From: Douglas.Hesse@DU.EDU
Subject: Re: Help finding study on how much writing undergrads do
Date: January 21, 2007 1:39:33 PM EST
To: WPA-L@asu.edu
Reply-To: WPA-L@asu.edu
Sure, Will. Update: one of my graduation presents to my daughter was to
gather, print, and bind our email correspondence during the four years
she was in college. It runs about 400 pages. So, I'm going to see if I
can at least find what I wrote her, which will narrow down a date.
FYI, here's the fun article from the Chronicle about Nancy's study
Doug
From the issue dated June 15, 2001
PRIME NUMBERS
Harvard Measures Students' Paper Output by the Pound
Harvard undergraduates like to think they write papers on weighty
subjects, assignments that carry heft with their professors. The
question is, exactly how much heft?
About eight pounds over four years, says Nancy Sommers, the university's
director of expository writing.
Last week, Ms. Sommers finished collecting data for the Harvard Study of
Undergraduate Writing, which has been tracking the writing assignments
of 400 students who matriculated as freshmen in 1997; they make up 25
percent of the 2001 graduating class. The assignments included
laboratory analyses, scientific reports, and course papers.
Information gathered in the study will be published next year in two
books on the role writing plays in undergraduate education.
While some figures for the senior year are not yet available, here's
what Ms. Sommers has calculated so far:
AVERAGE NUMBER OF WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
BY DISCIPLINE PER YEAR
Freshman
Humanities
34.5
Social science
33.2
Natural science
26.1
Sophomore
Humanities
32.4
Social science
29.1
Natural science
19.8
Junior
Humanities
30.2
Social science
30.6
Natural science
24.9
AVERAGE LENGTH OF PAPER, IN PAGES
Freshman
5 to 10
Sophomore
10 to 15
Junior
20 to 25
Senior
40 to 50
Doug Hesse
Director, Marsico Writing Program
Professor of English
University of Denver
dhesse@du.edu
303.871.7448
Immediate Past Chair, CCCC
-----Original Message-----
From: Writing Program Administration [mailto:WPA-L@asu.edu] On Behalf Of
Will Hochman
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 11:02 AM
To: WPA-L@asu.edu
Subject: Re: Help finding study on how much writing undergrads do
Doug, I wondered if I could share your email with my FY Research
writing class. It's a pretty good example of how to pose a problem
for others to really help. I did try to search for you on Times
Select but didn't find anything (except a cool review by Charles
McGrath on some books about FY experience that I missed). Will
On Jan 21, 2007, at 11:13 AM, Douglas Hesse wrote:
After an hour of fruitless searching, I wonder if anyone can help me.
I remember a news story sometime between 1999 and 2002 that
reported how
many papers and pages undergraduates at various schools wrote each
year.
The story was characterizing the amount of writing at a few elite and,
as I recall, east coast universities, and I rather think it was
done as
a journalist's survey rather than a formal study. But I could be
wrong.
I used various terms to search the WPA archives for that period. I
used
various terms to search the Chronicle of Higher Education. I used
LexisNexus. God help me, I even tried to Google. I didn't CompPile
because I think this came out after 1999, and I remember it in the
popular press rather than the scholarly. I'll next turn to NSSE,
which
will have some aggregated data.
At this point, I'm wondering if I just am hallucinating, though I
distinctly remember emailing about the story to my daughter who was
then
at Bryn Mawr (who could feel very smug about the amount of writing
they
were doing). Alternatively, maybe I'm just inflating Nancy Sommer's
findings at Harvard, which were widely reported at that time,
including
famously that undergraduates each wrote 8 pounds of papers during
their
tenure.
If anyone can help, I'd appreciate it. Alternatively, if someone
knows
a recent study, even anecdotes from a few schools, I'd appreciate it.
FYI, we just did at study at the University of Denver of the
amounts and
kinds of writing 800 freshmen did during their first quarter here and
the amounts and kinds of writing that 300 faculty assigned to
undergrads. I'm swimming in data, but I'll share what we know as soon
as it makes sense to us.
Thanks.
Doug
Doug Hesse
Director, Marsico Writing Program
Professor of English
University of Denver
dhesse@du.edu
303.871.7448
Immediate Past Chair, CCCC