History of WAC
David Russell traces the history of WAC in the United States to the 1870s, the emergence of professional disciplines, and the new need for college-level instruction in writing.Russell, David R. Writing in the Academic Disciplines: A Curricular History. 2nd Ed. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002. Prior to this era, college students were exclusively (for all practical considerations) affluent white men whose natural discourse was identical to the approved discourse of the academy; therefore, their way of speaking and writing was already considered appropriate by and for the academy and composition didn't need to be taught at the college level. Two changes happened to motivate the need for college writing instruction. Firstly, as disciplines (as divisions within academic studies) and contemporary professions specialized, they developed their own specialized discourses. Because these discourses were not merely the same as the everyday discourse of the upper classes, they had to be taught. Secondly, as college students became more diverse – first in terms of social background and, later, in terms of gender, race, and age – not all college students grew up speaking the accepted language of the academy.Major theories
WAC efforts are usually driven principally by one of two theories: writing to learn or on learning to write in disciplinary discourses, sometimes also called writing in the disciplines. Though both may be used together, one of the two theories generally guides any given writing assignment and, often, any given WAC course.Writing to learn
Writing to learn is also occasionally referred to as the expressionist or cognitive mode of WAC.McLeod, Susan H. "Writing Across the Curriculum: An Introduction." Writing Across the Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Programs. Eds. Susan H. McLeod and Margot Soven. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1992. 1–11. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/landmarks/mcleod-soven/ Writing to learn supports the use of mostly informal, often ungraded writing exercises to help students understand course content in non-English disciplines. Writing to learn assumes that being able to explain or express concepts in one's own words both builds and reflects understanding. Because the goal of writing to learn exercises is learning rather than a finished writing product, instructors are discouraged from paying attention to grammar and surface mechanics. The student himself or herself, not the teacher, is the audience. Common writing to learn exercises include reading responses, journals,Writing in the disciplines
Writing in the disciplines is also occasionally referred to as the transactional or rhetorical mode of WAC. Writing in the Disciplines (WID) teaches students how to write acceptably in their respective disciplines. Writing in the Disciplines classes teach students to learn to write texts that they will apply in their scholarly and professional lives. Although WID and WAC are correlated, WID emphasizes disciplinary orientation. The students’ participation in their majors enlists the students in discourse communities, which are social groups that communicate, at least in part, via written texts and share common goals, values, and writing standards. These writing standards include but are not limited to specialized vocabularies and particular genres. The goal of WID is to allow students to demonstrate writing skills within the genres expected in academic and professional discourse communities. Reflection is considered an essential component of critical learning and problem solving, and as such, is indispensable for Writing in the Disciplines. Reflection tasks stimulate students to look back on completed tasks such as writings done in their respective disciplines with the aim to understand their accomplishments and steer future actions. Students are commonly asked to work out these reflections in a writing task. The act of writing itself promotes learning in a particular discipline. They also find writing within a discipline leads students to deploy different productive approaches to learning that they might not have otherwise applied. Writing in the discipline courses are commonly referred to as Writing Intensive courses(WI). Writing Intensive courses were developed for two reasons: 1) Students' writing skills would decrease if not consistently reinforced. 2) Students' writing improves significantly when they write involving their major. The controversy surrounding WID is who holds responsibility for teaching WID courses. The different models for teaching WID classes are the following: 1) The English (or Writing) department faculty teaches writing courses focused on individual disciplines. 2) English (or Writing) departments and other discipline departments collaborate on instructing writing courses for particular majors. Peterson talks about how english assignments done in the freshman year will carry on and relate to the writing assignments during the rest of ones college career. What is learned in one course can carry on to other courses. This knowledge can be spread by working with colleagues in the same and other departments on assignments and class discussions. By doing this, departments can learn about the similarities and differences they have between them. 3) Individual faculty of respective disciplines teach writing for their respective disciplines. Each university decides which model works best for their institution. For example,WID across the Globe
The University School of Business Administration (EAN) of Bogotá, Colombia, conducted a study where students took courses for writing in the disciplines. The study showed that writing in the disciplines had positive outcomes on students' performance. Students were split into writing courses based on their majors that would ultimately help them with discipline-specific writing. Courses offered for writing in the discipline included: Introduction to Administration, Principles and Theories of International Business, Economic Thought, Models of Organizational Communication and Foundation in Engineering. Not every major is the same, and there were some differences, the courses offered individual "work guides" for students so that they could focus more in-depth on writing in the discipline. The goal of this study was to help students read and write more critically and analytically.WID in the US
Possible Drawbacks of WID
One of the possible problems of applying the curriculum may be how different schools define their English/ writing departments. Departments that narrowly focus on only "literary" reading and writing may have some difficulty adapting to a curriculum that contains non-literary subjects (such as organic chemistry). The teachers may lack confidence in their ability to teach such subjects, as they were not the focus within their personal educational career. Another issue that may arise is the lack of an all-encompassing education within the English department staff. Most literature professionals specialize only in English or literature, but the writing in the disciplines course demands that the teachers must have a very broad field of experience and choosing said curriculum might prove to be difficult. What constitutes a good organic chemistry report may be completely opposite of what a well written literary article constitutes and if a professor chooses a source that is not an accurate representation of the subject, then that particular segment of the course will be moot. A problem that may affect the students is the case of information overload. Heavy information load can confuse the individual, affect his or her ability to set priorities and make prior information harder to recall. Within a very short amount a time, students are expected to learn how to proficiently write for disciplines all across the board. Because of the very nature of the class, students may find the subject overbearing and difficult to navigate. Students’ writing ability may not actually increase as they progress through upper-division writing classes. Instead, they may simply change their writing style to better fit the criteria of the reader/ teacher. Because of this, students can completely miss the point of WID classes and not learn the nuances between each discipline.WAC structure and implementation
WAC may exist as a formal program housed in or attached to an English department, a formal program as a free-standing unit reporting directly to a dean or vice president, a program attached to an all-campusWAC workshops
Workshops at which faculty from many disciplines meet to share ideas about and strategies around writing are a primary way in which WAC is enacted. Workshops serve multiple functions including: * Encouraging community amongst faculty interested in WAC * Allowing WAC faculty (often, but not always from English or composition studies) to share knowledge about writing to learn, writing process, providing student feedback, and other composition scholarship * Providing a forum for open discussion about writing and teaching * Giving faculty themselves an opportunity to experiment with different writing strategies including collaborative writing and peer-review and to experience something of how these strategies may feel for their students A major complaint against the workshop model of WAC is that it can encourage the mindset that writing pedagogy is relatively simple and can be mastered in a few days, whereas using writing effectively (in English or non-English classes) is widely recognized as taking years of practice.WAC in upper-division courses
On a programmatic level, WAC most often manifests as some kind of writing-intensive (also called writing-enriched or writing-in-the-major) courses. Courses carrying this designation typically meet university-wide criteria including a minimum number of pages or words students write over the semester (or some other measure of writing frequency), opportunity for revision, and deriving a significant portion of the final grade from writing. Writing-intensive courses also often have relatively small enrollment limits (15–35 students depending on institution) and may require faculty to participate in WAC-related professional development activities. The rationale for writing-intensive coursework includes: * ''Writing practice'' – as with any other skill, students' writing abilities will atrophy if they are left unpracticed; writing-intensive courses ensure that students continue to write after leavingWAC in first-year composition
While WAC is usually understood as distributing writing across the curriculum in courses outside of English departments, a WAC philosophy can also influence the structure of first-year composition courses. Because first-year composition is often the only writing course students take, the composition of the class can shape students' understanding of what writing is.Peterson, Linda H. "Writing Across the Curriculum and/in the Freshman English Program." Writing Across the Curriculum: A Guide to Developing Programs. Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1992. 58–70. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/landmarks/mcleod-soven/ Incorporating writing from diverse academic genres can therefore expand students' expectations about what constitutes "writing." WAC in first-year composition owes much to genre theory (Writing-Enriched Curriculum
Writing-Enriched Curriculum (or WEC) is a movement that scholars have recently started to implement in university programs across the U.S. With its basic premise reflecting WAC's integration of relevant writing throughout all student's courses, WEC aims to focus on faculty involvement and intense reflection upon devising a writing program that is effective and relevant for students in their various fields of study.Precursors of WEC
In the late 1990s, North Carolina State University developed an approach to writing across the curriculum that involved extensive consultation by writing experts with individual departments. These consultations began with a focus on the qualities and characteristics faculty felt that student majors would exhibit if they were strong communicators. Those discussions led to the articulation of learning outcomes for both writing and oral communication. The departments then developed implementation plans that could help them reach the outcomes, followed or preceded by plans for assessing student abilities in order to further refine or project plans for implementation. The Campus Writing and Speaking Program, directed since 1999 by Distinguished Professor Chris Anson (www.ansonica.net), provided much of the support for this campus-wide approach. A few years into the program's existence, Anson and colleague Michael Carter (who is often credited with originating the departmentally-focused conversations on which WEC is founded) consulted with Pamela Flash at the University of Minnesota (where Anson had been a professor for 15 years) to help them spearhead a similar effort. Minnesota evolved the approach into a portable model, shifting from a focus on outcomes-oriented assessment to a faculty-driven, long-term process of sustainable curricular transformation). They branded their model, which is being implemented and adapted by an increasing number of institutions, "WEC." WEC is both a specific model and a developing concept relating to WAC; the acronym was created by Pamela Flash and her colleagues at The University of Minnesota.Flash, Pamela (2016) From Apprised to Revised: Faculty in the disciplines change what they never knew they knew. Available at https://wec.umn.edu/sites/wec.umn.edu/files/flash_chapter2016.pdf Flash is the university's director of Writing Across the Curriculum, founding director of the Writing-Enriched Curriculum and co-director of the writing center. As a pioneer of the WEC writing instruction model, the University of Minnesota has had its faculty enroll up to 5 units of WEC plans per year into the undergraduate curriculum for up to 10 years.The WEC model
According to the WEC website at theThe principles of WAC and the WEC model
Because WEC closely reflects WAC, the principles that Barbara Walvoord gives to devise a WAC program are similar to Anson's Campus Writing and Speaking Program at NC State and Pamela Flash's WEC model at the University of Minnesota. James K. Elmborg's work on information literacy and WAC summarizes Walvoord's characteristics of creating a WAC program as: * Including colleagues from various disciplines, including teaching assistants and students, as they will all be affected by the WAC program the most. * Discussing what needs and concerns need to be met with a WAC program and who will be willing to dedicate time to implementing the curriculum. * What changes will be made to address this—whether it be in school-wide assessments, writing centers or classroom methods * School administrators will then oversee and facilitate WAC but should not be seen as dictators. Similarly, both Anson's approach at NC State and Pamela Flash's model at the University of Minnesota reflect the same idea of coming together with faculty members from various fields throughout the curriculum and implementing these changes cohesively. The main point of difference between WAC and WEC, however, is that WEC requires faculty to maintain intentional support activity and assessment of how the program is affecting their students and to make changes, if necessary.{{cite web, title=Research & Assessment, url=https://wec.umn.edu/research-assessment, website=University of Minnesota, access-date=20 April 2018 By comparison, WAC does not require routinely assessment as part of its model. Like WAC, Flash's WEC model also requires ongoing implementation and incremental direct and indirect assessment, which allows the faculty-implemented plans to sustain. Anson's program at NC State revisits departments to conduct "profiles" of their efforts, resulting in a formative report for the department's use According to Flash, WEC differs from most WAC programming in its departmental locus and its direct focus on the ways that faculty members in diverse disciplines conceptualize writing and writing instruction.Evolution of the Writing-Enriched Curriculum
The process in the development of the Writing-Enriched Curriculum provides a space for equal dialogue between all faculty in all disciplines. WEC is no longer solely dedicated to composition studies and other writing courses, but has expanded toward the Performing Arts curriculum achieving interdepartmental dialogue between all faculty. In turn, WEC now focuses on creating, discovering, and using a language that can be translated into practical, academic, creative and professional fields.Criticisms
P.A. Ramsay, in his paper Writing across the curriculum: Integrating discourse communities in the academy, found that students that participate in WAC programs become better communicators in their chosen discipline and demonstrated improved critical/analytical thinking.Ramsay, P.A. (2008). ''Writing across the curriculum: Integrating discourse communities in the academy.'' Kingston, Jamaica: School of Education, University of West Indies. Disadvantages of WAC include fears that the teaching style will reduce the available time to teach content material, difficulties getting teachers "on board" with the style, as well as fears that the teacher is ill-equipped to teach writing. Ramsay also found while working inSee also
*References
Further reading
*Syracuse University