Spring 2017
WRITE TO LEARN,
LEARN TO WRITE
WRITING INTENSIVE CURRICULUM PROGRAM NEWSLETTER
Index
Writing in Unexpected Places: The
Nature of Teaching Mathematical
Proof
Reva Kasman
20x20: Using Pecha Kucha to Teach
Genre
Scott Nowka
Navigating a Digital Text and Its
Features
Matthew Burton
Spotlight on Faculty: Rebecca
Mirick, PhD
Matthew Burton
The WIC program will host a
two-day intensive professional
development seminar June 6
and June 7 from 9 am-3 pm. All
faculty interested in learning
about best practices in the
teaching of writing are welcome.
Preference will be given to W-II
and W-III instructors. Faculty
will receive a $360 stipend for
participation.
Welcome to the fifth issue of Write to Learn, Learn
to Write, the Writing Intensive Curriculum (WIC)
Program newsletter. This issue features discussion
on the teaching of writing in the disciplines at
Salem State University, ranging from what writing
is and looks like in mathematics to what instructors
should know about digital texts when teaching
reading and writing in the 21st century. The
newsletter also describes the latest WIC-writing
Tanya K. Rodrigue, PhD
center endeavor–the course-embedded tutor pilot
program, an initiative that may have potential to provide good support for W-II
and W-III instructors in the future.
In “Writing in Unexpected Places: The Nature of Teaching Mathematical Proof,”
Reva Kasman, PhD and associate professor of mathematics, debunks the myth
that writing is only important in English. She describes the central role of writing
in mathematics and provides us with a close look at what happens in MAT 234 –
the math department’s W-II course.
Associate professor of English Scott Nowka, PhD, in “20x20: Using Pecha Kucha
to Teach Genre,” discusses an exciting and challenging writing assignment that
asks students to compose in a unique slide presentation genre called pecha
kucha. This assignment, which can be used across the curriculum in a variety
of courses, is an effective way to help students develop the knowledge they
need to write effectively in various writing situations. Nowka also notes other
pedagogical potential for this assignment.
In “Navigating a Digital Text and Its Features,” Matthew Burton, English MA
student and WIC graduate assistant, discusses how the digital age has changed
the pedagogical terrain. He argues that instructors who have an understanding
of the characteristics of a digital text are better prepared to develop or enhance
reading and writing pedagogies that are suited for 21st century students.
Spring 2017 | WIC Program Newsletter | 1
 Welcome continued
The Spotlight on Faculty section features Rebecca Mirick, PhD, an assistant professor in social work. Mirick discusses
writing in her discipline as well as how her writing experiences have influenced her pedagogy. Mirick, who is a participant in
the course embedded tutor pilot program, also talks about her initial observations of the new initiative.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue. Please be sure to check out the new WIC blog: it can be accessed via the General
Education folder in Polaris.

Sincerely,
Tanya K. Rodrigue, PhD
WIC Coordinator and Assistant Professor of English

The WIC Program is actively seeking article submissions for upcoming newsletter issues on various topics related
to writing pedagogy. Some possible topics are: an effective or challenging student writing activity or assignment;
the process of designing a W-designated course; the benefits and challenges of teaching a W-designated course;
the function and purpose of writing in a field or discipline; and the role of writing in careers related to a discipline.
Articles should be approximately 750-1200 words. Please send ideas, drafts or polished articles to Tanya Rodrigue
at trodrigue@salemstate.edu. All submissions will be considered, yet given space limitations, not everyone will be
asked to further develop their work.

2 | WIC Program Newsletter | Spring 2017

Writing in Unexpected Places: The Nature of Teaching
Mathematical Proof
By Reva Kasman, PhD
Associate Professor of Mathematics
“But I became a math major
so that I didn’t have to write!”
Hearing some version of this
protest is not uncommon
around the mathematics
department. It’s just one of
many misconceptions about
a subject which people
Reva Kasman, PhD
think is only about numbers.
Discovering that mathematics involves writing can be a
jarring experience for students who chose math because it
was, in their minds, “the opposite of English.”
In fact, an integral part of mathematics is communicating
ideas to someone who doesn’t live inside your head. The
ability to do this well is not usually instinctive, even for
those who have a facility with the more calculational
aspects of mathematics. Historically, math majors were
expected to learn how to write in the discipline by osmosis.
The belief was that if they saw enough good proofs (formal
mathematical arguments) modeled by their instructors and
textbooks, students would automatically begin to write
polished and valid proofs on their own. Unsurprisingly, this
rarely happened. So colleges began to develop courses
that focused exclusively on teaching these techniques,
and about 10 years ago the mathematics department at
Salem State University created MAT 234, Introduction to
Mathematical Proof, a W-II designated course which sets
the foundation for nearly all our upper-level classes.
THE NATURE OF MATHEMATICAL WRITING
So what exactly does mathematical writing entail? The
answer to this question varies depending on the audience
and the context, but at the core of most mathematical
writing is a problem that needs to be solved or a topic that
needs to be explained. The author’s job is to introduce
the reader to the problem or situation, and then provide
illuminating steps, strategy, and narrative to guide the
reader toward a solution or better understanding of the
topic.
It might be helpful here to explain what is not good
mathematical writing. A long list of equations with
nothing else on the page is unlikely to be enlightening or
comprehensive to a reader, even if a mathematician could
ostensibly follow the algebraic progression of equations.
In contrast, good mathematical writing might start with
the presentation of an equation that no one has been able
to solve before, and then incorporate algebraic work into
an insightful narrative which explains why the solution has
previously been so elusive, and how the equation can now
be solved.
INTRODUCING STUDENTS TO PROOFS
When mathematicians notice what seems to be a
consistent pattern, they might make a conjecture claiming
that the pattern will always occur. To become a theorem,
that conjecture needs to be supported by a logical
argument, or proof. Once proven, theorems are considered
incontrovertible facts. In MAT 234, we primarily focus on
the writing of such proofs.
Most students enter college mathematics without ever
having written or read a proof before. Those who have
some familiarity with proofs usually learned what are
commonly called “two-column proofs” in geometry.
Unfortunately, it is rare that students gain the sense that
they are trying to communicate a logical argument to
another person with a two-column proof.
Moreover, a typical high school math assignment often
involves submitting a numbered list of answers to a teacher
who has access to the correct ones. But in professional
mathematical writing, the author can’t expect the reader
to have familiarity with the problem or to anticipate the
solution. In fact, the work is usually being read specifically
because someone wants to learn something new or
understand something complicated. So it is helpful to share
this perspective with students when they are first learning
how to write proofs and why there is value in writing them.
CONTINUED
Spring 2017 | WIC Program Newsletter | 3
WHAT DOES YOUR AUDIENCE NEED?
While a professor might be grading their work, students
in MAT 234 are encouraged to write proofs that would
be understandable to their peers in the class. This means
having students consider what a reader like them would
need in order to follow their arguments. It also establishes
a realistic purpose for coherently providing details which
students might omit if they perceive their instructor as the
only audience member.
That might sound straightforward, but there is a tendency
for students to work very hard to figure something out and
then in retrospect believe it was obvious. It is also common
for students to reach an answer without articulating the
process even to themselves, and then be genuinely unsure
of how they got it. Becoming conscious of and willing to
record ideas that they are using intuitively are essential
stages for students developing the writing skills needed to
share mathematical work. Furthermore, it is these process
steps that ultimately become the building blocks for the
formal argument in the written proof.
THE ROLE OF MATHEMATICAL LOGIC
There is another reason to push beyond students’ honestly-
held beliefs that they “just know” something is true but
can’t explain it. Experienced mathematicians know how
often conjectures can appear to be “obvious” on their
surface when they are actually false! It is only when
attempting to write out a careful proof that the hidden
subtleties are revealed and the argument falls apart.
This is where mathematical writing involves more than
just weaving prose around numbers and equations.
Knowing how to show that something is true – and just
as importantly, recognizing when it is false – requires an
understanding of mathematical logic.
In mathematical logic, statements are either true or false.
But this is not always a simple matter. For instance, most
students can tell that the statement “Boston is a city in
Massachusetts” is true. But consider an election candidate
who claims, “If my opponent wins the election, your taxes
will be raised! ” Is this statement false if the candidate wins
but taxes are still raised? Students need to be comfortable
with this kind of logical analysis if they are to write
mathematically valid arguments.
4 | WIC Program Newsletter | Spring 2017
A TOOLKIT OF PROOFS
Proving theorems is not “one size fits all.” In MAT 234
students acquire an assortment of tools for approaching
the task. Many mathematical conjectures come in the form
of “if-then” statements, and there are several techniques
for proving one. For example, in a direct proof you assume
the “if” part of the statement (mathematicians call this the
“hypothesis”) and write a deductive argument to reach the
“then” part (the “conclusion”). When that isn’t feasible, you
might try a contrapositive proof in which you assume the
opposite of the conclusion and deduce the opposite of the
hypothesis. (The contrapositive of the election statement
is “If your taxes are not raised, then my opponent did not
win!” ) In a proof by contradiction, you simultaneously
assume the hypothesis and the opposite of the conclusion,
and then try to derive something impossible as a result.
With these and other methods, students can formally write
arguments for a wide range of mathematical theorems.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
While each aspect of logic and proof-writing may be taught
in isolation, these skills are only useful if students can
independently choose which to apply when faced with a
new situation. In MAT 234 I give students a proof portfolio
assignment in which they are presented with ten unfamiliar
and randomly ordered mathematical conjectures at the
start of the semester. As the course unfolds, students
figure out which theorems they have the ability to prove
and submit rough drafts for feedback. By the end of the
semester, everyone has a polished compilation of ten
proven theorems, typeset in accordance with professional
mathematical standards. In my experience, students have
taken great pride in the completion of an initially very
daunting assignment.
Although writing in a mathematics course might not be
what students thought they signed up for, it is ultimately
an empowering experience. In the process of learning to
present their ideas in writing, students deepen their own
understanding of the mathematics itself. By considering
what a reader will need, they are forced to grapple with
the complexities of a topic and self-monitor the truth of
what they are claiming. As a result, they develop increased
confidence in their ability to persuasively share their
knowledge and have a greater ownership of what they
have written. Ultimately, students acquire the essential
skills for communicating not only in mathematics, but well
beyond the discipline.
20x20: Using Pecha Kucha to Teach Genre
By Scott Nowka, PhD, Associate Professor of English
One of the goals of a
composition course is to
create flexible writers,
students capable of
addressing writing
assignments in any discipline
during their undergraduate
career. To do this well,
students need to learn to
Scott Nowak, PhD
recognize and to write well
in a variety of genres. Now students easily grasp the
notion of genre—they can tell a Western from a horror
movie—but teaching them to appreciate the ways in which
the constraints of a genre shape the message we wish
to communicate can be challenging. Teaching them to
be flexible writers, capable of recognizing and satisfying
the requirements of a particular genre can be even more
difficult. In my composition classroom, I tackle both of
these pedagogical aims by asking students to compose in
a new genre, one that they have never written in and with
which they are wholly unfamiliar: the presentation genre of
pecha kucha.
Pecha kucha (pronounced pecháku-chá) is a Japanese
phrase meaning “chit-chat,” but the genre is much more
clearly defined than that phrase would suggest. Created
by expatriate architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham
in Tokyo, pecha kucha is an approach to traditional
PowerPoint slideshows that emphasizes audience
engagement. The presenter has two rules to follow: she
may use 20 slides in the presentation, and each slide
will advance automatically after 20 seconds. The result:
a focused, clearly-organized presentation in which
the images reinforce the words, all of which is done in
precisely six minutes and forty seconds.
If this sounds challenging, it is. More than a few of my
students have paled at the prospect of giving a timed oral
presentation. What I stress in this assignment, however,
is the process of composing the pecha kucha, not the
presentation. While I do provide minor credit (5%) at the
end of the unit to encourage students to stand up and
share what they have crafted, the real emphasis of this
assignment is learning how to write in this genre. How do
you choose a powerful image to reinforce your words? How
can you organize your words into twenty-second units?
How do you keep your presentation interesting for your
audience? These are all questions that students need to
explore in their Process Paper—an essay that documents
how they developed (and revised) their pecha kucha
presentation over several weeks. The essay is worth three
times as much as the presentation itself.
The final product of this assignment as far as the students
are concerned is the pecha kucha presentation, and I
have seen masterful, compelling, well-organized pecha
kuchas on topics as disparate as the career of playwright
Lin-Manuel Miranda and the merits of the music of Puff
Daddy. But as the instructor, I know that there are several
products: a process journal, a storyboard, and the Process
Paper. In crafting their pecha kuchas, students consistently
ask themselves questions about how to best convey
their information to their audience, or how to shape their
message to fit the constraints of the genre. They learn
SCOTT’S PECHA KUCHA ASSIGNMENT
• Introduce pecha kucha genre
• Work with students to analyze pecha kucha
presentations
• Ask students to read about design principles in
Reynold Garr’s Presentation Zen
• Support students in choosing a topic
• Introduce storyboarding and ask students to create
a storyboard
• Introduce process paper and assign students to
keep a process journal
• Ask students to present their pecha kucha
presentations to their peers
• Students use a rubric that considers content, use of
images, and delivery to evaluate their peers
Pedagogical Affordances of Pecha Kucha
The pecha kucha genre has the potential to teach
students:
• Rhetorical principles • Design principles
• Rhetorical awareness • Presentation/delivery
• Visual, alphabetic, skills
and aural Rhetorical • The writing process
Strategies • Understanding
• Audience awareness constraints as
• Genre awareness productive for invention
• Multimodal writing and creativity
• Multimodal awareness
Spring 2017 | WIC Program Newsletter | 5
to go beyond what they mastered in high school: filling
out rote writing assignments such as oversimplified lab
reports, formulaic book reports, or five-paragraph themes.
By attempting to satisfy the requirements of a wholly novel
kind of presentation, students learn to be reflective about
what they need to do to satisfy the needs of their audience
and the requirements of the form. These are lessons that
can then be translated and applied to any writing situation
that students may encounter in the future, and allow them
do so more consciously and more successfully.

To learn more about pecha kucha and view some

presentations, visit pechakucha.org.

Navigating a Digital Text and Its Features

By Matthew Burton, English MA Student and WIC Graduate Assistant
Time’s tide inevitably
brings about a sea change
in dominant media forms.
Simply put, the age of print
is folding under a new digital
model, requiring instructors
to reexamine the way we
approach teaching reading
and writing in the classroom.
Matthew Burton
The first step in rethinking
pedagogical practices is gaining an understanding of what
digital texts are and do, and how they are different from
print texts. This knowledge will enable teachers to begin
adjusting their instruction to more readily meet the needs
of students in the 21st century.
reading from an individual act to a social act.
Further, Hammond explains that the small size of digital
files allows an endless number of texts to exist and to be
available without taking up any physical space. The speed
of transmission for a digital text enables us to have access
to more texts in a more convenient way than ever before.
These texts are available through two-way traffic, meaning
every digital user can both send and receive information.
This effectively creates a lack of hierarchy, wherein
the publishing industry is subverted and texts no longer
require an established authority to be deemed worthy. As
a result of the moving “nonhierarchical, flat structure” of
digital texts, Hammond states “…the internet is effectively
centerless”2 and thus a text’s origin is unclear.

In Literature in the Digital Age, Adam Hammond draws on
Adriaan van der Weel to describe the salient features of
a digital text. The first characteristic of a digital text is
textual instability. While traditional print texts are “static,
unalterable, and permanent,” digital texts are “forever
alterable”.1 For example, a print edition of Jane Eyre will
remain the same regardless of the date it is accessed,
whereas a digital text might have entire “pages” altered
or removed on a whim. A digital text is also characterized
by ease and lost cost: it is far easier to reproduce a digital
text than a material one. In addition, digital texts can easily
be shared and spread among people, which transforms
Digital texts, Hammond claims, are also comprised of
converging modalities. A modality, according to Hammond,
is “a type of information that can be communicated through
a medium,” and a medium is a “specific communication
technology for recording and disseminating messages”. 3
A digital text conveys information using a combination
of the written word, images, video, and audio, and it is
produced using various technologies that work to circulate
the text in different ways. The multimodal nature of
digital texts demands that a digital reader is competent
in employing interpretive strategies for meaning-making
and comprehension that may be foreign to them. The final

1
Adam Hammond, Literature in the Digital Age, (New York, Cambridge, 2016)
2
Hammond, 12
3
Hammond, 12

6 | WIC Program Newsletter | Spring 2017

property of a digital text concerns access through content.
it would be best to understand what exactly makes it
Digital texts subvert traditional structures of textual
different, and use this to our advantage.
organization and allow a reader to “search the book’s
content directly,” looking for certain sentences or phrases,
Below, I provide basic pedagogical guidelines for
for example. 4 This functions in opposition to traditional
supporting students working with digital texts.
structures, like the library, which often forces books into
• Digital texts often incorporate a variety of modalities.
questionable categories for the sake of an easy search.
Students must learn interpretive strategies not only for
each individual modality, but strategies for interpreting
As much as we might bemoan the digital age for the
these modalities in relation to one another.
ruptures it has caused in our romantic selves, we must
• Digital texts present a lack of hierarchy and authority.
view this historical moment not as the death of literacy,
Despite the wonderful political implications, students
but as a shift in what it means to be literate. The first step
need to be taught how to determine which sources are
in the process is understanding the features mentioned
appropriate for their purposes.
above. Many of these are not drastic departures but
• The digital age presents a variety of new ways to sift
subtle shifts or mere reproductions of what came before.
through a source’s content by searching for keywords.
Hammond would remind us that anxiety over shifting media
This has potential to expedite the research process
is no new experience. Plato resented the shift from oral to
when tools are used effectively.
written language citing that “it would not be people who
• Sources are now accessed with greater ease and
would be wise, but the books.”5 As the written age shifts
speed than ever before. Students need to be reminded
to the digital age we would be wise to remember just how
to stay diligent in citing their sources, despite the
often Plato was wrong. Rather than to resist the change,
deeply impersonal nature to which they are now
acquired.

Spotlight on Faculty
By Matthew Burton, English MA student and WIC graduate assistant
Rebecca Mirick has been an assistant professor of social
work at Salem State University for three years and teaches
several courses such as Human Behavior, Social Work
Research Methods and Field Education Seminar. She
received her PhD from the Simmons College’s School
of Social work in 2011 and is a research consultant
and suicide prevention specialist at the Riverside
Trauma Center. Rebecca has also delivered a number
of presentations across the U.S. on subjects related to
social work and suicide prevention. I had the pleasure of
interviewing her about writing instruction both within her
discipline and in general.

Mirick is one of three faculty participants in the course

embedded tutor pilot program, led by Tanya Rodrigue,
coordinator of the Writing Intensive Curriculum (WIC)
program, and Rebecca Martini, coordinator of the Mary
G. Walsh Writing Center. The pilot program, which spans
the Spring 2017 semester, provides classroom specific
writing support for students in W-designated classes. The Rebecca Mirick
program pairs a tutor with a specific faculty member and
a course. The tutor provides writing support in his/her
4
Hammond 13
5
Hammond, 24

Spring 2017 | WIC Program Newsletter | 7

assigned class, working closely with the faculty member
and with students to improve their writing and achieve W
course learning objectives. The goal of this pilot program
is to determine if such a program would be conducive to
supporting faculty and students in W courses at Salem
State. The results of this study will be available next
academic year.
MB: Why is it so important that students know how to
write effectively in social work?
RM: I think writing is an important skill for all students,
but for social work students, there are some additional
reasons that writing well is a critical skill. Social work is
a professional degree, and many of our students graduate
and go out to work in positions as professional social
workers. They might be working in child welfare services,
with older adults or in programs supporting kids. Social
work writing can be medical documentation, such as notes
documenting a visit, or it can be legal documentation.
When a child welfare worker writes up a recommendation
for a judge about where a child can safely live, it is
important that the recommendation is written clearly,
and the critical points are easily understood. If the judge
doesn’t understand the recommendation, that can impact
custody and safety decisions about the child. Another issue
is that when social work writing is not done well, it is hard
for social workers and their ideas to be taken seriously by
the reader. We lose respect from other professionals for
ourselves and our ideas if we do not write emails or letters
to colleagues professionally, or our recommendations and
assessments are written with errors and typos.
MB: What do you think students have the toughest with in
learning how to write within the discipline of social work?
RM: In social work writing, we are always trying to write
from a strengths-based perspective. But we also want to
make sure we are accurately describing what is going on
with a family--writing from a strengths-based perspective
doesn’t mean that we ignore problems that are going on.
Instead, it means that we think about how we describe
what is going on and make sure that the strengths of the
individual and the family are clear. This can be really hard
to do and is a skill that often takes students some practice
to master.
8 | WIC Program Newsletter | Spring 2017
MB: What was your most effective writing assignment?
RM: I think that using peer review regularly in class has
been the most effective assignment for students. They
describe numerous benefits to peer review, including
getting to see others’ writing styles and ideas, learning
more about the expectations of the assignment, feeling
more confident about their own writing, and less anxious
to turn in the final draft. I now do much more peer review
in my writing class than I used to do, and am thinking about
how I can incorporate it into my other, non-writing classes
as well.
MB: How have your own experiences with learning and
writing in the discipline influenced the way you teach?
RM: I always tell students that no matter how long you’ve
been writing or how strong a writer you are, your writing
will be stronger with revisions. In particular, getting a
peer—even one not in social work—to read your writing
and comment on it can be a really effective way to improve
your writing. I have learned this over time about my own
writing and I make sure to talk to students about how I
engage in these same writing practices that I am asking
them to engage in.
MB: Can you tell us a little about your experiences within
the course embedded tutor pilot program thus far?
RM: It has been fantastic to have a course embedded tutor
for my W-II class. The tutor is knowledgeable about the
assignments and my expectations, so can be much more
helpful for students. The tutor comes to class and hears me
describe the assignment to students. In addition, the tutor
gets to listen to me answer student questions—probably
questions the tutor might also have about the assignment.
Accessibility to writing support can be a challenge for
some of our students, particularly those who work part-
time or full-time or have other family responsibilities in
addition to school responsibilities. The tutor has time
available in the social work building before and after class,
so meeting with him is much easier for these students
who may have very little flexibility in their schedules—it
opens up writing support services to more students, which
is wonderful! From a personal perspective, it’s great that
the students tend to first use the writing tutor for support,
then come to me with remaining questions—this makes
teaching a Writing II class a bit less time consuming for me,
which is always a benefit.
MB: Thank you for your time.