Walvoord on Coaching the Writing Process: Reasoning and Organization

This post piggybacks on the previous one. Here, I’m isolating some of Walvoord’s thoughts on connecting classtime to paperwriting past the thesis. To sum up Walvoord’s intents in my own words: the important idea is that an argument is a thing that unfolds; the important practice is thus to engage ongoingly in the act of unfolding.

From “Helping Students With Reasoning, Evidence, and Organization” pp. 79-80

1. “Present lecture information as though it were a paper.” In other words, identify paper topics when they arise in class discussion. Note them on the board. Note potential ways of then developing said paper topics as discussion develops. Walvoord supplies an additional point here: at the end of class, remind them that the process they’ve just undergone is something they can and should repeat independently; in other words, remind students that the progression of that day’s class corresponds directly to the path they need to follow in completing paper assignments.

2. “Have students write plans.” That is, have students make a list of possible paper topics. Have students make a list of possible points / outline their arguments.

3. “Scramble a reading.” Here, Walvoord advocates cutting up the paragraphs of a well-organized article/essay and handing them out for the students to arrange. I can also see this happening on the sentence level within a single paragraph in order to stress mindfulness regarding the order in which information appears along the arc of the argument.

I am omitting numbers 4-6 and leaping to...

7. “Discuss the development of a main idea.” Walvoord here suggests having students write their main idea or question, to explain it to a peer and to have that peer then list the evidence/arguments/problems they would expect to see addressed.

Something I notice is that connecting classtime to paperwriting is one part practice and one part commentary. Practicing is what occurs during classtime and ought to take different shapes. Commentary is the explicit path an instructor points to so that students perceive paperwriting as a logical extension, and not satellite, of classtime.