Incorporating writing into software engineering

Summary form only given. This paper describes experiences in incorporating writing into a junior software engineering course (MACS306) as part of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiative at the Colorado School of Mines. The motivation for inserting writing into the CS course was twofold. First, the software engineering discipline requires practitioners to be proficient in arguing for design and project management options. Second, writing provided a natural mechanism for evaluating the students´ understanding of the supplemental reading, The Mythical Man-Month. The Mythical Man-Month is a collection of classic essays on real life software engineering experiences. The essays expose the students to the culture of software engineering, and offer practical lessons for their careers. The WAC approach was implemented as three assignments, each following a “microtheme” format. Under this format, the student produced a one page or less argument using the assigned readings to support a thesis or position posed by the instructor. The microthemes were tractable for the 70 students and the instructor, with the students spending two hours or less on writing and the instructor about three hours on grading. The students´ writing abilities consistently improved throughout the semester, and the content indicated that the students were absorbing and integrating the material. This paper highlights the success of the approach plus several problems encountered (e.g. student´s backgrounds, difficulties in grading, etc.), and offers suggestions on how to avoid them in the future