Alessandro Gonzalez

Interviewer: Hi! Welcome to our discussion brought to you by NPR affiliate KCLU Radio. I am

your host Alessandro Gonzalez. I will be asking our group of panelists today their thoughts on

the heated topic of the assignment of strict writing prompts to students by professors at the

university level

Dan Melzer: Hi everyone I am Dan Melzer and I am the associate director of First Year

composition at UC Davis

Arthur Applebee: I’m Arthur Applbee and I’ve taught at Stanford and University of Albany

Charlene Eblen: I am Charlene Eblen from The University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls

Richard Larson: I am Richard Larson and I’ve held multiple positions in relation to the writing

field

Interviewer: Great let's get started, Dan can you tell us about your research

Melzer: Yes of course, I have studied 787 different writing assignments from a variety of

undergraduate institutions and courses. I used assignments from hard sciences, social sciences,

business and humanities. I also utilized research from Arthur Applbee as well to help facilitate

this work.

Applbee: Happy to help

Melzer: What I found is that Transactional writing which ask a student to inform or persuade a

specific audience made up 84% of the assignments I studied.

Applbee: I found the same conclusion from my research as well

Eblen: My research came to a similar conclusion as well, transactional writing seems to be the

most popular form assigned

Interviewer: Wow, it is really interesting that across 3 different studies a similar conclusion was

drawn, can you tell us a bit more about the breakdown in the way different professors assigned

prompts?

Melzer: Yes of course, many of these assignments want a student to write the quote un quote

right answer or definition by utilizing lecture materials and textbooks. An environmental science

professor is looking for something different than a sociology professor who critiques the work

differently and asks different questions.

Applbee: If I may interject as well my research found that 55% of writing was directed to the

teacher in an examiner format. In this context the teacher is the one grading their work hence

they are the examiner

Melzer: I found something similar as well, in 83% of writing the teacher was the audience for

student writing.

Larson: I am changing gears a bit here but I think this still correlates as well, I think that a

research paper cannot be considered a genre because there is so much variability across

departments

Melzer: I fully agree, it is difficult to classify and in my research of writing assignment types I

used it a bit more loosely.

Eblen: Drawing back to the topic of transactional writing it seems to be the predominant form

that professors assign to students, this could stem from the fact that most classes are seeking to

analyze what the student actually knows and whether or not a student has properly engaged in

the class.

Melzer: Something that puzzled me is the lack of peer to peer writing assignments, I think this is

one of the most beneficial ways of writing as students can provide great feedback.
Applbee: I found this in my research as well, it seems that there is a lack of focus on fostering

peer feedback.

Interviewer: That is quite interesting, I know in my time in college I peer reviewed my

classmates' work and it was really helpful to engage with others as students have a unique

perspective on assignments.

Larson: Another interesting point in drawing back to the topic of research papers is that students

are often told to just find some sources and present them along with the works cited. It’s more

nuanced than that and students deserve to be more creative with these papers and given more

freedom as well.

Interviewer: That is a great point I know when I wrote research papers I struggled, this is also a

great point to end on and I thank all of our guests for speaking with us and thank you for tuning

into KCLU radio.

Works cited

Applebee, Arthur. Research: Learning to Write in the Secondary School: How and Where.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/817387.pdf.

Eblen, Charlene. Writing across-the-Curriculum: A Survey of a University Faculty ... -

JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40170969.

Larson, Richard. The 'Research Paper' In the Writing Course: A Non-Form of Writing -

JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/377337.

Melzer, Dan. Assignments across the Curriculum: A Survey of College Writing.

https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/llad/v6n1/melzer.pdf.