A Professional Memorandum Writing Workshop

1. A Professional Memorandum Writing Workshop Patricia Elliott, MPHCandidate for DrPH Boston University Instructional Innovation Conference March 2, 2012

2. Overview • Innovation purpose • Workshop components • Application to other courses • Questions

3. Innovation Purpose

4. Context • Course: Women, Children and Adolescents: Public Health Approaches • Assignment: Craft a professional memorandum informing a decision maker of a health issue along with a programmatic or policy response. • Need for innovation: Students lack professional writing experience.

5. Goals of the Memo Assignment • Synthesize information • Present ideas clearly and efficiently • Build career related skills • Create a polished writing sample

6. Challenges for Students • Professional writing ≠ academic writing • It is difficult to break successful habits • Short assignments are the enemy of procrastinators

7. Innovation: Memo Workshop • Students need practice and support to build new skills • Multifaceted skills-building workshop • An interactive in-class session • Students work with their own material • Uses lecture, individual, and group work

8. The Workshop

9. Components • Instructional lecture • Individual brainstorming • Group collaboration • One-on-one instructor interaction • Class-wide group discussion of prepared examples

10. Section 1- Memo Dissection • A close look at each memo section: • The importance of being concise and direct • Introduction • Scope of the problem • Current approaches • Proposed program/policy • Major constituencies • Conclusion Instructional Lecture

11. Section 2- Partner Time Practice being succinct and clear • Students turn to their neighbor and must summarize in 60 seconds: • The importance of their health issue • A brief description of their policy or programmatic recommendation • Class discussion of challenges Group Work

12. Section 3- The Art of Writing • Presentation of the nuances of professional writing with a focus on: • Tone • Formatting • Content • General writing tips • Active/passive voice • Grammar • Citations Instructional Lecture

13. Section 4- Practice with Topic • Individual work • guided by a handout • Partner work • present ideas and ask questions to neighbors • Faculty work • one-on-one questions addressed by roving faculty and TAs Individual and Group Work

14. Section 5- Analysis of Examples • Examples of each memo section are displayed on-screen and in a handout • Class-wide discussion of strengths and weaknesses, followed by faculty analysis • Slides, with faculty analysis included, are posted to course website after class Class-Wide Group Work

15. Section 5- Analysis of Examples

16. Application to Other Courses

17. Application of Innovation • Direct use in other courses • Any course that requires students to write a memorandum • Applications in public health, public policy, business sector, etc. • Expanded use for the format • This multi-faceted format for skills building can be applied across the curriculum to help student acquire a variety of new skills

18. Summary

19. Benefits • Improves students’ understanding of the nuances of professional writing • Engages and challenges students to work through their own topic in a way that identifies hurdles and provides immediate support from peers and faculty • Offers flexibility for a range of audiences and educational goals

20. Questions?