Implementing Writing-as-Process in Engineering Education

Although professional boards and engineering employers have emphasized written communication as a key feature of engineering education and practice, a range of challenges— from lack of pedagogical training in writing to large class sizes and heavy content requirements—often prevent science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faculty from incorporating writing instruction into classes. This paper focuses on a key theoretical concept from the field of writing studies, writing-as-process, and explores how it has been included by STEM faculty in their teaching. We first review theoretical and empirical work that supports writing-as-process as an effective tool for facilitating student learning. We then illustrate how writing-as-process has been incorporated into varied types of courses, drawing on a multi-year intervention project designed to enhance writing in engineering and STEM. The examples describe reflective, writing-to-learn activities for first-year orientation courses; scaffolded approaches for laboratory and problem-based-learning classes; and directed peer review and response to reviewer comments in middleand upper-level courses. The paper concludes by addressing the vital role STEM faculty play in socializing their students into ways of thinking, being, and writing in their disciplines and demonstrates how a process orientation to writing instruction can help faculty achieve that goal. Section I: Introduction The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has identified effective communication as a key criterion of engineering competency, and engineering schools across North America have noted the specific importance of writing instruction [1], [2]. However, STEM faculty have faced persistent obstacles in designing and delivering writing instruction. Common challenges include the time constraints of grading and responding to student writing, particularly for large enrollment classes, and lack of training in writing instruction, response, and assessment for teaching assistants (TAs) [3], [4]. Many STEM classes also have heavy demands to cover technical content that leave little pedagogical time for writing instruction. Additional challenges can arise from a lack of student motivation or engagement [5] and from discrepancies between faculty’s and student’s perception of the purposes for writing assignments [6]. Reflecting these challenges, writing in STEM classes is often used primarily to demonstrate content knowledge. Rather than offering opportunities for students to learn about writing practices and disciplinary genres, typical writing assignments are effectively treated as tests of course content. In contrast, STEM workplaces display quite varied kinds of writing and communicative practices [7]–[10]. Thus, STEM graduates will be required to write in a wide and evolving array of genres; however, the types of writing assignments students are asked to do in engineering often do not resemble the forms, functions, or practices of workplace genres [4]. Students often receive only summative feedback to their final texts. Given the emphasis on formal features (grammar, organization, style, editing, content) of finished products, writing studies would categorize these practices as emblematic of a traditional product orientation to writing [5]. Product-oriented approaches often ignore writing processes entirely or depict simple, linear processes of both writing (plan→write→edit) and writing instruction (assign→submit→grade). However, the field of writing studies has largely rejected the product approach in favor of writing-as-process models for writing instruction since the 1970s [11]. Writing-as-process shifts attention from the final products to the complex, cyclical processes through which writing is developed. Writing-as-process approaches attempt to account for and acknowledge the often uncertain and nonlinear processes of production. As writers produce texts, a wide range of literate activities are involved, including reading, conversations with colleagues, varied types of inquiry and experimentation, and informal and formal presentations [12], [13]. From this perspective, what we typically call “writing” is better described as complex “chains of reading and inscribing, talking and observing, acting and making involving a temporally and spatially dispersed set of scenes and cast of characters” [13]. These writing-as-process models have led to longstanding and empirically-grounded lines of writing research that have informed a variety of effective classroom practices, such as using scaffolded assignments [14]–[16]; providing formative feedback and guiding revision [17], [18], including peer review [19], [20]; and developing evaluation schemes that emphasize process and communicating those evaluation schemes to students [21]. Despite this long history of process models in writing studies, the philosophy appears to be rare in the engineering education literature. Although a search of the American Society for Engineering Education’s repository of conference papers for “writing” and “process” finds numerous articles mentioning a writing process, very few papers offer accounts that are grounded in writing studies research and pedagogy. Early glimmers of a process orientation appear in Wheeler and McDonald’s 2000 article [22], where they highlight similarities between writing and design, namely their recursive nature and lack of a unique correct solution, but their pedagogical and curricular recommendations do not include a process orientation. Two studies focused on introducing writing in large engineering classrooms proposed or “accidentally” implemented revisions [23], [24] suggesting again some recognition of the importance of process. Examples where a process orientation was named and emphasized typically arise from a close collaboration with experts from writing studies or technical communication (e.g., [4], [25]– [27]). It is difficult to conduct a comprehensive search for examples that do not use this terminology directly; elements of a process orientation are likely more widespread than is documented here. However, the limited attention to this core concept from writing studies and technical communication in engineering education supports the need for this review of how the field of writing studies understands a process orientation and what its implementation might look like in STEM classrooms. To assist STEM educators in implementing writing-as-process approaches in their curriculum, we review some key research from writing studies and science and technology studies that points to the tangible pedagogical benefits (Section II). We then offer examples from a faculty development program called Writing Across Engineering [4], [28]–[30] to show how STEM faculty have incorporated writing-as-process into their courses (Section III). We conclude by discussing the critical role that STEM faculty play in socializing their students into their disciplines and how a process orientation to writing instruction can help faculty achieve that goal (Section IV).