UMass-DartmouthJanuary 27, 2012

TEACHING CRITICAL WRITING

Personal writing

Technical writing

Business writing

Grant writing

Professional Writing

Legal Writing

Academic Writing

Scientific Writing

Two approaches to WAC

• Writing as an act of discovery• Minute papers• Micro-themes• Typically ungraded or low

stakes• Free-writing• How do I know what I think

until I see what I say?

• Disciplinary methods• Discourse communities• Standards of Evidence• Documentation styles• Appropriate sources• Standard Written English

Writing to Learn Learning to Write

The thinkers we want

•Ability to differentiate between news articles, opinion pieces, and reviews•Experience in reading and writing complex texts, including charts and graphs or other data tables.

The thinkers we’re getting

Models of learning development

•Trying to move learners out of dualism•Knowledge as truth•Factual information, correct theories, right answers

and out of multiplicityKnowledge just a matter of opinion

And into Relativism

Knowledge is contextualdifferent perspectivessystematic methods of analysis

And Commitment to Relativism

Alternatives to Perry

•Women’s Ways of Knowing (Belenky, et. al)• Received Knowledge• Subjective Knowledge• Procedural Knowledge• Constructed Knowledge

Critical Thinking “Skills”

• Identifying Patterns•Weighing evidence• Evaluating sources• Detecting faulty reasoning• Questioning claims • Judging information

Critical Thinking might require

• Classifying• Comparing• Defining• Analyzing• Evaluating• Interpreting• Synthesizing

• Proposing• Predicting• Arguing• Persuading• Applying concepts to

unfamiliar cases

What assignments wouldn’t invite “critical” writing?

Teaching Approaches

• Require active, critical READING and/or re-reading• Teach a unit on logical fallacies• Introduce Toulmin’s method of argumentation• Provide a situation for writing assignments• Require a responsible use of sources• Quality rather than quantity

Teaching Fallacies

• Hasty generalization: http://youtu.be/fffyNZ9ZJWI• Sweeping generalization• Bandwagon• Red herring• Ad Hominem• Slippery slope: http://youtu.be/Yl8FhFP05A0

Toulmin’s method

• The Toulmin method of argument: a tool for good critical thinking habits

CLAIMS > REASONS > WARRANTS + BACKING, QUALIFIERS and REBUTTALS

Using (Rhetorical) Situations

• Put students in a time or place with a specific audience or set of circumstances.

• Try to provide a context, a reason for writing, a problem to solve.

• You are hired as lab manager and two days later the textile plant burns down. The company president has requested a full report from you about what equipment and resources you will need to make the lab fully functional again.

• Enrollment is very tight for MGT 302, Organizational Behavior, the course that follows this one, and the instructor has decided to let students in only if they can convince her of their mastery of the material in MGT 301. In a letter to the instructor of MGT 302, ask for a place in the course and persuade her that you have learned Organization and Management Theory thoroughly.

More teaching approaches

• Case studies or scenarios • Ill-structured problems• Problem-Based Learning

Case Studies or Scenarios

Ill-Structured Problem for WRT 227: Business Communications• SituationIn May 2000, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) contacted Ford and Firestone about the high incidence of tire failure on Ford Explorers, Mercury Mountaineers, and Mazda Navajos fitted with Firestone tires. Ford investigated and found that several models of 15" Firestone tires (ATX, ATX II, and Wilderness AT) had very high failure rates, especially those made at Firestone's Decatur, Illinois plant. The failures all involved tread separation—the tread peeling off followed often by tire disintegration. If that happened, and the vehicle was running at speed, there was a high likelihood of the vehicle leaving the road and rolling over. Many rollovers cause serious injury and even death; it has been estimated that over 250 deaths and more than 3,000 serious injuries resulted from these failures. 

Ford and Firestone have both blamed the other for the failures, which has led to the severing of relations between the two companies. Firestone has claimed that they have found no faults in design nor manufacture, and that failures have been caused by Ford's recommended tire pressure being too low and the Explorer's design. Ford, meanwhile, point out that Goodyear tires to the same specification have a spotless safety record when installed on the Explorer. Ford's conclusions were confirmed by NHTSA in their report into the tire failures, published in October 2001. Many outside observers tend towards blaming both parties; Firestone's tires being prone to tread separation and failure, and the SUVs being especially prone to rolling over if a tire fails at speed compared to other vehicles. However, a subsequent NHTSA investigation of real world accident data showed that the SUVs in question were no more likely to roll over than any other SUV.

Your taskAs the assistant vice-president of customer service, you have been following the situation closely. Last week, Ford received a letter (attached) from the CEO of Firestone/Goodyear announcing the end of the Ford and Firestone relationship. Firestone/Goodyear will no longer supply tires to Ford Motor Company. Your boss has called for a major recall of all Ford Explorers, as well as trucks with Goodyear tires. Your task is to notify customers of the recall. Please research the situation and then create a plan for handling the recall, including necessary documents. 

Problem-Based Learning

• An ill-structured problem for the whole term or for a major unit of study

•What do you know?•What do you need to know?•How will you find out?

Finally, two critical writing components

To add to ANY assignment

•Reflection

•Reviewing

Once students have produced critical writing

• . . . NOW WHAT?