The Need For Writing Across the Curriculum

Nice article.I remember reading Sabeer Bhatia`s interview when he was praising education system in the west.He was assigned to write an essay in college in U.S.A. He presented historical views on the subject and then a short conclusion based on the sources he quoted.He was given very poor marks. The teacher`s take was-``I will give you numbers only if you have something original to offer.`` In India, such type of thinking is normally not promoted.Colleges and schools are basically assembly lines .Wonder why?
malik99 #4 makes a very good point when he says teachers have to be trained in critical thinking.
Educational scientists must put their heads together and design the syllabus for the courses designed for teachers-like B.Ed. and L.T., so that they can in turn encourage creative thinking in the students.

Hi Omar! Yes, I wrote that it first appeared in the Dawn Education Supplement. Somehow the note didn`t get added to the piece. So let the record show that this piece was originally printed in the Dawn!

Yup...WAC is the buzzword in academia, esp. universities serving working poor and immigrant communities.

I`m teaching a writing intensive Literary Genres course to a class of nurses. These women have worked in their fields (pediatrics, emergency room, ob/gyn, AIDS, nursing homes) for several years and have a great deal of empirical intelligence. Their union 1199 and the CUNY adult ed. program is making their formal education possible by making it affordable.

In this course I`ve asked them to think through writing, of the various roles they inhabit in the course of the day, the research projects they`d like to investigate, to experiment with various literary forms in creative pieces and to evaluate what an interdisciplinary approach to health care might yield. Oh yes, and study the devices and forms of various literary forms.

I planned an interdisciplinary syllabus for them:

1. Ghosts

a groundbreaking play by Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen, one of the great pioneers of mod. drama broke many Norwegian taboos by daring to write about syphillis in a middle class family who lived in the country. Some of the themes we are discussing are the metaphors of stigma attached to disease, the doubleness of the characters in their public and private presentations and how disease is silenced in family geneology, larger communities and society.

2. The Writing Cure

an article by Melanie Threnstrom in which she discusses the use of narratology in medicine as a way of understanding evolving roles as patients and healthcare workers. Also discusses the methodologies and goals of literature and creative writing for med students. Clearly, very few docs are as talented as Aamir Ansari...

3. Wit

A fairly literate movie about a John Donne scholar who is dying of cancer. Expository of medical institutionalization, mortality, gender, individual alienation. Emma Thompson makes this movie.

4. The Resurrection of Generosity

A critical study by Arthur Frank who uses various interdisciplinary sources to look at the various narratives of healthcare workers-particularly nurses and doctors-and how they envision an improved healthcare system.

5. Martin, Emily. ``Medical Metaphors of Women’s Bodies: Menstruation and Menopause``

Greek classicist systems of understanding/categorizing/explaining women`s bodies in a manner congruent to the culture and society at that time.

6. Poetry by James Merrill, Linda Hull, Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall.

Kenyon and Hall, two excellent poets are of particular interest as they were married. Hall nursed his wife Kenyon until she died. Both wrote about their lives together with the disease.

I would have liked to assign A. Verghese`s My Own Country and the AIDS literature coming out of India-but we have a very short summer session. Maybe next time.

Malik,

Thanks for your observations on the piece and on teaching and learning. However I must protest at your comments towards Nazar sahib. He was talking about something I wrote in last week`s Review (Dawn), and you really ought to read that piece first. I wrote it in a very irreverent tone so if you take issue with the ``Hell will be hotter than this`` response you should direct your criticism towards me. I really think you owe Nazar sahib an apology. You were overly harsh with him and I don`t think he deserved it.

hi bina -- whats up -- shouldnt this article have been credited to another publication where it first appeared, like 2 months ago? :)

Nazar sahib,

I agree with what Malik says, though to not such a vehement degree. Holding an opinion is not bigotry, but making it public (like you did) when it disparages a certain segment of society does fall under that category. I believe in God, yet I am not very religious, does my belief in God legitimize me as a target for your mockery, even to a lesser degree than the burqa-clad woman? What if I tell you that I don`t drink alcohol even though I live in a land where it is cheaper than bottled water? Would that make me laughable in your eyes, or just plain stupid? If so, would I be justified in mocking you for partaking of wine? Why does tolerance only have to mean the forebearance showed by the religious to the agnostics or the atheists? Should it not be a two-way street? Or would you rather have your cake and eat it too?

Regards,
Irfan Hamid.

Malik99 # 3

(The only difference is that they do it in a violent way and people like you do it in a refined way. But its the same bigotry)

As long as we can confine our bigotry to ourselves and not force it on others, I guess it is OK.

We all hold our opinions if that is termed as bigotry.

Bina - Great essay! Indeed critical thinking is important in bringing a context to problem solving. But if I were a student in pakistan, I would be afraid to show my critical thinking skills in a board exam. For most graders, a ``right answer`` is more important (and easy to grade) than an answer which is taxing to their brains. This results in students rotting the ``safe`` answers to all problems. Lets face it, for students all over the world, grades matter more.

Even the examples that your have provided in your essay, such as type of critical thinking questions in maths etc, would end being rotted by students if the right framework is not present where their efforts could be rewarded.

So yes, it is important to teach our students the value of critical thinking. But it is also important for us train the current crop of teachers in critical thinking as well. As long as our school grading system penalizes critical or ``out of the box`` thinking, merely formulating ``writing across curriculum`` policy may not bear much fruit.

NHK # 1 - You wrote ``And her reply that ``Hell would be hotter than this`` was hilarious. My wife read your article again and again and found this very amusing``

Nazar Sahib - A few years ago i visited hawaii. On one of the islands, there is a large piece of barren and rocky land marked by a few sign posts and shrubs, with smoke coming out of the ground. Scientists say it is because of some volcanic activity that has been going on underground for thousands of years. The native Hawaiians think God lives there. If any tourist wants to, he/she can walk on that land and see those ``smoke holes`` up close. But ALL of them, out of respect for hawiian belief, stayed away from that land and looked at it from a distance - lest they trample on the ``land of God``. No one thought that Hawiian belief was ``hilarious``. No one laughed at the ``stupidity`` of this belief or tried to provide a ``sceientific evidence`` that it in fact is volcanic activity that is making the smoke come out.

I contrast that to your intolerant and bigoted reaction upon reading a burka clad woman`s belief. Your finding her response ``hilarious`` is a sad commentary on the intolerance and bigotary of an apparentely ``enlightened`` elite in Pakistan. Instead of laughing off her belief for which she is willing to suffer the summer heat, you should have perhaps taken a lesson from it.

Nazar sahib - not sure how much world you have seen, but I invite you to visit New York City. You will notice that in the dead heat of summer, Jewish man walk around in the sun wearing long black overcoats and heavy balck hats. Now, I doubt you will tell anyone that it is hilarious. Because if you do, they might throw you behind bars for anti-semitism or for inciting hatred. It is only in Pakistan that bigoted people like yourself can get away with making fun of a belief of an innocent woman which does not harm you in any way, shape or form.

Sadly people like you belong to the same wretched class of intolerant pakistanis who shoot at the mosques, kill sunnis and shias, or spread horror because others belief in heaven and hell contradict theirs. The only difference is that they do it in a violent way and people like you do it in a refined way. But its the same bigotry.

:)

Thank you Nazar Sahib. And please give my salams to Mrs. Nazar!

Bina Shah


Couldn`t agree with you more.


(Your article in Tuesday Review where you asked the Burqa-clad woman how she could wear that in the heat of karachi (40 plus). And her reply that ``Hell would be hotter than this`` was hilarious. My wife read your article again and again and found this very amusing)