Teaching college writing from a physicist's perspective

Abstract

College writing has conventionally been taught by faculty in the humanities, but many schools have begun to encourage writing instruction by faculty from a variety of disciplines. Our institution, Davidson College, has a college-wide writing requirement of all first-year students, and encourages a broad spectrum of faculty to contribute to the writing curriculum. We describe our recent experiences teaching three different writing courses that focus on topics in 20th century physics and astronomy. The goal of this teaching is to prepare students to be intellectual writers on scientific and technical topics, while focusing on concepts in physics and related areas. The writing and rhetorical skills emphasized in our classes have wide applicability for students seeking various professions. Our writing courses have required us to develop teaching methods unfamiliar to some physicists but have proven to be popular with many students and warmly received by our colleagues. Teaching these courses has helped to increase student interest in physics and has also helped the authors to grow intellectually and professionally. Here, we share our experiences teaching courses within our college's first-year writing program. We find the endeavor to be beneficial to our college, faculty, and students and hope to encourage other non-writing faculty to consider contributing to the writing programs at their institutions.