Each discipline on campus has traditions, values, assumptions, and expectations that shape how its members think about, conduct research in, and write up or otherwise present their work. In other words, practitioners must “do” their discipline in particular ways if they are to be seen as insiders by other members of the field. This set up means that students must learn to look at and respond to the world in different ways as they move from course to course, and field to field—a daunting task, especially for undergraduates who may be simply passing through a course on their way to somewhere else. Therefore, when students discover ways to approach, engage with, and replicate a discipline's expectations, their efforts deserve recognition.
This website highlights work UC Berkeley undergraduates have done in one section of CWR4B: Reading, Writing, and Research, a lower-division, writing-intensive course. Using the theme “Success Across the Curriculum: How Practitioners ‘Do’ Their Discipline,” this section encourages students to examine the rhetorical demands of disciplines across campus to better understand what it means to “do” a particular discipline. Guiding this examination are questions such as: How do scholars in different fields take up, interpret, explain, and build upon ideas and information? Which conventions transcend disciplines, and which are unique to a given field? How can this knowledge help us become more effective readers, writers, and critical thinkers in other contexts?
To answer these questions, students read scholarly articles as well as books by field practitioners that target general audiences. Students then devise and conduct a research project in which they examine what it means to be a writer-practitioner in their discipline. This website showcases some of these projects.
This website highlights work UC Berkeley undergraduates have done in one section of CWR4B: Reading, Writing, and Research, a lower-division, writing-intensive course. Using the theme “Success Across the Curriculum: How Practitioners ‘Do’ Their Discipline,” this section encourages students to examine the rhetorical demands of disciplines across campus to better understand what it means to “do” a particular discipline. Guiding this examination are questions such as: How do scholars in different fields take up, interpret, explain, and build upon ideas and information? Which conventions transcend disciplines, and which are unique to a given field? How can this knowledge help us become more effective readers, writers, and critical thinkers in other contexts?
To answer these questions, students read scholarly articles as well as books by field practitioners that target general audiences. Students then devise and conduct a research project in which they examine what it means to be a writer-practitioner in their discipline. This website showcases some of these projects.