AN ADVANCED WRITING REQUIREMENT FOR PSYCHOLOGY MAJORS - LESSONS FOR FACULTY

The Psychology Department at Saint Mary's College involves all faculty and students in the process of writing by requiring students to demon strate an advanced writing proficiency within the major. Fulfillment o f this requirement involves many paper-writing assignments that are ev aluated by course instructors and outside readers. Hence, writing occu pies a more important role in the major, and student writing is more c onsistently high in quality than before the requirement was instituted . In this article, I discuss the effects of this writing requirement o n the Psychology Department's faculty and students.