Dive Brief:

• While writing and writing courses are often thought of as being just a hurdle one needs to clear en route to a degree or diploma, a recent focus on the importance of writing to the success of tech disciplines is challenging that thinking.
• Not only is good written communication a strong job market differentiator, Jeremy Cunningham — who teaches at both the collegiate and high school levels — writes for eSchool News about the correlation between being a good writer and being a good coder. Many of the skills traditional prose writers possess, like having the ability to anticipate outcomes to a number of "what if" scenarios, are also critically important to the user experience end of coding.
• The author also points out that as artificial intelligence grows in popularity, an increasing amount of communication will take place via text, making the ability to effectively convey ideas in writing even more pressing.

Dive Insight:

The push for STEM innovation and global competitiveness led to an almost desertion of writing education in schools, leading to graduates who can barely put together a report. However, there is an increasing push around the importance of liberal arts subjects to success in tech fields, as major companies begin seeking more liberal arts graduates to fill their coffers. 

In reality, students need all of the above. Computational and analytical thinking is intrinsically tied into literacy, and if students are to be successful in the workplace, a cross-curricular, cross-discipline approach to learning is one way to ensure students possess all of the skills they need for jobs that don't even exist yet.