The professor of English shares observations on the need to sharpen writing skills to produce better critical thinkers among students.
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Professor Paul Anderson, director of the Writing Across the University program, was quoted by the Chronicle of Higher Education this month in a story on whether colleges should turn more to writing to demonstrate proficiency of critical thinking among students and to demonstrate how much they actually learn.
Anderson is quoted at length in the story “An Old-School Notion: Writing Required,” published Oct. 15, 2012.
From the story:
“…if academe and its critics want students to leave college with sharper thinking skills, writing ought to gain a higher priority, says Paul V. Anderson, a professor of English at Elon University.
He likens writing’s effect on students to the recently observed subatomic particle the Higgs boson. Just as particles gain mass as they move through the Higgs boson field, he says, ‘student learning gains heft as students interact through writing with the subjects they are studying.'”