Writing Across Berkeley

Oh, god, I’m going to quote Mr. Spock, from the episode “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”

Dr. Miranda Jones: The glory of creation is in its infinite diversity.

Spock: And the way our differences combine to create meaning and beauty.

How “Big Bang Theory” is that? Yet my purpose is not to appear to be a big ol’ nerd; rather, I’d like to take this exchange as a comment on what teaching should look like at a large research university.

A recent study of students at Northwestern, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research has brought to the fore, again, an...

How do we transform leaden argument into golden insight?

We’ve all had the experience of sharpening our ideas and deepening our knowledge as we attempt to convince a colleague whose opinion differs from our own. In like manner, our students can sharpen their ideas and deepen their knowledge by writing papers to persuade an opposition audience.

To successfully persuade such an audience, students must consider more than their own sometimes-hazy opinion:

“Strong outlines make strong essays.” The axiom might be attributed to any number of writing instructors or well-intentioned composition guidebooks. Indeed, student writers from a young age often learn that outlines are an essential part of the writing process. But what makes an outline strong? What should the outlining process look like, and what should it do for the writer? Perhaps because the outline is generally held to be a writer’s private document, or because the outlining process seems so obvious sometimes that the craft itself becomes easy to overlook, these questions often slip...

I teach a variety of writing classes at UC Berkeley–-two that fulfill the University’s Reading and Composition Requirement, an intermediate and an advanced writing class. The intermediate class–-CW 105: Finding Your Voice with Others–-is one in which students read current articles–-academic and journalism–-as well as a little theory–-Marshall McLuhan, Walter Ong, David Post, Lawrence Lessig, Sherry Turkle, Anne Wysocki, etc.-–about new media and technology. Multimodal forms of expression are required, and students write reflective journals with each project submitted, thinking about how...