Issue 1, Spring 2008
Writing about “God, Sex, and the Earth”:
Help for the First Year Writing Seminar
I have taught a first-year writing seminar three times in the last three years, with varyin success. This year, because of the range of writing ability represented in these groups, and because the Writing Studio had been so helpful to my students in the past, I decided t schedule a visit by one of the staff early in the semester, and I’m so very glad I did. Because the course involves the intersection of several disciplines (religious studies, gender studies and environmental ethics), the readings and the writing assignments present several challenges.
Religious Studies courses present unique problems for a irst-year course. As one would expect, students come to Vanderbilt from a wide variety of religious and cultural backgrounds, and many identify with specific religious traditions and creeds. Students who have not previously taken religion courses—and that’s most of them—are often not aware of the distinction between writing about religious ideas and expressing their own religiously-based ideas or beliefs. The subject matter of the course makes the “They Say” vs. “I say” perspective particularly important. Discerning what counts as evidence for a particular assertion or argument is often quite dif icult for students just entering college, especially when the issue of religious authority arises in this course. Add the category of gender into the mix, and deeply held convictions can be threatened. The discussions are usually not not dull(!), but the need for discipline and clarity is even more important, given the sometimes sensitive nature of the topics under consideration.
The in-class writing workshop was especially helpful to my students in that it introduced them to the difference between opinion and scholarly analysis, between writing about how one feels about an author and how one might assess that author’s argument. Finally the workshop illustrated the importance of having a thesis or argument, supportive evidence, and a conclusion, as opposed to a list of issues, or disconnected summary quotations.
Perhaps the success of the workshop could be attributed to the fact that it was planned collaboratively. The consultant and I communicated about the course and about the problems my students faced in writing their irst round of papers. I was able to provide him with examples of texts from the various disciplines around which the course was formed. With this information in mind, he crafted a preliminary lesson plan—a carefully organized presentation that was designed with the course in mind—which we discussed at a later meeting. The consultant was a skilled communicator, interacted well with the students, and held their interest and mine. He helped me discuss writing with my students and he helped my students reconsider the role of writing in the classroom. If I didn’t send a formal thank-you note, I should have!