As students in Dick Johnson's Writing as Scientists course are learning, it's one thing to do science well, and another to be able to write about science effectively.
Write about what you know, goes the traditional advice. So after teaching many semesters of "Writing from the Inside Out" with fellow English professor Carolyn Collette and politics professor Penny Gill, Dick Johnson has developed a new section of the course for science majors and minors, "Writing as Scientists."
"Over the years I had noticed many science majors in the writing course. Often these students were better writers than they thought they were," says Johnson, "but they weren't gripped by the material." He decided that giving them material to read and write about that was of great personal interest might better help them achieve a high level of writing skill and confidence.
To work toward this goal, Amanda Maciel '00 is writing mentor for the course. Maciel, an English major, attends every class and helps students individually. "She will be helping students who know the material write effectively about it," says Johnson. Adds Maciel, "I'm learning science and they're learning writing; I'm learning along with them."
The course does not teach scientific or technical writing, but rather teaches how to write well about science. All the readings are about science, by which Johnson means mathematics, psychology, geology, biology, physics, chemistry, and astronomy. Books assigned include physician Kay Jamison's memoir of living with a bipolar brain disorder, An Unquiet Mind; the critical edition of James Watson's The Double Helix; Margaret Wertheim's Pythagoras' Trousers: God, Physics, and the Wars; and several readers, including John Carey's Eyewitness to Science, which covers 400 years of scientific discovery and writing. Class discussions are expected to focus on both the science and the writing of what is read.
Johnson is giving regular writing assignments of various lengths, some in class and some outside. "I've already received some really neat papers, and the students seem to be very competent writers already," he said. "Most of them appear to be biology majors, as it happens." The first assignment directed students to explain a scientific idea, theory, experience, or event, keeping in mind the need to explain it clearly and convey why the topic selected is important to them.
Later in the course, students will give oral presentations. "I'm very interested in the oral tradition of science--its talks and presentations, for example. This course is part of the College's Speaking, Arguing, and Writing Program, so we will also be thinking about the differences between spoken and written communication," said Johnson. Argumentation will come into play since students are encouraged to question and debate what they read, especially newer science that is not yet established with any degree of scientific certainty.
For Johnson, even offering the class this semester has a scientific angle to it. "The class is an experiment in itself," he notes, as all new courses are.
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