Schreibenlernen durch Referate

Neue Vermittlungsstrategien für wissenschaftliche Schreibkompetenz

Abstract

In humanities seminars, the term paper often constitutes the final assessment. However, there is often little opportunity for students to systematically learn and practice academic writing. To address this issue, a teaching experiment was developed that combines writing with student presentations, allowing students to practice the writing process continuously. Students are responsible for preparing their oral presentations accompanied by a written text that corresponds to the thematic focus of their presentation. During these in-class presentations, they reflect not only on the academic content but also on their writing process. Their peers then provide oral/written comments on the resulting fragments of a term paper. As students critically engage with both their own and their peers’ texts, they learn to appreciate the value of revision feedback, and peer-to-peer exchange. Through this new presentation structure, students engage with all phases of the academic writing process – from planning to drafting to revising. By the end of the semester, they should be able to write term papers independently, feel capable of handling this task, and enter into the writing process with motivation. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the new presentation structure in proseminars can contribute to fostering academic writing skills, by encouraging students to engage both theoretically and practically with the writing process while receiving continuous feedback from peers and instructors. By deliberately promoting key competencies and aligning teaching and assessment with the principles of Constructive Alignment, it is argued that student motivation can also be enhanced in accordance with Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory.