PWP's Pedagogy

Program (PWP) courses at The University of Maryland teach "real world" writing as students prepare for their lives beyond the classroom.

Students write on subjects associated with their majors or intended careers. They learn to perform as self-aware writers who have something to say to someone, to adapt their roles and voices to various audiences, and to marshal and present persuasively data that is relevant to a particular purpose and context. Every PWP course entails a significant research component that prepares students for the unique demands and challenges of researching topics in the "real world."

Students write across to educated peers, and they write down to uninformed lay persons. The audience is not the already-informed teacher, but those who need information that they do not have. After all, readers with utilitarian purposes constitute the typical audience for nearly all professional communication.

The program offers courses in Science Writing (English 390), Argumentation/Advanced Composition (English 391), Legal Writing (English 392), Technical Writing (English 393), Business Writing (English 394), and Writing for the Health Professions (English 395), and Special Topics in Professional Writing (English 398). For each of these Professional Writing courses, syllabi are designed to permit and foster growth in rhetorical and language skills:

• students will become more aware of the ethos they project, and more adept at defining and analyzing audiences.
• students will learn how to research topics in the "real world" and will engage in research; all PWP courses entail a significant research component.
• students will learn to plan their work according to audience and purpose.
• students will learn when and how to reveal their rhetorical plan to facilitate readability.
• students will write in a style suitable to audience and occasion.
• students will participate in draft workshop sessions, allowing groups of students to test their claims, and to engage in the sort of dialogue that joins an expert in one field with an expert in another.
• students will be prepared for writing, communication, and research beyond the classroom.

It is PWP's aim to instruct pre-professionals so that they may communicate the information that they collect outside the writing classroom to those who lack their knowledge. As, more and more, the sharing of specialized data becomes the measure of citizenship, the skills that are acquired in the Professional Writing class will permit responsible participation in society.

PWP is interested in preparing students for success beyond the classroom!