Small Change, Big Difference: Heightening BSW Faculty Awareness to Elicit More Effective Student Writing

Abstract

Concerns about social work students' writing are well documented, but the cost of specialized writing programs leaves budget-stressed programs confronting a problem they may feel they have few means to address. However, a valuable resource is already available: faculty expertise in social work writing. The challenge is helping faculty realize their knowledge is not transparent to students; it must be taught, intentionally and explicitly, in undergraduate social work classrooms. Engaging faculty in a process of articulating their expectations will help them elicit more effective student writing and change their attitudes toward student writing from frustrated to excited and optimistic.

Keywords:

• faculty expectations
• effective student writing
• writing across the curriculum
• transparency
• social work writing pedagogy
• writing in the disciplines