower-division introductory courses, non-major courses, and interdisciplinary courses
Emphasis is on mastery of writing skills, techniques, and strategies / Emphasis is on mastery of disciplinary course material
Instructor teaches formal conventions of specific genres (the review of literature, the proposal, the report, the essay) / Instructor teaches disciplinary course material by incorporating a variety of less formal writing activities
Students attempt to write in specific forms, following conventions of SWE as well as those of academic disciplines / Students attempt to summarize, consolidate, manipulate, and synthesize disciplinary knowledge
Instructor assesses student writing for its display of mastery of formal conventions of writing / Instructor assesses student writing for its display of understanding of course material
Instructor responds to students’ writing with extensive corrections / Instructor responds to students’ understanding of course material
Corrections include attention to grammar, usage, and mechanics / Responses typically ignore grammar, usage, and mechanics
A “process approach” is often used, asking students to revise successive versions of major writing projects / As most writing is informal, few assignments are revised
If informal writing is required, it is most often in the interest of producing formal writing (i.e., “reading journal” entries that may lead up to an essay) / Formal writing may be included, but much of the informal writing in the course is an end in itself

This distinction between LTW and WTL opens the door to many more kinds of writing activities in WTL classes. For example, teachers can:

  • Ask students to interpret a chart, graphic, or other visual aid from the text in words, summarizing its most important information in a few sentences.
  • Ask students to create a chart, graph, or other visual aid that summarizes a specific body of course information.
  • Ask students to apply one of the “modes of discourse” to course information (contrast the American Revolution with the Russian Revolution, list the effects of mass production, analyze photosynthesis into a process).
  • Ask students to place course information on a historical timeline, and then ask them to explain in writing how they know that certain events precede or follow others. Specific dates are less important than reasoning.
  • Ask students to compare and contrast basic course concepts (especially important technical terms) using a Venn diagram (reptiles and birds, socialism and communism, Greek and Elizabethan tragedy).
  • Pose a question that will be addressed during the class period and ask students to speculate about the answer at the beginning of class.
  • Stop during a lecture and ask students to summarize what’s been said so far in a few sentences.
  • Ask students to write a question they have about a reading or lecture material.
  • Give students an example of a disciplinary definition of a key term (mitosis, paranoia, citizenship). Ask them to choose another key term and write a definition.
  • Ask students to use a number of key terms in a paragraph.
  • Ask students to choose the five most important words in a reading passage and explain why they made their choices.
  • Ask students to list the three most important ideas in a course reading.
  • Set a problem that cannot be solved due to lack of information. Ask students to determine what information is needed to solve the problem.
  • Ask students to write an explanation of some highly specialized disciplinary information for an audience of intelligent non-specialists.
  • Ask students to write exam questions they expect to be asked (or would like to be asked).
  • Ask students to predict in writing what will come next in a text, in a lecture, in a historical overview, in an experiment.
  • Ask students to make a list of connections between an element of course material and something outside the class (another class, a current event, an enduring social problem).
  • Ask students to express worries, insecurities, misgivings about course material and their ability to master it.
  • Ask students to respond to any aspect of the course (the usefulness of a recitation session, performance on an exam, your comments on a piece of written work).

When students produce writing in response to such a wide range of writing prompts, instructors have more options for giving feedback to students. Since writing-to-learn activities are fundamentally different from learning-to-write assignments, they require fundamentally different modes of response. These modes can be charted in a range from minimal (or even no) responses to more elaborate but still brief and highly focused responses. The table below illustrates a range of responses to WTL activities.

minimal (or no) response / skim and grade / brief focused response
Collect but simply note “task completed” in gradebook / Skim and enter simple “+” or “-” in gradebook / Read and offer one positive comment
Don’t collect but use as practice for exam task / Skim and enter points in gradebook / Read and offer one suggestion for improved understanding of the point in question
Don’t collect but have students share/respond/
“grade” / Grade (credit/no credit) for only one specific point / Read and offer one suggestion for proceeding to next course concept
Read only selected or randomly selected items / Grade for minimum competency to proceed (to lab, to exam, to further research) / Have students share work and offer one comment
Have students select items to be read / Grade for evidence of achievement level / Read all work but prepare only one response to the entire class
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