ENHANCING WRITING PRACTICES FOR FUTURE GEOLOGISTS

Proficiency in technical geological writing is essential for students entering graduate school and for graduate students entering professional careers. To this end, and as a part of the wider Writing Across the Curriculum program (an extension of the OU Writing Center) at the University of Oklahoma, the School of Geology and Geophysics (SGG) at OU has introduced a number of initiatives to enhance the writing component in undergraduate classes. In addition to a required Geowriting course, term paper projects in two SGG junior level classes, Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology (Ig./Met. Pet.) and Sedimentology/Sedimentary Petrology (Sed. Pet.), were developed and expanded with the assistance of writing fellows from the Writing Center. For many years in the Ig./Met. Pet. class a mid-semester field trip to New Mexico had been followed by assignment of a term paper relating to some aspect of the petrology and geochemistry of areas visited on the trip. To enhance the writing component in this class, a term paper was added before the field trip, the paper being a summary of two review articles on the Rio Grande Rift; this provided the students with a background in the regional geological setting for the trip, and informal feedback from students confirmed that this was very beneficial preparation for their understanding of the geology seen on the trip. In addition, for both of the Ig./Met. Pet. term papers peer review of the first draft of the papers was introduced and rubrics were developed for the papers. Students took the peer review seriously, and informal feedback suggested that, in general, they found it a very helpful exercise. In the second junior level course, Sed. Pet., students were typically required to write a “take a stand paper” on topics such as “Should the Mississippi be allowed to change its course?” We added the new element of having two drafts required with feedback provided on the first draft. To further enhance writing improvement, all students were required to provide a peer review of a paper and the first draft was reviewed by the professor and the writing fellow. We believe that this approach, of enhancing the writing experience in selected courses in collaboration with writing fellows from the Writing Center, has substantially helped the writing skills of our undergraduate geology majors, and we intend to extend this model to other core geology classes.