Exploring Writing Transfer in an Advanced Curriculum for Technical and Professional Writing and Computer Science Majors

This paper introduces and identifies the preliminary findings from a study that uses backward design to explore how transfer works for technical and professional writing and computer science students in advanced writing-intensive courses. Analyzing course texts, such as syllabi and assignments, as well as faculty interviews and student focus groups, we identify and summarize several key topic areas regarding the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students develop in their writing in the disciplines course and employ (with varying degrees of awareness) to be successful in their senior-level writing-intensive courses. The initial results suggest that the junior-level writing in the discipline course acts as kind of “introduction to WID” even though it is not designated as such. Moreover, taking this course prior to their senior seminar and capstone experiences enables students to become familiar with the disciplinary genres, conventions, and expectations and prepares them to identify what they do not know when faced with new writing situations. Lastly, the advanced courses’ focus on ethics and interacting with professionals in the field seems to encourage a problem-solving disposition in students, giving them the skills to know where to turn to fill in gaps in their knowledge and the confidence to trust their evaluation of the sources they find.