[Musical intro with audio previews of Dr.
Karen-Beth Scholthof remarks:]
The idea behind Pathogens, the Environment and Society, was to provide a course
that would be very reading and writing intensive and make connections
between the value of literature and contemporary reports of diseases in our environment
and be able to pull all of this material together to have an opinion and discuss your point of view,
as well as defend it.
[Gabe] Howdy, I'm Gabe and welcome to "Write Away,"
the faculty podcast of the Texas A&M University
Writing Center, bringing you news, tips, and ideas for making your students better, more innovative writers.
Today we’re talking to Professor Karen-Beth
Scholthof, in the Department of Plant Pathology
and Microbiology here at Texas A&M University.
Dr. Scholthof received her undergraduate degree
in botany with a minor in philosophy at Montana
State University. She earned her master's
at the University of Nebraska and her Ph.D.
at the University of Kentucky, both degrees
being plant pathology with an emphasis on
plant virology. She’s been at Texas A&M
since 1994 and runs a research lab on the
molecular biology of plant viruses. Dr. Scholthof
teaches in the Bioenvironmental Sciences Undergraduate Program.
Her W course is called Pathogens, the Environment and Society.
[Dr. Scholthof] I developed the course about
10 years ago and since that time through the
University Writing Center I've developed it
is a formal writing course. But my primary
interest was in using current events and both
scientific literature and fiction to explore
historic and current events related to pathogens,
the environment and society. So there's a
lot of interaction between animal health,
plant health, and human health that comes
into the course, including a lot of material
on food safety. The disease triangle is a
concept used by plant pathologists to understand
the role of the environment and pathogens
on whether or not a host succumbs to disease.
I also talk fairly extensively about the historic
aspects of influenza and the more contemporary
concerns of avian influenza or bird flu, the
transit of diseases such as smallpox, and
again the more recent interest especially
after 9/11 concerning the potential for smallpox
to be used as a bio-weapon.
[Gabe] Dr. Scholthof shares an example of
integrating current events, history and literature
into her science course.
[Dr. Scholthof] One useful book is Guns, Germs
and Steel by Jared Diamond. He provides a
general outline of the impact of germs on
society and also some of the implications
of agriculture. The idea behind the disease
triangle for my course is to explore how agriculture
has influenced society. The potato which has
its origins in Central and South America,
its transit to Europe and how it became a
food for the poor, and in time, became the
primary source of food for the Irish. And
when a plant disease, blight-like disease,
or Phytophthora infestans, infected the potatoes,
the primary food source for the poor in Ireland
was gone and approximately two million people
died or emigrated from Ireland following this.
So I find this a very useful event to use
for my course because I can talk about the
origin of crops in the Americas, I can talk
about global trade and travel. I can talk
about how precarious life can be: that if
you are living and dependent on a single source
of food and essentially have no free income,
your entire society, family, way of life can
collapse and you may be forced to emigrate.
One of the best books I found to talk about
this is Andrea Barrett's long short story
Ship Fever. She talks about three characters
who come to America and the effect on Nora,
the main character, through time as she experiences
immigration in Canada.
[Gabe] The range of possible topics in Dr.
Scholthof’s class, is matched by the variety
of writing assignments she gives.
[Dr. Scholthof] Every time I've taught the
course I change it. I change the reading material,
I change the writing assignments. I change
the methods of discourse, whether the students
do power points, do oral presentations, do
short writing assignments, do long writing
assignments. My current emphasis has been
to have in-class writing assignments where
I'll provide students with a prompt generally
related to disease outbreak and ask them to
provide a thesis relating to the outbreak
and defend their point of view. I want them
to be able think creatively and also to explore
some of their ideas. The other assignment
I've used off and on over the last ten years
is notebook writing where I'll provide a prompt
at the beginning of class where they can come
in and write for three or four minutes. The
prompt may be a question, it may be a cartoon
from The New Yorker. It may be a single word.
[Gabe] I asked Dr. Scholthof to share some of her observations about students and W courses at Texas A&M.
[Dr. Scholthof] The students are now realizing
that they have to take one or two W courses
to graduate so it's an assignment, but they
don't necessarily see that there's any value
in it. Or they're terrified. And they consider
it a burden that they have to write instead
of studying material that will be useful for
them for their degree, their technical degree,
or to apply to graduate or professional school.
I really feel that at Texas A&M, which is
historically technical, being an agricultural
and mechanical college, that there has not
been emphasis on liberal arts which I define
as being able to graduate with an ability
to read and write and have an appreciation
for art and literature. So my job is to convince
them that reading and writing are fun. I think
I go from the beginning of the semester where
they're either afraid or feel like they're
wasting their time to the end of the semester
where the comments reflect the fact that they
have had for the most part a fun time and
have found out that they like to read or that
not all reading is boring. I am one of the
greatest fans of the writing center. I really
enjoy coming over here and I'm constantly
encouraging the students to come over here.
My advice for new writing instructors is you
should clear your calendar for the entire
semester. It takes an enormous amount of time
to come up with the assignments, to read and
to edit the material and to develop the lectures
that go with the course work. I would really
encourage new faculty to explore teaching
a writing course and I think the primary reason
why I continue to do it is due to the resources
that have been developed at the writing center
and the encouragement especially that has
come from the director of the center.
[Gabe] Thank you for joining us. "Write Away"
is a production of the Writing Center at Texas
A&M University. This podcast promotes the
mission of the Writing Center by highlighting
effective writing instruction. For resources
to improve communication and writing ability,
please visit our website at writingcenter.tamu.edu.
We’d like to thank Dr. Scholthof for her
time today, and for her dedication to writing
instruction at Texas A&M. I’m your host
Gabe, please join us next time. Have a great
day, write away.
