What are Quantitative Writing Assignments?

Quantitative writing assignments require students to grapple with numbers in a real world context, to describe observations using numbers, and to use the numbers in their own analyses and arguments.

Example of a Quantitative Writing Assignment

The box below contains the core sentences from a representative QW assignment. (For the complete assignment, click this link).

This challenging assignment asks students to create an argument about salmon based on tabular data that students must analyze and interpret. To do the assignment, students must make inferences from the table, do calculations, convert tabular data to bar or line graphs, and then use the data meaningfully in their own arguments. In the complete assignment, note how the instructors (Michael Burke and Jean Mach of the College of San Mateo) include intermediate steps that help guide students through their analysis of the data.

The salmon problem is just one example of the dozens of ways that instructors can create engaging quantitative writing assignments.

Characteristics That Distinguish Quantitative Writing

Quantitative writing assignments differ both from "story problems" in math courses and from writing assignments that lack a quantitative dimension. These assignments take a number of different forms and are characterized by some or all of the following features.

• Quantitative writing generally presents students with an "ill-structured" problem requiring the analysis of quantitative data in an ambiguous context without a clear right answer. Unlike a math "story problem," which is usually a "well-structured" problem with a right answer, a QW assignment requires students to formulate a claim for a best solution and support it with reasons and evidence. For an example of how a QW assignment differs from a story problem, see Story Problem versus QW Assignment
• Unlike the writing assignments that students are typically used to, QW assignments require students to analyze and interpret quantitative data. Writers must use numbers in a variety of ways to help them define a problem, to see alternative points of view, to speculate about causes and effects, and to create evidence-based arguments. Often they must learn to construct and reference their own tables or graphs.
• Quantitative writing forces students to contemplate the meaning of numbers, to understand where the numbers come from and how they are presented. Students must consider, for example, the different effects of using ordinal numbers versus percentages, means versus medians, raw numbers versus adjusted numbers, exact numbers versus approximated or rounded numbers, and so forth. At more advanced levels, students must understand the interpretive meaning of a standard deviation, the function of a chi square, or the purpose of specific kinds of algorithms in their disciplines. In all cases, they must consider their communicative goals and their audience's interests, needs, and background and to use numbers effectively within that rhetorical context.

The Diverse Ways to Create QW Assignments

There are many different ways to create QW assignments. In fact, the range of genres, stakes, and complexity of QW writing assignments is identical to that of other writing tasks. Here are some of the variables that instructors can consider in designing an assignment:

Sources of Data

• Provide students with the basic data
• Have students find their own data
• Have students generate their own data
• Ask students to analyze and evaluate the use of data in an article or website

Forms of Data

• Table
• Graph
• Map, chart or other image
• Prose passages using data

Length and stakes

• Low stakes assignments such as in-class freewrites, journal entries, thinking pieces, e-board postings
• Short, formal pieces that teach targeted skills such as interpreting and referencing a table, placing numbers in context, constructing a graphic, or adapting use of numbers to different audiences
• Major assignments

Genre, audience, and purpose

• Academic/scholarly paper using numbers appropriately for an expert audience
• White paper, letter to editor, op-ed piece, magazine article, or letter to a client using numbers appropriately for a lay audience
• Informative purpose using quantitative data to enlarge audience's understanding of a topic
• Analytical or interpretive purpose using quantitative data to clarify audience's view of a topic
• Persuasive purpose using quantitative data to change audience's view of a topic

Difficulty of the data or the complexity of the analysis

• Tasks suitable for general education courses using high-school level math--ratios, percentages, interpretation of graphs and tables, differences between mean and medium or raw versus adjusted numbers, and so forth
• Tasks suitable for advanced courses in the major using discipline-appropriate mathematics

In all cases, the goal of the QW assignment is to help students make meaning with quantitative data in a context of purposeful communication.

References

Burke, Michael and Jean Mach, Salmon Essay - Tools for Thought Learning Community, College of San Mateo, http://www.smccd.net/accounts/csmlcom/ToolsforThought/ToolsEssay1-Salmon.pdf