By Cameron Reichenbach / The Jambar
The Youngstown State University Department of English and World Languages has introduced new, discipline-specific sections of the Writing 2 courses, designed to align more closely with students’ majors.
Classes were reorganized to be more engaging for students in specific disciplines such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as engineering, art and criminal justice. Writing 2 continues to serve as a general education requirement for all students on campus.
Jeff Buchanan, chair professor of English and World Languages, who helped redesign the courses, said students in these majors have always needed to take Writing 2. The new sections group students by academic area to allow course materials and assignments to mirror the writing situations encountered in their preferred fields.
“The new sections are designed to better fit the interests and required skills and strategies and things for a student in a particular major,” Buchanan said.
Changing the courses to better fit a major’s field is known as writing in disciplines, which allows the courses to attend to specific interests.
The recent changes to the university’s general education curriculum provided an opportunity for faculty to reevaluate how Writing 2 supports students in upper courses.
Diana Awad Scrocco, professor in the department, also helped pilot the effort and questioned how to tailor courses for students’ focuses.
“‘How can we make these courses more relevant for students so that they are prepared to write in their specific discipline?’” Scrocco said.
Scrocco also said that participation in redesigning the Writing 2 sections was voluntary. It was based on interest from different departments rather than a requirement from the administration.
“It was the departments that told us they were interested,” Scrocco said.
Even though the sections were reorganized by discipline, all Writing 2 courses still meet the same learning outcomes set by the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
Instructors use a shared framework to teach writing concepts in ways that reflect the expectations of various academic fields. Scrocco said they tailor readings, assignments and classroom activities to fit these standards and the class continues to help students where they need it.
“We don’t just sit down and write out our brilliance, and it’s perfect the first time,” Scrocco said.
The department hopes the redesigned sections will help students better understand how writing works and how it ties into their academic goals.
By framing the writing process in student disciplines, students will be able to utilize writing as a facet of their future careers.