Writing in and across Disciplines
DEVELOPING A SHARED UNDERSTANDING OF EXPECTATIONS OF WRITTEN ASSESSMENT: A PROGRAMME LEVEL APPROACH TO TEACHING ACADEMIC WRITING IN THE DISCIPLINES
Madeleine Mossman
University of York, York, UK
An embedded approach to teaching writing is the most useful to develop both students’ academic writing skills and confidence (Wingate, 2011; Mitchell and Evison, 2006). Central to the development of writing instruction within the disciplines must be a shared understanding, from both students and teaching staff of what the expectations are for written assessment and how that translates to the marking criteria (Lea and Street, 2006; Sadler, 2005). The role of the learning developer therefore, must not only be to work with students to develop their understanding and skills but also with staff to ensure an alignment with expectations of written assessments and the programme level outcomes using a social constructivist assessment process model (Rust et al., 2005). This paper examines the use of this model to develop a programme level approach to teaching writing in the disciplines in the University of York’s School of Health Sciences. Staff within the school were invited to attend marking and feedback assessment workshops, and they were also asked to codevelop and codeliver writing workshops with a member of the writing centre team. Following initial evaluation, we intend to test the extent to which this approach to writing in the disciplines supports staff to appreciate their students’ understanding of writing literacies, and the students better to understand expectations. The approach has the added benefit that writing centre staff become familiar with assessment methods within the school, and are thus able to offer more tailored advice and guidance.
References
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