Writing Plan Phases
Collecting Baseline Data
First Edition Writing Plan
Second Edition Writing Plan
Third Edition Writing Plan
  • phase completed
  • phase in-progress

The Department of History in the College of Liberal Arts enrolls between 450 and 500 undergraduates in its major. The department’s approximately 40 full-time faculty members also teach thousands of non-majors who take History courses at all curricular levels as part of their Liberal Education degree requirements.

History Writing Plan

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Writing in History

The History faculty generated the following list in response to the question, “What characterizes academic and professional communication in this discipline?”

  • Examination of the beliefs, practices, and relationships that have shaped human experience in temporal context, focusing on sequences of events and changes over time.
  • Critical awareness of the qualities, value, and limitation of historical sources, as well as the necessarily interpretive and mediated nature of historical analysis. 
  • Argument that begins with a question and offers in answer an interpretation of the past that takes into account and is supported by full range of appropriate evidence.
  • Acknowledgement of and response to existing historical scholarship.
  • Accessible, clear prose and logical organization that enables readers to retrace the writer’s steps and follow development of the argument.

Writing Abilities Expected of History Majors

The History faculty generated the following list in response to the question, “With which writing abilities should students in this unit’s major(s) graduate?”

Minimum Requirements for Writing in the Major:

Current Writing Abilities

The Department of History has developed and revised its desired writing abilities and closely related grading criteria several times. It is in the process of reviewing and updating its current writing abilities and criteria. These abilities and criteria are most visible in the writing expectations for students in the capstone course. 

  1. Demonstrate an importance of historical context.
  2. Explain the context of historical events through the use of primary sources.
  3. Demonstrate an awareness of the particular nature, value, limitations, incompleteness of historical sources.
  4. Formulate and express viable historical research questions and hypothesis.
  5. Engage in persuasive analysis and interpretative problems.
  6. Make a persuasive and logically organized argument that is supported by the evidence.
  7. Articulate this argument in a thesis statement.
  8. Explain the broader significance of the topic.
  9. Identify and summarize the main arguments, evidence, and historiographical context of scholarly work(s).
  10. Communicate ideas in a tone and style that is appropriate for the audience.
  11. Cite evidence accurately to support the argument.
  12. Use a consistent citation style.
  13. Make sure grammar and stylistic issues don’t interfere with clarity of argument.

Revised Writing Abilities and Student Learning Goals

The revised list of writing criteria more fully describes the range of writing that many historians and students employ before they are able to engage seriously with most of the current History writing criteria. This model centers the range of reflective writing and note-taking alongside margin-writing and thinking visually through writing that precede the more polished, formal demonstrations of these skills. This list is an effort to make more transparent to students the range of informal writing that precedes formal writing and to connect process-oriented writing to its final products.

  1. Engage in forms of writing that distill what we think we know, the evidentiary basis of our thinking, our willingness to challenge what we think we know, and those things about which we are most curious and why.
  2. Read (and listen) critically and write notes that identify and summarize the main arguments, evidence, and historiographical context of scholarly books, articles, and lectures.
  3. Write notes that identify and summarize the main arguments, style, and audience and so on of primary sources in their historical context.
  4. Demonstrate an awareness of the particular nature, value, limitations, incompleteness of historical sources.
  5. Formulate and express viable historical research questions and hypotheses that can be explored with your sources.
  6. Gather and review notes to provide possible answers to these questions.
  7. Outline or use another effective method (i.e. note cards, bubble graph, lucid chart, etc.) to organize your thinking to help facilitate the move from notational writing to drafting sentences and paragraphs. 
  8. Writing is a way to clarify your thinking and to wrestle with your evidence. It is frequently not linear, and there is no expectation that history writers approach the drafting of their formal work in a particular order. Start writing where you feel confident and interested.
  9. Make a persuasive and logically organized argument that is supported by the evidence.
  10. Articulate this argument in a thesis statement.
  11. Explain the broader significance of the topic.
  12. Organize the paper. Typically, this includes an introduction (with thesis), body (derived from an interrogation of the evidence), and conclusion. These are strengthened by the use of strong topic sentences.
  13. Explain and assess your argument through comparing and contrasting historiographical points of view on relevant topics.
  14. Demonstrate an understanding of historical context and explain the context of historical events through the use of primary sources.
  15. Cite evidence accurately to support the argument.
  16. Use a consistent citation style.
  17. Communicate ideas in a tone and style that is appropriate for the audience.
  18. Rewrite papers to improve them in terms of argument, organization, style, and accuracy.
  19. Proofread. Grammatical and stylistic issues should not interfere with the clarity of the argument.

Menu of Grading Criteria Used in History Courses

These grading criteria were used in the most recent assessment of senior capstone papers:

  1. Demonstrates an understanding of the importance of historical context.
  2. Explains the context of historical events through the use of primary sources.
  3. Demonstrates an awareness of the particular nature, value, limitations, and incompleteness of historical sources.
  4. Formulates and expresses viable historical research questions and hypothesis.
  5. Engages in critical analysis of interpretive problems.
  6. Engages in persuasive analysis of interpretive problems.
  7. Makes a persuasive and logically organized argument that is supported by the evidence.
  8. Articulates this argument in a thesis statement.
  9. Explains the broader significance of the topic.
  10. Identifies and summarizes some of the main arguments, evidence, and historiographical context of scholarly work(s) related to the question.
  11. Communicates ideas in a tone and style that is appropriate for audience.
  12. Cites evidence accurately to support argument.
  13. Uses a consistent citation style.
  14. Writing is grammatically and mechanically correct.

Highlights from the Writing Plan

Since joining WEC in 2007, the department has created and implemented three additions of writing plans, in which faculty members articulated and reassessed the essential role writing plays in academic learning, reviewed the requirements for the History major, and developed proposals to revise the requirements to incorporate a more structured approach to writing instruction.

The Department of History is also the first WEC unit to create a Legacy Writing Plan, approved by the Campus Writing Board in May 2020. The Legacy Plan includes four core goals to be implemented over the next two years: (1) fostering collaboration among graduate student instructors, teaching assistants, undergraduate majors, and faculty; (2) developing instructor- and student-facing Canvas-based resources focused on the teaching and practice of writing in History; (3) engaging in an annual Fall Orientation and monthly meetings to discuss the roles of writing across the curriculum; (4) expanding the scope of writing in History to include new modes and modalities and broader audiences.