Sociologists as Writing Instructors

Abstract

In this article, we examine common practices and attitudes surrounding writing pedagogy in the sociology classroom based on an analysis of interviews with 19 sociologists at seven institutions in the Northeast. Our discussion is centered on two distinct approaches to writing that faculty identified: writing as cognitive development and writing as skill development. We observe that when they teach writing, sociologists shift their attention back and forth between these two essential features of good writing. Our analysis contextualizes writing as a form of distributed cognition (Salomon 1993), because it is taught and learned across multiple experiences in the academy. In conclusion, we suggest that a greater attentiveness to the underlying cognitive features of writing will broaden opportunities for campus-wide dialogue about writing across the disciplines and enhance our students’ ability to transfer and build upon their writing experiences across courses.