Teaching Social Work Writing

Abstract

This article presents an approach to teaching social work writing within the core social work curriculum. Writing is recognized as being critical to effective professional practice and as an essential social work skill. Writing is also presented as a strategy for teaching social work knowledge, values, and skills. The authors share what they have learned and developed on the basis of their own teaching experiences with baccalaureate social work students. They identify nine purposes of social work writing, linking assignments with each purpose and discussing how the assignments can be used to teach social work writing skills concurrently with other core social work skills.