Assigning Papers

Most of the classes I teach are in graduate programs.  As part of these courses I often assign research papers of varying length.  The graduate students are accustomed to writing these papers and have become quite proficient at locating sources, outlining, writing, integrating sources and revising.  The papers provide a means for the students to practice and demonstrate their ability to synthesize knowledge into new meaning.

This week I assigned a research paper to my undergraduate students in a database modeling class.  I asked them to read an article on participatory sensing technologies and consider the ethical implications of the use of these technologies.  When I returned the graded assignments today I asked the class (mostly juniors) how often they receive assignments where they are asked to write a research paper.  To my surprise, outside of their general education courses, nobody had received a writing assignment.

Teaching undergraduate computer science courses we often focus on developing technical skills and our assignments are mostly the production of technical deliverables.  Our college is also good at assigning team projects and presentations to develop teamwork and oral communication skills.  While we provide opportunities to develop technical, problem solving, teamwork, and oral communication skills, there seems to exist a gap in opportunities to develop our students as skilled writers.

I would like to see us increase the use of written assignments.  They are more challenging to grade but they offer opportunities to develop skills the students will need to have beyond graduation.  In the age of email, texting and the informalization (is that a word) of our written language, our students need to practice the more formalized and deeper thinking art of writing research papers.