Contact: Leah Barbour
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State faculty members have another opportunity to learn how more classroom writing assignments may increase students' understanding and retention of course concepts.
The university's classroom leaders are invited to the 2014 Maroon & Write Speaker Series at 2 p.m. Thursday [Sept. 18] in Mitchell Memorial Library's John Grisham Room.
"The Effective Incorporation of Formal/Informal Writing" will be the topic of remarks by Warren Waggenspack and Warren Hull. A brief reception will conclude the program.
Waggenspack is associate dean of Louisiana State University's College of Engineering, while Hull manages the college's Chevron Center for Engineering Education.
Waggenspack is an associate professor of mechanical engineering; Hull is the college's engineering communications coordinator. As authors of detailed writing-across-the-curriculum studies, their expertise is well-regarded by writing-to-learn advocates.
The Maroon & Write Speaker Series is one component of Maroon & Write, MSU's quality enhancement plan. The university-wide effort emphasizes writing-across-the-curriculum, especially in courses not traditionally associated with writing.
Maroon & Write courses may be any course in any academic discipline at MSU. The program features writing-to-learn assignments that combine journals and other informal writing projects with essays and similar formal composition assignments.
As students write regularly about the concepts they learn in class, they enhance their retention and understanding of course content, according to Rich Raymond, facilitator of MSU's Maroon Institute for Writing Excellence. He also heads the English department.
The institute, an annual summer workshop for MSU faculty, allows teachers to experience writing-to-learn themselves as they complete a series of writing activities and collaboratively develop new syllabi and writing activities for their classrooms, regardless of academic discipline.
In addition to the workshop presentations, Waggenspack and Hill will meet with the 12 faculty participants in the 2014 Maroon Institute for Writing Excellence to offer additional insights. The teachers and their writing-to-learn courses include, by department:
--Agricultural economics assistant extension professor Becky Smith, three Honors Forum sections in Shackouls Honors College.
--Architecture visiting assistant professor Jeffery Roberson, architectural theory.
--Communication assistant professor Melanie Loehwing, rhetorical theory.
--Curriculum, instruction and special education assistant professor Stephanie Bennett, integrated language arts instruction.
--Geosciences associate professor Renee Clary, principles of paleobiology.
--Human sciences assistant professor Juyoung Lee, sociological and psychological aspects of clothing.
--Interior design associate professor Amy Crumpton, principles, processes and practices for interior design.
--Landscape architecture assistant professor Elizabeth Payne, fundamentals of planning design.
--Mathematics and statistics instructor Kim Walters, problem-solving with real numbers for education majors.
--Music professor Robert Damm, African-American music.
--Sociology instructor Mehrzad Netadj, marriage and family.
--Wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture assistant professor Peter Allen, fish physiology.
Learn more about Maroon & Write at http://qep.msstate.edu/.
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