Engaging ideas the professor's guide to integrating writing, critical thinking, and active learning in the classroom

403 Pages·2021·4.068 MB·English

by  Dan Melzer, John C. Bean

More than any single text, Engaging Ideas has had a profound and lasting influence on the writing-a cross-
the- curriculum movement in the United States and around the world. This third edition, now written
collaboratively by John Bean and Dan Melzer, promises to extend that influence with several new areas
of coverage while retaining all the original features that have made it such a groundbreaking work.
—Dr. Chris M. Anson, Distinguished University Professor; Director,
Campus Writing & Speaking Program, North Carolina State University
Engaging Ideas, Third Edition, retains the very best features of John Bean’s now classic first and second
editions, while adding a new coauthor, Dan Melzer, along with new pedagogies based on the most cur-
rent writing research and practice. The result is an even more practical nuts-a nd- bolts compendium of
ideas to help students incorporate critical thinking into their writing. As someone who has relied
on Engaging Ideas for faculty development since 1996, I know that busy faculty from every discipline will
find the third edition an essential component of their work going forward.
—Martha A. Townsend, Professor Emerita, University of Missouri
It’s good news that Engaging Ideas is back again in a new edition. It continues to offer first- rate, practical
advice about how to teach with writing that has been updated with recent research. Of particular note
are the many examples showing how to teach with writing, including how to make assignments, how to
motivate students to revise, how to use reflection to enhance student learning, and how to respond
helpfully to student projects.
—Kathleen Blake Yancey, Kellogg Hunt Professor Emerita, Florida State University

ENGAGING
IDEAS
The Professor’s Guide to Integrating
Writing, Critical Thinking,
and Active Learning in the
Classroom
Third Edition
John C. Bean
Dan Melzer
Copyright © 2021 John Wiley & Sons. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781119705406 (paperback)
ISBN 9781119705413 (ePDF)
ISBN 9781119705383 (epub)
Cover Design: Wiley
third edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface to the Third Edition vii
About the Authors xix
1 Using Writing to Promote Thinking: A Busy Professor’s Guide
to the Whole Book 1
PART 1 UNDERSTANDING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THINKING AND WRITING
2 How Writing Is Related to Critical Thinking 17
3 Helping Writers Think Rhetorically 39
PART 2 DESIGNING PROBLEM-BASED WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
4 Formal Writing Assignments Situated in Rhetorical Contexts 59
5 Informal, Exploratory Writing Activities 94
PART 3 COACHING STUDENTS AS LEARNERS, THINKERS, AND WRITERS
6 Designing Tasks to Promote Active Thinking and Learning 121
7 Helping Students Read Mindfully across the Disciplines 133
8 Using Small Groups to Coach Thinking and Teach
Disciplinary Argument 159
9 Bringing More Critical Thinking into Lectures and Discussions 179
10 Designing and Sequencing Assignments
to Teach Undergraduate Research 189
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vi Contents
PART 4 RESPONDING TO AND GRADING STUDENT WRITING
11 Helping Students Use Self-Assessment and Peer Review
to Promote Revision and Reflection 231
12 Using Rubrics to Develop and Apply Grading Criteria 253
13 Coaching the Writing Process and Handling the Paper Load 278
14 Providing Effective and Efficient Feedback 298
15 Responding to Grammar and Other Sentence-Level Concerns 317
16 Alternatives to Traditional Grading: Portfolio Assessment
and Contract Grading 338
References 353
Index 373
Preface
An important new feature of the third edition of Engaging Ideas is its coau-
thor team of Bean and Melzer. We’ll begin by explaining how this coau-
thorship emerged.
John’s Introduction of Coauthor Dan Melzer
The impetus for the third edition was an out-of-the-blue email I received
on the day before my seventy-sixth birthday. It came from two Writing
Across the Curriculum leaders at Sam Houston State University (Todd
Primm and Carroll Nardone):
We use your superb 2nd ed Engaging Ideas workbook in our annual
WID workshop for faculty on our campus. We are interested if there
will be a third edition. It is such a powerful resource. Our faculty
rave about it every year (this is our 19th year of the workshop).
I was buoyed by this email and happy to have confirmation of the use-
fulness of the second edition; however, I hadn’t planned on a third edition.
I retired from the classroom in 2013 (after forty-five years of teaching), and
although I continued with some of my scholarship, I felt I no longer had
the currency I needed. But I was deeply grateful to Todd and Carroll for
their gracious inquiry and for the subsequent helpful commentary from
their Sam Houston colleagues about what needed to be updated.
Shortly thereafter, Riley Harding, my editor at Wiley, also began
inquiring about a third edition and suggested that perhaps I could take
on a coauthor—a younger scholar in writing across the curriculum with
whom I could collaborate for the third edition and to whom I could pass
on the book’s legacy for a new generation. The idea intrigued me. After
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viii Preface
an extensive search, I am happy to announce my partnership with Dan
Melzer from the University of California, Davis. (You can see his credentials
and read his professional biography in the “About the Authors” section.)
A deciding factor in my reaching out to Dan was his well-reviewed book
Assignments across the Curriculum: A National Study of College Writing (2014),
which helped establish his reputation as a rising scholar in writing across
the curriculum. I was grateful when he accepted my invitation to become
a coauthor. Through telephone calls, Zoom meetings, and endless emails,
Dan and I have established a mutual friendship and a collegial process of
collaboration that has been more successful than I could have imagined or
hoped for. (Dan and I have not been able to meet personally because of the
COVID-19 lockdown.) Dan’s path toward scholarship in writing across the
curriculum (which is different from mine) and his teaching experiences at
large state universities give a richness to the third edition that would not
have been possible if I had undertaken the revision by myself.
Dan’s Perspective on the Third Edition of Engaging Ideas
My experiences with Engaging Ideas began long before John invited me to
be his coauthor. In my first academic position after graduate school I was
hired by C alifornia State University, Sacramento to develop a Writing Across
the Curriculum program. One of my first goals was to move beyond the
occasional professional development workshop and get teachers across dis-
ciplines involved in deep and sustained conversations that would have a
transformative effect on their pedagogy—a nd I hoped, in the long run, on
the campus culture of writing. I was already aware of the legendary Engag-
ing Ideas—everyone involved in WAC knew of John’s book, and every time
someone posted a message to the Writing Program Administration or WAC
listservs asking for a recommendation for help for leading a faculty devel-
opment workshop, Engaging Ideas was always the first resource mentioned.
In my WAC seminars, I quickly learned why John’s book was so popular.
It had a transformative effect on the faculty I was working with. I saw their
pedagogies moving toward more critical thinking and extended disciplinary
research projects. They began developing a broad array of writing-to-learn
activities. They began to teach critical reading and not just assign readings.
They testified that their response to student writing was becoming more effec-
tive, and they created rubrics that clarified their assessment criteria. I’ve heard
similar stories from other campuses. More than any other faculty develop-
ment book, Engaging Ideas has played a central role in an educational move-
ment that I’m proud to be a part of—Writing Across the Curriculum. I was
honored when John invited me to collaborate with him on a third edition.
One final word about the opportunity to work with John. Although
I had never worked with John before Engaging Ideas, his reputation as a
warm, good-humored, and collaborative scholar and teacher proceeded
him. It was a delight to work with him, and we found that we were able
to write with a single voice and a singular sense of purpose. Where our