Have you ever found yourself staring at your degree audit, wondering why you’re still missing Writing Flags when it feels like all you’ve been doing in college is writing? If so, me too.
The Flags system is unique to UT Austin, and it’s meant to add value to our education as UT students by certifying our ability to practice essential skills. Specifically, the Writing Flag highlights courses requiring substantive writing, editing and communication skills.
The problem is that many writing-intensive courses don’t carry a Writing Flag when they should.
“(Writing Flags) encourage students to think clearly, carefully (and) to write persuasively and accurately,” English professor Douglas Bruster said. “I believe very strongly that writing is the most valuable thing that we teach at this University. It is a lifetime skill, and for that reason, it is something that we believe should be reinforced across multiple courses.”
There is a process that students can follow to petition for Flag credit, but it’s a burdensome one. Specific requirements like the 25:1 instructor-to-student ratio might disqualify some writing-intensive courses that still fulfill all the other requirements. The purpose of this ratio is to ensure personalized feedback, but this is something that can also be achieved even with a slightly larger ratio.
Currently, there is a Flags Review Committee tasked with evaluating Flags and their effectiveness.
“In principle, the Writing Flags, and the Flags in general, are a very good idea,” philosophy sophomore Grant Katz said. “(The Writing Flags) are probably most important out of all of them, on a purely pedagogical basis. I think that especially nowadays, students my age, their writing ability has gotten much, much worse.”
As a philosophy junior, writing is a fundamental part of my studies. However, I’ve somehow managed to collect only one of the three required Writing Flags, which will probably delay my graduation date.
Many courses I’ve taken fulfill most, if not all, of the listed Flag requirements. They involved substantial writing, personalized feedback, peer reviews and revisions.
“Last year, the classes I had were Writing Flags were way less writing (intensive) than the classes that didn’t have Writing Flags,” Katz said. “For a Writing Flag last year, it was lower division, but I’d write what amounted to (around) three pages in total, while for another class, it was probably ten pages in total, and that didn’t have a writing flag. So there probably needs to be more vetting with that and more attention paid to the syllabi.”
The criteria for granting Writing Flags should be reviewed to represent the writing intensity and material in the course accurately.
“If you look at some of the older course lists, the significant writing component courses were much more numerous in every department,” Bruster said. “It could be the case that the system that we had twenty-some years ago had a little bit more advantages in terms of writing instruction than the system that we’ve got today.”
Rather than having faculty or students apply for Flags, a simpler process that involves a committee making such determinations by carefully reviewing syllabi is necessary.
Flag credit should be automatically granted to writing-intensive courses, encouraging students to take classes that develop excellent writing skills.
We’re asked to give credit where credit is due, so please do the same, UT.
Mendoza is a philosophy junior from El Paso, Texas.
