Students who are given the opportunity to write frequently, in varied contexts and for various purposes and audiences learn more, think more critically, remember more and write better. Formal and informal writing activities incorporated into discipline-specific (non-composition) courses help students engage more actively in course material.

The goal of PVCC's QEP is to improve student writing. To do so, the College has committed to creating a culture of writing. This culture of writing emphasizes the belief that the act of writing has value, not just as the demonstration of what has been learned, but also as a way to learn, to generate, to discover and to connect ideas, as well as a way to express those ideas formally.

Research has suggested that more than anything else, writing process and writing-to-learn activities have the most promise for improving student writing:

Designing assignments and courses so that students engage in a process of learning to write and writing to learn over time, allowing them to build, refine and reflect on their composing, seems to be more effective than assigning a paper and taking it up on the due date... ¹

Further, an extensive, nationwide study conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics reports "evidence of the positive association between process-oriented activities and writing performance." ²

¹ Russell, David R. (1991) Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990: A Curricular History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.

² National Center for Educational Statistics (1996). Can students benefit from writing process? Vol. 1, No. 3 (NAES findings) http://nces.ed.gov/pubs96/web/96845.asp.