Writing Across the Curriculum


WAC is an acronym for Writing Across the Curriculum, a term that can mean many things: a proactive movement among faculty, usually led by English teachers to promote the teaching of writing in all disciplines, a theoretical philosophy about the relationship between writing, learning, and disciplinary knowledge, and various pedagogical methods for improving student writing, to name just a few. However the term is used, it represents a perceived need to put writing back into the curriculum, and its important to remember that WAC as a movement began as a response to writing leaving the college curriculum in the first place. (There is, for example, no RAC, or reading-across-the-curriculum, movement, presumable because everyone still agrees that reading is an integral part of any course at any level in any discipline.

Ask most faculty at most colleges and universities about the importance of writing in the curriculum,and they will also agree that good writing is essential to success in their classroom and their discipline. However, faculty disagree about where writing should be taught in the curriculum. Many faculty make the distinction between teaching writing and requiring writing; for example, an upper-level course in Sociology may require an extensive research paper, but the professor may assume that his or her students have already learned how to prepare, write, and document that research in required composition courses. WAC was born as a response to this belief that writing should be taught once and for all in Freshman Composition courses.

Purdue University: Purdue University's site offers information on WAC and Writing in the Disciplines (WID).
Indiana University: The Campuswide Writing Program at Indiana University exists to help faculty members deal with the demands of using writing in their undergraduate courses. This web site contains a description of the programs mission and an outline of services available to IU faculty (assistance with assignment design, with responding to written work, and in training graders); link s to citations for articles on the use of writing in classes; and a link to the web site for Writing Tutorial Services, the IU writing center.
The Citadel Writing Center: An example of Writing Center Homepage that offers access to tutoring, grammar help, and information about Communication Across the Curriculum.
Southern Writing Program: An example of a Writing Across the Curriculum program that offers online services for faculty and students at Southern Connecticut University in New Haven.
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