History of IUPUI's
W231
Professional Writing Skills
By Julie Freeman
​
W231 was designed by Barbara Cambridge at Indiana University Bloomington and introduced at IUPUI more than 16 years ago. Dr. Cambridge led a group of associate faculty members in designing a W231 curriculum to fit the needs of IUPUI students and the English Department. Over the years, the course was revised based on feedback from instructors and students. Originally oriented to business writing, the course offered students an alternative to the only other second-level writing course, which was then literature-based.
​
As more specialized business writing courses became available, W231 developed into more of a research course. The research focused on applied topics of the students' choice, both to build on their interests and to recognize the quite diverse group of students who take the course. For several years special meetings were held each year to which W231 students in every section were invited to hear community members talk about their writing. Students learned about the ways in which the skills they were practicing and learning would be useful in their future careers.
​
At different points in its evolution, W231's student population changed as well as increased. When the School of Science decided to stipulate which writing courses would fulfill a second-semester writing requirement, certain departments determined that they would accept either W231 or W132. W231 currently fulfills the requirement for a second writing course in several schools: Allied Health, Physical Education, Public and Environmental Affairs, and Social Work, among others. In addition, English writing majors often take the course. People from the community who contact IUPUI about which course to take to renew or develop their writing skills often decide on W231. Therefore, the business and technical writing orientation of W231 is now more appropriately expressed as writing outside the academy, or writing in nonacademic, professional settings. With ten or more sections of the course offered each semester, we serve not only a larger but a much more diversified set of disciplines now than in the past.
​
When W231 was first offered in the department, it wasn't necessarily considered as a course to follow W131. When faculty realized that the courses needed to be better coordinated, the process and not just the products of writing became a more central focus in W231. Instead of using a group of associate faculty who taught only or primarily W231, faculty who regularly taught W131 were encouraged to teach W231. This move integrated the course more closely into a planned writing program (Barbara Cambridge, personal communication, July 1998).
​
As the English Department grew, more writing courses were offered, including W290, Writing in the Arts and Sciences; W331 and W355, upper-level business and administrative writing courses; W233, Intermediate Expository Writing; and of course, W132, a roughly parallel course that focuses on academic research methods and argument to prepare students for writing in the academy. In addition, a 200-level business-writing course (X204) is offered in the School of Business, and Purdue offers technical writing courses at the 200 and 300 levels.
​
The W231 curriculum was revised in 1990 to incorporate assignments that reflected a process-centered approach, enabling students to practice and broaden the application of composing strategies from essays written in earlier courses to correspondence and reports in W231. The revision also extended the collaborative model of instruction to include cooperative writing. A major revision in 1994 (completed by former course coordinator Jan Blough) reflected a move from a long end-of-project report that analyzed all the research findings, to two shorter reports, one which analyzed the problem and reviewed the literature, and one which interpreted and applied the primary research findings.
​
Through all of these changes, W231 maintained its same basic design: a research-based course that requires students to write workplace documents within the framework of a limited class-based project, followed by an extensive, original, community-based one. Based on a 1996 student survey, Julie Freeman revised the curriculum again in 1999, and the resulting course guidelines reflected a more intentional use of repetition to build on skills developed in previous assignments. In coordination with other core course curricula, the guidelines called for two portfolios instead of one. The proposal assignment was replaced by two short progress reports, one describing the problem selected for investigation and the secondary research procedures, the second delineating the primary research methodology. The problem analysis report was replaced by a literature review created for the target audience. The Action Plan became the Recommendation Report, which incorporated visual aids. An oral presentation was also added to the curriculum. And finally, the portfolio transmittal memo was written as a Performance Review.
​
The curriculum underwent another major adjustment during the summer of 2002 based on Julie Freeman and Susanmarie Harrington's experiences teaching a pilot version of W231 during the spring semester 2002. The pilot was initiated because of high DWF rates and other concerns about the burdensome workload of the curriculum and complications resulting from first-year students working with real-world clients. The course experienced high DWF rates for years, and although these figures recently decreased along with the higher admission standards, the changing demographics of the IUPUI student population has resulted in younger, more inexperienced students taking W231, often earlier in their college careers. The goal, then, was to create a new course in which smaller cases and team projects make the workload more manageable. We aim to meet that goal with the revised curriculum presented here.
​
We continue to work on facilitating the development of critical thinking skills, careful research methods, and the clear writing that is so essential in all professional settings. Developments in technology have transformed the way information is obtained, analyzed, and communicated in professional communities today and will no doubt continue to impact future versions of the W231 curriculum.