Scott Franklin Lisa Hermsen Rochester Institute of Technology Can Students Write to Learn? Exploring Student Writing in Physics Writing assignments (typically lab reports) are commonly used to assess student knowledge in both introductory and upper-level physics classes. This purpose alone, however, cannot explain the prevalence of such assignments, and it is also thought that writing helps students effectively learn physics. A justification for this is found in initiatives such as Writing-Across-the-Curriculum and Writing-in-the-Disciplines, which claim that (1) students can master discipline-specific conventions (e.g. beliefs about what constitutes evidence, logic, and proof) by writing within disciplinary courses and(2) understanding these conventions leads to content mastery. This is consistent with physics education research showing that students'beliefs about what it means to know physics can affect their learning. We have tried various ways to incorporate writing into Explorations in Physics, a research-based course for non-science majors. None have been satisfactory; while they have yielded a slew of interesting writing for us to analyze, it seems clear that the students aren't learning from the process. Nor, unfortunately, are they learning to write like physicists. We will describe the different ways we have analyzed student writing and our initial attempts at interviewing students about their attitudes toward writing. Rather than presenting conclusions, however, we will end with an unanswered question: what must we first learn in order to use writing as a pedagogical tool and how is it learned?