Contributors


Writing Program
English Dept

Writing in Your Discipline:

Most likely, the biggest reason you came to college was to get experience in a specialization that will guide your career path. In fact, many of you have already chosen major fields of study to pursue. Even if you are still a general student, you likely have a discipline or several disciplines you are interested in. This Unit is designed to help you research and write in a field of your interest or the field you've chosen for your major.

Within the University as well as outside of it, people must work together to ask and answer questions within their disciplines. Whether your major is in the arts, sciences, technology, business or fine arts areas does not matter in this respect. Your instructors will often ask you to collaborate with others either within your field or with others in a related field to complete projects, as your future employers likely will. Therefore, this Unit will be collaborative.

You MUST work with at least two other peers who either share your major, have an interest in the same field as you, or with peers in a field that you can find intersections with your own. In our class, we have several education, music, and art majors. For example, then, the education majors may choose to work by themselves researching issues in elementary education, or they may choose to work with the music majors to research an issue in music education. If you find that you are interested in a specific concentration such as archaeology, you may want to talk with peers in other fields, such as art or history, about possible intersections. Also consider connecting career options and professional roles when deciding whom to collaborate with. If you are planning on becoming a nurse, how might your methods of practice relate to the methods used by those planning to become teachers? What could they learn from your field and you from theirs? How might you work together inside and/or outside of the University?

Regarding the Activity and Discovery Drafting Process Today: To begin thinking within your discipline, you may want to start by free writing on your own. Why are you interested in this field of study? What do you already know about it? What do you want to find out? Sharing these things with your group may help you collaborate on what kind of research the group is interested in doing and why. Your group may also choose to brainstorm together orally, through drawings, or through group free writing. You may also want to use in-class time to research together on the Milner Library site and see what you find. We've used all of these techniques in class; your group must decide what everyone is most comfortable and productive doing.

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