>>Back to Presentation at CCCC March 24, 2006

Some Universal Design Suggestions for the Writing Class

By Jay Dolmage <jaydolmage@aol.com> | March 2006
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• Be clear about class expectations from the very beginning, so that students aren't surprised by assessment, and so that they can discuss assessment with you before it ‘happens to them'

• Have students set and assess their own goals for learning—develop rubrics with students

• Clearly communicate the fact that Universal Design is not a free pass to submit work and to participate in whatever way the student chooses—insist that students are expected to plan, consider and justify their choices, revise their work and reflect on their actions, and to develop the flexibility to succeed in multiple genres and in multiple forms of academic and professional writing

• Discuss genre conventions and their political and ideological commitments and framings, so that students understand the ‘universality' and the arbitrariness, the sedimentation and the morphology of writing's many ‘rules'

• Scaffold activities towards large assignments so that students understand the trajectory of their work and so that they build materials and knowledge—so that they have these materials and this knowledge with them when they compose a larger paper, and are enabled to continue the creative process rather than saddled with the responsibility to begin it—this combats procrastination and plagiarism

• Do assignments and participate in activities with students

• Meet with each student individually as much as possible, and discuss ‘accommodations' with every student at the beginning of the semester

• Give students chances to comment on the class and thus to help plan it—ASK students how the class might accommodate, but also create venues for all students to negotiate for change

• Choose physically accessible locations for your classes—if you have a choice, select rooms with desks/chairs that are movable rather than with fixed seats

• Make large-print copies of all materials available, post everything online

• Foster a self-awareness of how writing fits into your lifestyle, and ask students to do the same

• Discuss the ways students might organize research products—digitally and through ‘analog' means, from note-cards to search engines

• Offer credit for multiple forms of participation

• Step back and ask students to respond to one another's work, and even to assess it—this builds everyone's critical faculties—likewise, ask students to talk back to their own work and assess themselves

• Give clear assignments and make prompts available in multiple forms

• Share authority in the classroom to promote and value interdependence

• Use active or kinesthetic learning—movement

• Offer students performative options, and focus on delivery/design as part of the writing process

• Get out of the class—link learning to public events and to culture

• Allow breaks during class

• Design collaborative work in multiple constellations—pairs, small groups, large groups, online synchronously and non-synchronously, etc.—set alignments might privilege certain students and relationships

• Be willing to offer instruction, and accept student work, at a distance

• Don't be hyper-corrective—focus on content—discuss the difference between summative, constructive and critical feedback

• Consider using a tape recorder or MP3 recorder for comments on student papers—try different modes and allow students to choose modes of response

• Create accessible and perhaps ‘searchable' venues for students to archive all of their work—all of the drafts of each paper, all of their informal writing, and so on—try to create opportunities to revisit work and trace patterns in their writing ‘development' so that students can become reflective writers and ultimately have a ‘meta' understanding of the products/processes of writing

• Plan for multiple revisions, endless revision, revision as the central activity of the class

• Ask students to help define what constitutes a ‘text'

• Make some writing private

• Allow students to ask questions or share ideas in class anonymously, or without speaking ‘out'—circulate note cards for students to write questions or comments, perhaps anonymously, and collect and address them

• Use Blackboard a lot—use discussion boards, post content for classes, use space for drafting and peer response

• Have students take turns taking class notes on large flipchart paper, and then post the notes around the classroom for future reference—keep them up all semester—build running answers to pertinent and revisited questions
• Translate materials into other languages—use computer software, or make translation a class activity, with students teaching one another and discussing the act of translation

• Be aware of and discuss the affects of your own culture on your teaching—and allow students to discuss their cultures and the affect of their cultures on their learning

• Make a serious effort to understand and welcome cultural differences

• Allow students to experiment with voice, genre, medium, delivery

• Push students to recognize and claim the embodied and en-cultured nature of composition—how they use their bodies as writers, how they are positioned in the world, in relationships and in communities, how these connections shift and change

• Talk about teaching with fellow teachers, and with non-teachers, so that you can develop reflexivity about your pedagogy

• Keep a teaching journal

• Be open to learning about disability as a political identity, and about Universal Design as a political movement, to keep the practice rooted to its origins