{"id":174977,"date":"2021-07-19T07:30:37","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T11:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=174977"},"modified":"2021-07-14T11:54:23","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T15:54:23","slug":"first-year-writing-program-grant-centers-metacognitive-approach-to-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2021\/07\/first-year-writing-program-grant-centers-metacognitive-approach-to-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"First-Year Writing Program Grant Centers Metacognitive Approach to Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lisa\u00a0Blansett,\u00a0associate\u00a0professor in\u00a0residence and\u00a0director of\u00a0first-year\u00a0writing in the English Department has received a\u00a0Scholarship of Learning and Teaching grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blansett\u00a0will work with Alex\u00a0Gatten, the\u00a0associate\u00a0director of\u00a0first-year\u00a0writing, and Kathryn\u00a0Warrender-Hill,\u00a0assistant\u00a0director of\u00a0first-year\u00a0writing on this project. The group will evaluate the implementation of a novel\u00a0first-year writing\u00a0curriculum that develops students\u2019 metacognitive skills.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Metacognition, or an awareness of one\u2019s own thinking and learning, is an important part of\u00a0the\u00a0learning\u00a0process.\u00a0Developing these skills will help students become better, more confident writers and learners.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Metacognition begins when students activate prior knowledge. This curriculum will reframe their prior knowledge about writing and composition\u00a0and go through a defamiliarization process. This process will\u00a0introduce\u00a0students\u00a0to a new vocabulary for writing that focuses on the cognitive and embodied activities of writing.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe introduced a new approach to writing with a new vocabulary so all students would have the same ground to build on,\u201d Blansett says. \u201cThe terms we\u2019re using represent acts in a writing process, but they reframe the work of writing in ways that ask students to examine the materials they are building their projects with.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The project will focus on five\u00a0key practices:\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>collecting and curating,<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>engaging,<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>contextualizing,<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>theorizing,<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>circulating.<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
(First-Year Writing Program, contributed image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c<\/span>Collecting\u00a0and curatin<\/span>g<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0includes collecting data and performing\u00a0primary or experiential research to create a meaningful assemblage of information.\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>Engaging<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0includes activities like active reading\u00a0and participating in and contributing to public discussions.\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>Contextualizing<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0asks students to research the field, use\u00a0critical sources, and synthesize\u00a0multiple perspectives on a question.\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>Theorizing<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0involves building new approaches, articulating new connections, and creating knowledge. Finally,\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>circulating<\/span>\u201d<\/span>\u00a0includes activities such as presenting or publishing ideas,\u00a0interacting with an audience, and examining the consequences of the broad circulation of words and ideas.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These activities represent experiential process\u00a0all\u00a0skilled writers use\u00a0in\u00a0a wide range of writing\u00a0situations. This approach will encourage students to reframe their thoughts and assumptions about writing and\u00a0reevaluate their own writing\u00a0practices.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The reframed first-year writing experience will provide students with widely transferable 21<\/span>st<\/span>–\u00a0century skills.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“We want students to gain experience with complex problem-solving and to practice cognitive flexibility as\u00a0well as other transferable skills the World Economic Forum identifies,” Blansett says.<\/p>\n

Another major goal of the project is to provide equitable access to the intellectual\u00a0processes\u00a0students need to craft sophisticated writing. This addresses the persistent inequality in literacy among students at UConn and in society more broadly.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blansett\u00a0and her colleagues will evaluate the success of the program based on instructor\u00a0and student feedback, surveys, and class work.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The team will spend the summer developing activity logs, pre- and post-surveys, interview questions,\u00a0and\u00a0teaching materials. They will recruit\u00a0a group of students to participate in the research\u00a0at the beginning of\u00a0the Fall 2021 semester.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Through interviews, surveys, and artifacts collected before and after the implementation of this program, the researchers will look for evidence\u00a0that\u00a0students\u00a0developed an awareness of and skills for\u00a0metacognitive practices in writing.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blansett\u00a0hopes this student-centered experiential learning process will bolster student\u2019s experience in the first-year writing program which is designed to help introduce students to the demands of a\u00a0college\u00a0education at UConn.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Furthermore, this research will have implications beyond\u00a0UConn\u00a0as it contributes to the growing body of scholarship about best practices for writing program design.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This work will provide new ways for addressing student knowledge creation\u00a0through writing at UConn, tied crucially to strategic plans for innovative teaching and undergraduate research, while also addressing national conversations about student engagement,\u00a0active learning, and equity in writing instruction.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

UConn\u2019s First-Year Writing program has a unique curriculum that has the opportunity to change and contribute to national thinking about the role and structure of first-year writing at universities.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blansett\u00a0holds a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.\u00a0Her research interests include composition and rhetoric, digital literacies, writing theory and practice pedagogy, gender studies, race in eighteenth-century Caribbean literature, and restoration and eighteenth-century literature.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Follow UConn Research on\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Twitter<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0<\/span><\/i>LinkedIn.<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The First-Year Writing Program at UConn is reshaping its curriculum with a new approach to writing processes that make students stronger writers and critical thinkers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":174981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2076],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2277],"class_list":["post-174977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-research"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 11:32:29","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174977"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175079,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174977\/revisions\/175079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/174981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174977"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=174977"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=174977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}