Writing Science: Improving Understanding and Communication Skills with the “Unessay”

Professionals in natural resources are increasingly engaging with the public (Novacek 2008), and students are often expected to complete their undergraduate degree with the skills required to communicate with broad, diverse audiences (Henke and Krausman 2017). These skills, however, are often overlooked in classrooms in favor of a curriculum more focused on technical concepts. In a sophomore‐level wildlife course at the University of Wyoming, two of the authors (RJ and KM) employed a relatively unconventional teaching approach (the option of an unessay) to allow students to engage with course materials in a way that would allow them to practice communication skills for their respective careers. The unessay submissions far exceeded expectations and demonstrated a high level of engagement with course material. Although one semester with one course limits the conclusions we can draw, the students' work suggests that the unessay can be a powerful exercise for developing both understanding and communication skills in a wildlife biology class. The unessay is an assignment that gives students freedom to decide what elements of a prompt they want to focus on and the specific ways they want to accomplish these goals (Sullivan 2015, O'Donnell 2018). For example, students can write a poem, draw a comic, or compose a song about some aspect of the material. Any sort of submission can work, so long as the message is communicated effectively and is in line with the content and ideas presented in the course. Although the unessay was originally used in the humanities, the exercise can be readily adapted for science classrooms (Aycock et al. 2019). The unessay can provide wildlife students with the opportunity to engage with course material in ways that are often overlooked by traditional classroom exercises. By choosing the medium through which they respond, students can use their respective learning preferences, which will not be uniform across the class, to meet the assignment objectives (Othman and Amiruddin 2010). This makes space for diverse learning strategies that may not always be well‐suited for writing essays (Tanner and Allen 2004). Additionally, exercises that present problems and allow students to respond in multiple formats, such as the unessay, encourage students to think about issues and approaches to problem‐solving in new ways (Bean 2011). Science curricula primarily focus on developing technical skills, though approaches that use more creative skills can promote innovation and a deeper connection to course materials (Turner and Freedman 2004).