The Office of the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Center for Writing

University of Minnesota 612-626-7639

www.wec.umn.edu

1. Writing Plan Cover Page Please fill in the gray areas on this form.

25 May 2013

First Edition of Writing Plan

Subsequent Edition of Writing Plan: previous plan submitted SEM/YR, First edition submitted SEM/YR

FWCB

WEC Unit Name

Fisheries, Wildlife, & Conservation Biology CFANS

Department College

Todd Arnold Professor

WEC Faculty Liaison (print name) Title

arnol065@umn.edu 612-624-2220

Email Phone

Writing Plan ratified by Faculty Date: If Vote: /

# yes # total

Process by which Writing Plan was ratified within unit (vote, consensus, other- please explain):

The Office of the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education Center for Writing

University of Minnesota 612-626-7639

www.wec.umn.edu

2. Unit Profile: Unit Name Please fill in the gray areas on this form.

Number of Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty:

3 additional adjunct professors in the MN Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Unit teach graduate courses only.

11 Professors

3 Associate Professors

3 Assistant Professors

17 Total

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Major(s) Please list each major your Unit offers:

Total # students enrolled in major as of S-13

Total # students graduating with major AY 12-13

Fisheries and Wildlife 170 ~43

--Wildlife Track 76

--Conservation Biology Track 33

--Fisheries Track 16

--Pre-veterinary Track 6

--Undeclared Track 38

Total: 170 ~43

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WEC Process Date # participated / # invited

Review survey, generate attributes 16 Nov 2012 13 / 27

Characteristics and abilities 14 Dec 2012 16 / 27

Curricular sequencing 15 Mar 2013 10 / 27

Implementation plans 5 Apr 2013 10 / 27

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4. Writing Plan Narrative

Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology

Prepared by Todd Arnold

In the last 8 years, three faculty members (Todd Arnold, Andrew Simons, and James Forester)

from the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology (FWCB) have

participated in the week-long Teaching with Writing Workshops facilitated by Pamela Flash

from the Writing Center. Based on our positive experiences from the workshop, and our general

dissatisfaction with the quality of student writing within our major, our department submitted a

proposal to begin the WEC process in 2011 (delayed until 2012 due to funding constraints).

We are a “discovery major” comprised of 60% transfer students, with most students first

enrolling in Fisheries and Wildlife during their junior year. We make many assumptions about

what these students have already learned about writing, but most of them are probably wrong.

Our first objective is to compile curricular pathways across a large sample of students to track

what courses students take before and after enrolling in FWCB. This could help us to identify

and correct important gaps (i.e., we require freshman physics and might assume that students

have learned IMRAD format for lab reports, but many students avoid taking physics until their

final semester). It would also help us to identify other important courses outside the department,

and to implement better advising models or adopt enforced prerequisites.

Our second objective is to use our list of assessment criteria for key writing abilities to develop

useful and shareable rubrics and teaching modules. We envision modular rubrics that can be used

by instructors to help articulate clear and useful writing assignments, by teaching assistants to

facilitate transparent and fair grading, and by students to understand instructor intent and help

them improve their writing. Teaching modules would be short 5-10 page PowerPoints (or pdf

facsimiles for student use) that would facilitate in-class teaching of “5-minute Writing

Workshops” or serve as online resources for students to help refresh their memory.

We also request assistance from Writing Center staff in developing two short teaching

workshops for our faculty: one on implementing “5-minute Writing Workshops” and one on

“Designing Effective Writing Assignments.”

In short, we look forward to developing and enhancing undergraduate writing skills within the

Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, and our Writing Plan outlines the

preliminary steps that we hope to initiate in the coming academic year to achieve these goals.

SECTION I: What characterizes writing in the professional and academic fields related to

Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology?

There was considerable consensus among all groups surveyed about the most important

characteristics of writing within Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1: Summary

of the five most

important writing

characteristics in

Fisheries and

Wildlife, as

identified by

professional

affiliates in

government

agencies and non-

government

organizations,

FWCB faculty,

teaching assistants

(responsible for

both teaching and

grading), and

undergraduate

students.

Much of our discussion focused on formal academic writing aimed at other professionals (e.g.,

grants, scholarly articles). But these methods also apply to different audiences (e.g., co-workers,

stakeholder groups, lay audiences) using different media such as professional correspondence,

position statements, PowerPoint presentations, and web-pages. These less formal forms of

communication nevertheless need to embody the core principle of Fisheries, Wildlife and

Conservation Biology: i.e., the application of science-driven solutions to contemporary natural

resource issues. The key writing characteristics that we identified all related in some way to the

classic IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) format for scientific writing.

Good writing is explanatory: Introductions are explanatory and audience directed. They provide

an appropriate background for target audiences and help them to understand the problem or

purpose of the “paper.” The author uses or introduces appropriate terminology for the target

audience and builds a case for why the topic is important. There is a story to tell in scientific

writing, but it needs to be told according to very formal rules.

Good writing is also descriptive: In formal academic writing, methodology needs to be

described in sufficient detail so that others could replicate the work. Clear descriptions are also

necessary so that others can evaluate and critique the work. There are few universal truths in

ecology, and so careful description of the scope of inference is also important (i.e., when and

where do these conclusion apply?). The concept of minimally-sufficient detail is also important,

and many students err on the side of providing too much information. Knowing what to leave out

is as important as knowing what to include.

Writing within FWCB is highly analytical. Among academic groups (faculty, TAs, students),

this characteristic was ranked highest, and in the IMRAD context this is most closely associated

with the Results section. Good writing appropriately integrates factual and statistical

information. A common error among students is to assume that statistical analyses are the key

results, but statistics are properly used to support or refute ideas and hypotheses (biology before

statistics). Analytical writing often makes extensive use of supporting tables and figures, and

there is an art to knowing which format (text, table, or figure) can best communicate a key result.

Good writing is critical. Depending on format, such criticism might appear in the Introduction or

(more commonly) the Discussion. Part of this process is identifying for the reader the 3-5 key

messages from the paper. Much of our work uses observational methods, and even in cases of

true field experiments we usually have only partial controllability over other factors that

influence the outcome of what we are measuring. Critical writing involves identifying the key

factors to emphasize, from amongst a myriad of factors that could be discussed.

Finally, good scientific writing is concise. We strive to use simple verbiage: “An overwhelming

assemblage of avian species…” becomes “Many birds…” Active voice usually leads to simpler

construction. With tables and figures, there is the challenge of how to incorporate them into the

text without being redundant. Throughout, the challenge is to obey rules about brevity, but still

remain interesting and engaging.

It is also informative to review the categories that were not selected as characteristic of writing in

FWCB: expressive, persuasive, exploratory, innovative, and visual. The first of these,

expressive, was shunned by all faculty, TAs and affiliates. Persuasive was not selected by any

faculty or TAs, but curiously, about half of the affiliates picked it as a top characteristic. In

general, we try to excise personal feelings and impressions from our writing, and we try not to

use persuasive argument to back our claims (i.e., “let the data speak for themselves”). But our

faculty was divided on this, with some maintaining that there was no place for advocacy within

our discipline and others arguing for an important role (this may be an important distinction

between the Wildlife and Conservation Biology disciplines). Students identified somewhat

strongly with exploratory writing, but it is perhaps used more as a pedagogical tool in classroom

settings than as a working tool within the profession. In general, we try to be innovative in our

approaches to research and management, but not in the way that we write about it. And visual

skills are important for designing effective figures and PowerPoint presentations, but this

characteristic was much less important than others.

SECTION II: What specific writing abilities should Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation

Biology majors be able to demonstrate upon graduation?

There was considerably less consensus from the WEC survey about the most important

shortcomings of our majors (Fig. 2). And the perspectives of faculty were often very different

from the perspectives of professional affiliates (i.e., those hiring our students), especially on

terminology and grammar. However, student and faculty perspectives were very similar in most

cases, suggesting that we have done an adequate job of recognizing and portraying our major

concerns to students.

Fig. 2: The seven

characteristics

identified as being

most in need of

strengthening by

professional

affiliates, faculty,

teaching assistants

and undergraduate

students within the

Fisheries and

Wildlife major.

Based on the survey of faculty and TAs, the abilities in greatest need of strengthening were:

1) Reporting complex data or findings

Choosing an appropriate method for summarizing results (i.e., table, figure, or text).

Designing figures that can represent complex data.

Organizing complex ideas, methods, or results in a logical flow.

2) Creating precise descriptions

Describing methods so that they are replicable by others in your field.

Limiting coverage to the key points (e.g. PowerPoint slides, Results, Discussion).

Avoiding superfluous wording.

3) Arguing a position or evaluating hypotheses based on evidence

Creating a debatable thesis (identify the problem, review reasons for the problem,

offer proposed solutions to the problem).

Translating findings into policy (taking a position based on what’s known [and

unknown!] and using it to inform policy or management actions).

Supporting analysis with adequate evidence (from your own data or using results

from other studies).

Taking disparate data sources and identifying common patterns (moving beyond parts

to a whole; i.e. what is the collective wisdom from these seven papers?).

4) Analyzing and evaluating ideas

Summarizing research papers and applying findings to new problems/situations.

Translating scientific concepts to different stakeholder groups without over-

simplifying.

Learning to recognize and mimic attributes of good writing by reading other work.

Choosing appropriate theoretical frameworks for analysis.

5) Our affiliates emphasized correct grammar, spelling, and mechanics over all other

abilities (it was the only shortcoming identified by more than 60% of respondents).

Using correct grammar and syntax so that they are not an embarrassment (in

academia, we see poor writing as personal embarrassment, but within agencies it is

perhaps seen as an embarrassment to the entire agency).

Understanding the differences between spoken and written discourse styles and

recognizing that written discourse needs to be more formal.

In later meetings, we recognized several important omissions from this list of desired attributes:

6) Ability to be effective at non-technical writing, including professional correspondence,

memos, policy papers, and popular communication to lay audiences.

Audience recognition and adoption of appropriate terminology, style, and format

7) Recording and archiving data

Accurately and carefully recording field data

Effective design of data sheets and field notebooks.

Inclusion of meta-data so that your data can be interpreted by others.

8) Communicating uncertainty

Ability to communicate proper level of uncertainty to lay audiences or managers.

Scientists are prone to lose credibility in the process of pointing out uncertainty; easy

to appear wishy-washy, and need to avoid this trap.

9) Providing effective peer review

Providing effective critique to student colleagues on early drafts.

Although not part of our departmental WEC meetings, we recently met with the Minnesota

Department of Natural Resources and had panel discussions around key competencies and

incompetencies for each of our undergraduate specializations. All three panels independently

identified writing proficiency as a key shortcoming. Most often mentioned were quality of

technical writing, professional correspondence (e.g., letters and emails), and audience

recognition skills (e.g., adjusting terminology and focus for lay vs. professional audiences).

SECTION III: Integration of writing into the FWCB undergraduate curriculum.

About 40% of our students are recruited into the major directly from high school; the remainder

are transfer students with ~5% transferring in from other UMN majors, 25% from other MnSCU

campuses, and 30% from other institutions. Because of this makeup, we have fairly limited

potential to implement writing instruction until students begin advanced coursework as juniors.

Moreover, we have limited knowledge of what writing skills (based on prior coursework) that

students bring with them when they first enroll in FW classes. Therefore one of our first

objectives (Section V) is to gain a better understanding of what classes our students have already

taken, and perhaps to better enforce sequencing through the use of additional prerequisites.

One of our specializations, Conservation Biology (with ~25% of declared majors), has so much

flexibility in course selection that there is limited ability to implement a writing enriched

curriculum. FW 4102 Principles of Conservation Biology is the only advanced FW course that

all students in Conservation Biology are required to take, and although it has several well-

designed writing assignments, one course does not make a curriculum. We therefore focus our

remaining attention on the Fisheries and Wildlife tracks, both of which have 3-4 advanced FW

courses through which we could implement a writing enriched curriculum (Table 1).

Our proposal needs to acknowledge uncertainty. We are currently coping with faculty turnover

and several curricular revisions. Some of these changes have the potential to positively enhance

writing across the FW curriculum, but we are uncertain if and how these events will unfold

during the coming semesters. We have discussed merging Conservation Biology and Wildlife

tracks, and the future of junior level writing assignments remains uncertain as we resolve this

issue. We intend to pursue professional certification for the Wildlife track through The Wildlife

Society, which will require 4 additional credits of communications courses, and one proposal is

to require our majors to take WRIT 3562 W Technical and Professional Writing. We are also

considering disaggregation of FW 5051 Analysis of Populations into two courses, including a

new course FW 4701 Fisheries/Wildlife Problem Solving that would be a senior capstone

course that could emphasize advanced discipline-specific technical writing skills.

We identified several important curricular needs going forward:

1) Better integration of intermediate level writing assignments into early coursework:

Stakeholders and professional affiliates have identified the importance of non-technical

forms of writing, such as professional correspondence, inter-departmental memos, press

releases, and what not. Faculty and grad students identified the need to build skills in

finding, reading, and critiquing scholarly publications. These skills seem appropriate for

well-crafted writing assignments in some of our early introductory courses. We seek help

from the Writing Center in designing such assignments.

2) Consistent and progressive development of writing skills over multiple courses:

Students are confused by inconsistencies among instructors and disciplines. By adopting

common frameworks across the curriculum (e.g. all technical papers within Wildlife

courses to follow Journal of Wildlife Management formatting requirements, and all

assessment rubrics for these assignments using identical evaluation criteria), we can help

build greater consistency. But better coordination across classes will be most helpful in

addressing skills that require progressive development. An example might be to critically

review a single scholarly paper in FW 2001 Intro to FWCB, compare and contrast two

conflicting papers in FW 4103 Principles of Wildlife Management, and to synthesize a

bevy of relevant sources for the FW 5051 capstone writing project.

3) Better development of high-stakes writing assignments: Students in both Fisheries and

Wildlife are assigned high-stakes writing assignments in senior-level courses. In most

cases these assignments have multiple deadlines (e.g. sequencing, scaffolding) and

undergo peer-review and revision, and yet common writing problems emerge each year.

For the most part, we have not incorporated formal writing instruction into our classroom

activities. We are intrigued by the idea of 5-15 minute “mini writing lectures” and would

like help developing these modules.

Table 1: Important opportunities for writing instruction for undergraduate majors in the Fisheries

and Wildlife tracks. Writing intensive courses in bold red

Fisheries Track Wildlife Track Courses common to both tracks – not in department

WRIT 1301 University Writing Biol 1009 General Biology Biol 2012 General Zoology BIOL 3407/3408W Ecology

PHYS 1001W, 1101W, or 1201W Introductory Physics with Lab

Courses common to both tracks – taught in department, include writing assignments

FW 1001 Orientation (limited writing) FW 2001W Intro to FWCB

FW 4108 Cloquet Field Session (limited writing) FW 4001/ESPM 3012 Statistics

FW 5051 Analysis of Populations (senior capstone, proposed for writing intensive)

Courses specific to each track

FW 3136 Biology of Fishes FW 4103 Principles of Wildlife

FW 4401 Physiology of Fishes Ornithology/Mammalogy/Herpetology

FW 5604W Fish Ecology & Mgmt FW 5603W Wildlife Habitats

Writing-Intensive Restricted Elective courses – not taught in department

ESPM 3011W Environmental Ethics ESPM 3202W Envt. Conflict Mgmt

ESPM 3241W Natural Resource Policy WRIT 3562W Technical and Professional Writing

Section IV: FWCB Abilities/Menu of Criteria

Our attempt to craft a full menu of abilities and rating criteria remains a work in progress (Table

2). We believe that the most effective way to identify and clarify these criteria will be through

the use of actual examples of student writing, both good and bad (i.e., for each of the criteria

listed below, links to both exemplary and abominable examples; for more nuanced criteria,

perhaps including examples of A, B, C, D, and F level work). We see two useful outcomes from

this exercise: development of consistent and formalized writing criteria that instructors can

utilize for constructing grading rubrics (this will facilitate grading and provide consistent

guidelines to students) and development of discipline-specific mini writing lessons that can

either be incorporated into lectures by faculty or used as online resources by students.

Table 2: Desired writing abilities and suggested assessment criteria for undergraduate writing in Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology.

D R A F T SECTION II: List of Writing Abilities

D R A F T SECTION IV: Menu of Writing Criteria

Abilities Shared by Technical and Non-technical Writing

Organize everything in a logical flow (for technical papers, usually within an IMRAD framework).

Organizes information logically, and where appropriate, within IMRAD framework.

Use correct grammar and syntax (so that they are not an embarrassment—enhance credibility).

Uses grammar and syntax that enhance writer’s credibility.

Uses clear and concise sentence construction. Avoids superfluous wording (i.e. “It has been shown that…”).

Understand the differences between spoken and written discourse styles.

Recognizes audience and selects an appropriate level of formality.

Make an argument by clearly stating a thesis (or claim) with supporting evidence, and tying the argument back to a recommendation for action. Use this sequence: introduction, support, and conclusion.

Makes an argument that follows introduction-support-conclusion structure.

Centers on a clearly stated thesis, hypothesis, or objective. Avoids tangential topics.

Supports or refutes the thesis based on evidence.

Makes recommendation for action that relates to thesis or claim, and acknowledges uncertainty.

Abilities related to reading and interpreting literature

Recognize and mimic attributes of good writing through critical reading of published papers.

Recognize varied structure of scientific writing.

Identify important shortcomings, if present.

Summarize research papers and apply findings to new problems/situations

Summarize key findings from research papers.

Apply findings to new problems/situations.

Technical Writing (research reports, journal articles)

Title and Abstract

Title Clear, concise, and informative; tells potential reader what is covered in paper.

Abstract Provides concise and informative overview of all key parts of the paper: What was studied; Why it’s important; Where, when, and how it was done; What was found out; and What you think it means.

Introduction Section

Develop clearly articulated objectives (identify problem, review reasons for the problem, and offer proposed solutions to problem – how will this analysis help to resolve the uncertainty?).

Articulates clear objective(s).

Identifies problem and builds case for its importance.

Reviews reasons for the problem.

Proposes solutions that resolve uncertainty.

Choose appropriate theoretical backgrounds to bolster analysis

If appropriate, employs appropriate theoretical framework to frame analysis.

Methods Section

Describe methods so that they are replicable by someone with skills in your profession (knowing what detail is important to include and what is extraneous).

Describes methods so they could be replicated.

Can distinguish between important and unnecessary detail, and include only the former.

Results Section

Choose an appropriate medium for summarizing data or results (e.g., text, table, or figure). Know when and why to choose one method over another. If table or figure, refer to this data in the text without repeating it.

Conveys information using appropriate media and formats for summarizing data or results (e.g., text, table, or figure).

Refers to tables or figures without simply repeating the data found there.

Design an effective figure or table that can accurately and clearly represent complex data.

Accurately and clearly represents complex data using figures or tables.

Support analysis with adequate evidence/data sets

Supports analysis with adequate evidence/data sets.

Emphasizes biological (A 1.3-fold larger than B) as opposed to statistical (P = 0.003) results.

Discussion Section

Describe your findings so that relevant results are brought forward and tied to bigger picture.

Describes findings so that relevant results are brought forward and tied to bigger picture.

Move from a specific study/finding and see how those findings can contribute to answering a larger problem/trend---make it useful to problem solving on larger scale.

Generalizes from a specific study/finding to suggest how those findings can contribute to answering a larger problem/trend.

Literature Cited

Can identify and use relevant literature, either in support or refutation. Can cite literature appropriately in both text and reference section

Finds and includes relevant literature. Avoids superfluous citations.

Cites papers appropriately (based on target audience/journal) and consistently.

Section V: Summary of Implementation Plans and Requested Support

Objective 1: Curricular Tracking

Many other WEC units have engaged in curricular mapping to determine where, when, what,

and how writing instruction occurs within the curriculum. A necessary precursor for us is to first

determine how students move through our curriculum, identifying what courses they take and in

what order. Because our major includes ~60% transfers, students arrive to our major with a wide

variety of disciplinary backgrounds and experiences, and they often begin taking coursework out

of sequence in effort to make up for lost time. We envision using an RA to assemble and analyze

~200 individual curriculum trails, perhaps by focusing on our last three graduating cohorts. We

are requesting 7.5 weeks of graduate student assistance (i.e. a 25% semester RA) in F-13 to

achieve this objective.

This analysis will help us to identify problem areas in our curriculum, as well as least common

denominators of skill sets upon arrival to different courses within the major. For example, we

used to assume in the Wildlife track that we could progressively build skills according to the

intended course sequence: 1) FW 4103, 2) FW 5603W, and 3) FW 5051, but preliminary

investigation suggested that most (65%!) of our students failed to follow this intended sequence,

either taking courses intended for junior and senior years concurrently, or sometimes taking them

in reverse order. We need to identify and fix these gaps through a combination of better

undergraduate advising and/or enforced prerequisites. This exercise will also help us to identify

other important writing classes outside of FWCB that contribute to writing education in our

majors. For example, how many of our students take writing-intensive Introductory Physics

classes prior to starting junior level FW classes? How many take the writing-intensive version of

General Ecology (Biol 3408 W vs. non-WI Biol 3407)? Of the five restricted elective choices in

Human Dimensions of Natural Resource Management, how many of our students choose the

three electives that are writing intensive, and which ones do they take most often? From this

tracking exercise, we can identify important courses outside our department that contribute to

writing skills of our students, and work with these instructors to identify the writing instruction

that occur in these courses. We can use advising and revision of restricted elective “pick from”

lists to help students make better choices to improve writing skills when selecting restricted

electives. We envision following this curriculum tracking exercise with a more formal curricular

mapping exercise during the second phase of our implementation plan. This would us to identify

and appropriately sequence writing assignments in FW courses, as well as key courses offered by

other departments.

Objective 2: Creating Working Rubrics and Focused Writing Lessons

Section 4 of our writing plan remains a work in progress. For some writing characteristics that

we felt were very important, we nevertheless struggled to articulate an objective assessment

criterion (e.g. summarize research papers). Other important attributes are notably missing (e.g.,

ability to effectively synthesize results from disparate sources in the Discussion). Hence, we

need to revisit and add to the list of attributes in Table 2 and potentially revise some of our

criteria. As companions to this largely housekeeping exercise, we envision two related activities

that could provide very useful tools to our faculty, teaching assistants, and students: development

of living rubrics and development of “mini writing workshops.” This activity would utilize one

full semester of a 50% TA/RA.

Few of our faculty currently use rubrics for grading writing assignments, in part because we lack

useful examples that work well within our discipline. For each of the assessment criteria that we

retain in Table 2, we propose building model rubrics for assessing and grading student writing

according to those criteria. Depending on the complexity of the assessment criterion, these

rubrics could differentiate between correct versus incorrect format (e.g., journal-specific citation

format); outstanding, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory performance (e.g., assessing title

construction); or letter grades of A through F for more nuanced criterion (e.g., assessing

synthesis of ideas within the Discussion). Our goal is to develop and refine these criteria, as

rubrics, and to use them consistently across coursework throughout the FWCB major. To

facilitate comprehension by students and application by graders, we propose including links to

actual examples of student writing for each possible outcome, so that students and graders can

witness examples judged to be outstanding, above average, mediocre, to downright awful. We

envision a living document that can be adaptively modified based on user feedback, and accessed

online or downloaded and saved as a pdf document with hyperlinks to allow ready movement

among sections (see Table 3 for a very simple example). Faculty could cut-and-paste rows of

assessment criteria to create assignment specific rubrics, and students and graders could drill

down to deeper layers to see examples of writing that meets or fails to meet the specified criteria.

The student writing guides developed by Mechanical Engineering share some similarities to what

we envision, but focused assignments could use much smaller pieces; e.g. an assignment to write

an abstract, or an assignment to assemble a literature cited section.

Table 3: Mock rubric example for “clear and concise sentence structure” with drill-down

example to rubric criterion of “superfluous wording.” Clear and Concise Sentence Structure (X/5 pts)

Exceptional (5) Good (4-5) Acceptable (3-4) Uninspiring (2-3) Started Last Night (1-2)

Entire document clear and concise; no superfluous wording.

Meaning almost always clear, but occasionally too wordy.

Reasonably clear, but often too wordy. Most paragraphs contain superfluous wording.

Poor sentence structure leads to occasional loss of clarity.

Poorly worded sentences render most ideas indecipherable.

We also propose developing small discipline specific “teaching modules”, similar to the ones

developed by engineering faculty at Virginia Tech. These would consist of 5-10 PowerPoint

slides usable by instructors, as well as pdf versions that would be widely accessible to students

from our departmental home page. We would roll these out on a priority needs basis, working

primarily with instructors in the early and late-stage writing intensive courses to identify topics

most in need of development.

Other Proposed Activities

We also request assistance from Writing Center staff in developing and implementing two

faculty workshops (for efficiency, we could organize these in conjunction with other units on the

St. Paul Campus). One workshop would be on how to design and implement 5-10 minute

writing workshops within the format of a regular lecture or lab session. This object fits in with

the objective described immediately above about constructing short PowerPoints to help promote

key writing abilities. The second workshop would be on designing effective writing

assignments, with the goals of promoting development of key writing abilities, with clear

assessment criteria, that will not prove overwhelming to graders.

VI: Process Used to Create This Writing Plan

All faculty, instructors, and current or recent teaching assistants (n = 27) were invited to each

WEC meeting, but actual participation ranged from 37-60% per meeting. However, attendees

were generally very active, engaged, and passionate about the topic. I received no feedback on

written summaries before or after meetings, but participants provided thoughtful and constructive

feedback during meetings. The final version of our Writing Plan was assembled post-deadline

over the Memorial Day weekend and received no meaningful feedback from FWCB faculty prior

to submission (it has been sent to them concurrently for feedback).

VII: Relationship to Student Learning Objectives

We believe that the ways in which we teach writing within FWCB will primarily address the

following three university-wide student learning objectives:

Can identify, define, and solve problems: Within FWCB, we primarily use writing within a

classical IMRAD context where we identify problems, outline methods to solve them,

summarize results from our investigations or a literature review, and weigh the collective

evidence in light of the original problem.

Can locate and critically evaluate information: Because our work builds on previous

investigations, evaluating our findings or conclusions in light of other (perhaps

contradictory) published information is central to all we do.

Can communicate effectively: Most of the topics covered in this plan relate to effective

technical communication. But we also recognize the need to develop more effective writing

assignments that address non-technical communication (letters, memos, email,

presentations).

5. WEC Writing Plan Requests Unit Name:

$23,148.00

Semester 1: Fall 2013 Semester 2: Spring 2014 Semester 3:

Item Cost Item Cost Item Cost

Semester 1 Total: $7,716.00 Semester 2 Total: $15,432.00 Semester 3 Total: $0.00

Rationale for costs and their schedule of distribution

Semester 1: Semester 2: Semester 3:Service Qty Service Qty Service Qty

Workshop 1 Workshop 1

Fisheries, Wildlife, & Cons. Biology

Total Financial Request:

Service Requests drop-down choices will appear when a cell in the "service" column is selected

Description and rationale for services

$7,716.00

Financial Requests (requests cannot include faculty salary support) drop-down choices will appear when cell next to "semester" is selected

$15,432.0050% RA

We request two workshops: one on designing effective writing assignments (short, focused, effective, and easily gradable) and the second on how to

incorporate 5-10 minute mini writing workshops into traditional lecture format classes.

25% RA in semester 1 will be used to complete curriculum tracking exercise for recently graduated FWCB students. 50% RA/TA in second semester will be used

to help develop rubrics and 5-10 minute mini "teaching with writing" workshops for incorporation into existing FWCB classes. Costs are based on departmental

rates for Ph.D. students in the 2012-2013 academic year and do not include inflation adjustment for 2013-2014.

25% RA

July 9, 2013

To: Todd Arnold, Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology

From: Robert McMaster, Office of Undergraduate Education

Subject: Decision regarding WEC funding proposal

The Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Department recently requested the following

funding to support its Writing Enriched Curriculum:

Fall 2013 $ 7,716.00 25% Research Assistant

Spring 2014 $ 15,432.00 50% Research Assistant

TOTAL $ 23,148.00

The highlighted item has been approved by the Office of Undergraduate Education, for a total of

$7,716.00. Please provide Pat Ferrian (ferri004@umn.edu) with your department’s EFS

information so the funds may be transferred.

If you would like to receive further funding, you may send an additional request to the Campus

Writing Board. Please contact the Writing Enriched Curriculum office for further guidance

regarding future funding requests.

CC: Suzanne Bardouche, Will Durfee, Pamela Flash, Pat Ferrian, Molly Bendzick, Jules

Thomson, Tim Gustafson