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457 articlesJanuary 1995
1995
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Abstract
At first glance, it might be difficult to find two writing programs that seem to work together more harmoniously than Writing Across the Curriculum and writing centers. WAC engenders more writing in more classes, and writing centers help students to improve their writing skills and produce, presumably, better papers. Administratively, the two programs are often seen as complementary if not conjoined. If more writing is going to be demanded of more students in more classes, then those students will need additional support services as they work to complete their assignments. And though there may, in some cases, be the money and motivation necessary to create intradepartmental tutorial services for the benefit of students within each major, most often the responsibility for writing assistance either falls on (or is specifically delegated to) the campus writing center This approach may appear to have significant merit and may, in fact, be looked on with a good deal of satisfaction by interested parties on all sides.
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Abstract
With the explosive growth of writing across the curriculum programs, many institutions are investing in classroom tutoring programs, often called curriculum-based programs to distinguish them from tutoring based in a campus writing center. Curriculum-based tutoring includes attaching tutors to students in courses across the disciplines; assigning tutors to teach adjunct writing workshops; or, in the case of the project I will describe, assigning writing center tutors to work directly with instructors in composition courses.2
November 1994
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Abstract
Preview this article: A Narratological Analysis of WAC Authorship, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/56/7/collegeenglish9200-1.gif
October 1994
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Writing across the Business Curriculum: An Alternative Means of Developing and Assessing Written Communication Skills ↗
Abstract
For three years, the School of Business explored writing across the curriculum (WAC) approaches for developing written communication skills of undergraduate business majors. In selected classes, instructors stressed links between understanding concepts and being able to write clearly about them, improved design of assignments, and improved feedback to students. Instructors participating in this study concluded that a WAC approach improved the quality of student writing and the applications of course concepts. They also concluded that these improvements carried over to subsequent courses. Students reported using more care in revising drafts and more attention overall, to writing in certain settings. Their attention peaked when the instructor emphasized writing. A minority of students maintained, however, that writing should be evaluated only in writing classes taught by English faculty and that evaluation of writing should not be used to determine the grades they receive on assignments or for the course itself.
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Abstract
Preview this article: Evolving Paradigms: WAC and the Rhetoric of Inquiry, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/45/3/collegecompositionandcommunication8778-1.gif
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Preface - Elaine Maimon Writing Across the Curriculum - Susan H McLeod An Introduction Getting Started - Barbara E Walvoord Faculty Workshops - Joyce Neff Magnotto and Barbara R Stout Starting A WAC Program - Karen Wiley Sandler Strategies for Administrators Writing Across the Curriculum and/in the Freshman English Program - Linda H Peterson Writing-Intensive Courses - Christine Farris and Raymond Smith A Tool for Curricular Change WAC and General Education Courses - Christopher Thaiss Writing Components, Writing Adjuncts, Writing Links - Joan Graham The Writing Consultant - Peshe C Kuriloff Collaboration and Team Teaching The Writing Center and Tutoring in WAC Programs - Muriel Harris Changing Students' Attitudes - Tori Haring-Smith Writing Fellows Programs Conclusion - Margot Soven Sustaining Writing Across the Curriculum Programs
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Abstract
university campuses gathered at the University of California, Santa Barbara, at a conference we organized to discuss the pedagogy and politics of in the disciplines. Some teams were comprised of writing program lecturers at University of California campuses; teams from other universities consisted of tenure-track faculty in composition and other fields who were developing and teaching in WAC programs at their campuses. Discussion centered around the politics of WAC, institutional constraints, collegial networking, faculty development, and teaching models and objectives. Though participants welcomed such discussion, when group members began to name what they did and to define their goals, a level of conflict emerged that surprised us. Some participants spoke long and heatedly about the primacy of writing to learn, while others argued with equal heat for the power of discourse conventions in specific fields. A gap soon opened between the two groups that seemed almost unbridgeable. Upon reflection, we realized that the conference was playing out in microcosm one of the major conflicts in our field-a conflict variously expressed as voice versus discourse, learning versus performance, process versus form. In this article we explore the theoretical and pedagogical implications of this conflict for writing across the curriculum. We argue that the conflict itself is based on a false dichotomy and that work in the social construction of knowledge-particularly the concept of rhetoric of
May 1994
January 1994
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Abstract
Creating a Textbook Writing Across the Curriculum activities have been successful not only in improving the art of writing but in fostering a wide variety of other skills critical to collegiate learning, such as conceptual integration (Weiss & Walter, 1980) and interdisciplinary study (Hamilton, 1980). The creation of a collaborative textbook, documents in which student writing representing the bulk of course work is assembled, has been used extensively with young students (Weiss and Walter, 1980). Its use as the exclusive text in a college setting remains unreported in recent educational literature, although this does not mean it is untried. Each semester during the 1992-93 academic year, two sections of undergraduates at Plymouth State College studied introductory psychology without purchasing any text or reserve materials. Students in these sections instead used a Writing-Across-the-Curriculum approach, in which writing and research skills were developed through mutually supporting projects. The students wrote their own textbook after researching key topics, while other students edited their work for accuracy, concepts, and form. All students reviewed and critiqued professional journal research for their semester papers. The students even proposed and wrote the questions on their final examinations. By the end of their term, participants had found, read, and critiqued journal-level research with the familiarity of graduating seniors. They had written an average of two pages of critical essays each week. Three out
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Abstract
Many upper division business courses focus on applying the concepts and techniques studied throughout the undergraduate curriculum. The case method, which is often used to teach upper division business courses, exposes students to complex situations, aids in developing their analytical skills, and provides students with an opportunity to offer integrative solutions. An assortment of writing assignments for these case courses can enhance learning. Writing business memos and reports from a variety of organiza-tional perspectives and to a number of organizational audiences enables students to explore the realities of crafting business docu-ments meant to communicate and convince. The use of various perspectives and audiences challenges students to recognize the impact of organizational position in creating and maintaining a voice when writing. Assignments that Permit an Exploration of Voice By design, many of Plymouth State College’s upper division business courses are integrative. As an example, to enroll in Administrative Policy students need to have completed courses in (1994) 74 Writing Across the Curriculum
December 1993
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Abstract
Most studies dealing with feedback and revision focus on teachers and students in composition courses. However, there is insufficient evidence for assuming that these studies are applicable to writing situations in non-composition courses. To investigate the writing processes of non-composition students, this study describes patterns of feedback and revision in four writing across the curriculum (WAC) courses. The first and final drafts of 20 WAC students were analyzed by a team of readers to determine the following: 1) the apparent aims and criteria underlying the feedback they received on first drafts; 2) the extent to which the students utilized this feedback while revising; 3) the criteria most affected by the revisions; and 4) the extent of the revisions. Several patterns that emerged in this study resemble those found in research involving composition classrooms, although there are some differences as well. The study also highlights several issues for future research, including the source of a writer’s or reader’s criteria for effective writing and the comparative value of global and non-global revisions.
October 1993
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Abstract
To understand the ways students learn to write, we must go beyond the small and all too often marginalized component of the curriculum that treats writing explicitly and look at the broader, though largely tacit traditions students encounter in the whole curriculum, explains David R. Russell, in the introduction to this singular study. The updated edition provides a comprehensive history of writing instruction outside general composition courses in American secondary and higher education, from the founding of public secondary schools and research universities in the 1870s, through the spread of the writing-across-the-curriculum movement in the 1980s, through the WAC efforts in contemporary curriculums.
July 1993
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Abstract
This essay situates the phenomenon of writing and learning in historical, pedagogical, and theoretical frameworks to isolate write-to-learn methods derived from the “British model” of language and learning. Writing as a mode of learning has maintained its status partly because of the rise of rhetoric and composition as a specialized field and because cross-curricular writing instruction has been offered as one answer to alleged “crises” of literate standards and competence in public and higher education. Generally, the author claims that typical accounts of writing as a unique tool for promoting learning ignore the complexities of cultures, classrooms, assignments, and other media that might equally facilitate learning. The author's reading of 35 studies of writing and learning is that they do not provide the long-sought empirical validation of writing as a mode of learning. He argues that this research is grounded in the same assumptions about language and learning as are common in the lore and practice of “writing across the curriculum” (WAC) and writing process approaches, and as a result, the issue of writing and learning has been framed wrongly. The confounds within this body of research are many of the cognitive and situational variables that would support a model of writing and learning that is compatible with the diverse discourses and experiences within and across institutions.
February 1993
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Abstract
Preview this article: Where Do We Go Next in Writing across the Curriculum?, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ccc/44/1/collegecompositioncommunication8845-1.gif
January 1993
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Do university writing experiences prepare students for future job-related writing tasks? If not, how can we create a smoother transition from the academy to the workplace? The author analyzes the differing discourse communities of academic writing and technical communication which may limit the transfer of skills from one arena to the next. The discussion considers the ways process, collaborative learning, writing across the curriculum, and language theories can form the foundation for constructive communication among disciplines. As the focus of academic writing moves from an emphasis on the individual to social context and wider audiences, it bridges the gap between disciplines and can ease the movement from the classroom to real-world settings.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">></ETX>
October 1992
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In classes ranging from Advanced Expository and Women and at the undergraduate level to Gender, Language, and Writing Pedagogy and Classical and Contemporary Rhetoric at the graduate level, I have invited students to imagine the possibilities for new forms of discourse, new kinds of academic essays. I do because I believe that writing classes (and the whole field of composition studies) must employ richer visions of texts and composing processes. If are to invent a truly pluralistic society, must envision a socially and politically situated view of language and the creation of texts-one that takes into account gender, race, class, sexual preference, and a host of issues that are implied by these and other cultural differences. Our language and our written texts represent our visions of our culture, and need new processes and forms if are to express ways of thinking that have been outside the dominant culture. Finally, I believe that teaching students to write involves teaching them ways to critique not only their material and their potential readers' needs, but also the rhetorical conventions that they are expected to employ within the academy. Work in composition has been expanded enormously by theories of cognitive processes, social construction, and by the uses of computers and other forms of technology, yet, as Adrienne Rich writes, we might hypothetically possess ourselves of every recognized technological resource on the North American continent, but as long as our language is inadequate, our vision remains formless, our thinking and feeling are still running in the old cycles, our process may be 'revolutionary,' but not transformative (Rich 247-48). David Kaufer and Cheryl Geisler argue that freshmen composition and writing across the curriculum have remained silent about newness as a rhetorical standard, as a hallmark of literacy in a post-industrial, professional age. They do not believe that this silence can be justified on either intellectual or pragmatic grounds . (309).
January 1992
November 1991
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Abstract
Preview this article: Writing Utopias: Writing Across the Curriculum and the Promise of Reform, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/53/7/collegeenglish9544-1.gif
September 1991
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In an Afterword to their book Writing Across Discipline: Research into Practice, Art Young and Toby Fulwiler speak of the enemies of writing across curriculum (287) ... most significant of which, they suggest, may be collectively, a set of entrenched attitudes ... shared to some extent by faculty, administrators, students, and general public (292-3). The attitudes described are in many ways predictable, running from seeing of any organized attempt to change teaching strategy as an attack on academic freedom, all way down to such assertions as:
February 1991
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Abstract
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December 1990
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This book describes in detail successful writing-across-the-curriculum programs at fourteen colleges and universities in the United States. Each chapter is written by a team of participating instructors, many representing disciplines other than English.
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Abstract
The English Coalition Conference: Democracy through Language, Richard Lloyd-Jones and Andrea A. Lunsford S. Michael Halloran and John Hollow Developing Successful College Writing Programs, Edward M. White Louise Wetherbee Phelps Advanced Placement English.: Theory, Politics, and Pedagogy, Gary A. Olson, Elizabeth Metzger, and Evelyn Ashton-Jones David W. Chapman Creating Writers: Linking Assessment and Writing Instruction, Vicki Spandel and Richard J. Stiggins Karen L. Greenberg A Program Development Handbook for the Holistic Assessment of Writing, Norbert Elliot, Maximino Plata,and Paul Zelhart Edward M. White Programs That Work: Models and Methods for Writing Across the Curriculum, Toby Fulwiler and Art Young Disciplinary Perspectives on Thinking and Writing, Barbara S. Morris Joseph F. Trimmer Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification, Bruce Lincoln Joseph Harris
February 1990
January 1990
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Abstract
Literacy instruction or the lack of it has a wide range of social consequencespolitical, economic, cultural. These consequences are most obvious when the members of some community are forbidden by law to learn to read-as, for example, blacks were in states of the antebellum South-in order to prevent them from raising their social standing and posing a political, economic, or cultural threat to the dominant community. More subtle but equally pervasive consequences stem from restrictions on advanced forms of literacy. In modern urbanindustrial society, less visible barriers to achieving advanced literacy also preserve the integrity and status of existing communities and limit access to coveted social roles. That process, however, like modern society itself, is much more complex than the crude legal bans on literacy common in agrarian societies.
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Abstract
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October 1989
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A Bridge to Academic Discourse: Social Science Research Strategies in the Freshman Composition Course ↗
Abstract
learning, one that will bring about changes in teaching as well as in student writing. We also need to establish quite clearly that WAC programs certainly do not exclude examinations and more coursework in writing as a means of establishing proficiency, but that WAC is not to be identified solely with writing proficiency. Finally, there is an issue not dealt with directly by my survey, but which has come up in anecdotal comments at the meetings of the National Network of Writing Across the Curriculum Programs and which deserves further study-the matter of change and faculty resistance to it. The idea and the practice of writing to learn goes against the predominant paradigm of education in the university, which valorizes the teacher-centered lecture class. In this paradigm, students are passive rather than active learners; they learn from the expert, not from each other. WAC programs challenge this notion of education, and those of us involved in such programs like to point to the successes we have had in changing faculty attitudes towards writing and learning (See Robert Weiss and Michael Peich, Attitude Change in a Cross-Disciplinary Writing Program, CCC 31 [Feb. 1980): 33-41). But changing attitudes and changing actual classroom practice may be two different things. Faculty resistance to change can be profound, as Deborah Swanson-Owens found in Identifying Natural Sources of Resistance (Research in the Teaching of English 20 [Feb. 1986): 69-97). Such resistance could, over a number of years, gradually wear away even the most firmly established institutional program. But I do not want to end on a negative note. While we need to be aware of the dangers that face the WAC movement in general and second-stage programs in particular, the survey results indicate cause for some cautious celebration. WAC as a movement is strong and is continuing to grow. It is up to all of us involved in such programs to be alert to the dangers, but also to be pleased that we have come this far.
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Abstract
This revised and retitled edition of Searching includes two additional papers, one by a teacher, and a new chapter entitled Larger Context, which shows how the I Search concept can work throughout the whole curriculum in school and college. As with the first edition, The I-Search Paper is more than just a textbook; it's a new form of instructional help -- a context -- that shows students what authority is in matters of learning and invites them to join the author and teacher in the educational movement called Writing to Learn. To put this book in the hands of all the students in the course is not only to help them carry out an but to introduce them in a delightful way to the resources and tools of intellectual inquiry -- but one that never forgets the emotional or physical side of human activity. This is a rare textbook that treats students as partners in learning. It shows what it is to take charge of one's own learning and suggests that this move is one that productive people keep making throughout their lives.
April 1989
January 1989
December 1988
April 1988
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Abstract
Preview this article: Opinion: Only One of the Voices: Dialogic Writing Across the Curriculum, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/50/4/collegeenglish11393-1.gif
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In the new world of writing across the curriculum, English departments are still trying to find their role. They have been in charge of writing instruction for so long that they often feel that they should institute, or at least lead, writingacross-the-curriculum programs. But I want to argue that the English department should have no special role in writing across the curriculum-no unique leadership role and no exclusive classes to teach-not even freshman composition. Instead, a writing-across-the-curriculum program should be designed, administered, and taught equally by all departments. True writing across the curriculum should be based on dialogue among all the departments, and, in this dialogue, the English department should be only one of the voices.
1988
October 1987
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Abstract
Although engineers spend a substantial amount of their time writing or delivering oral presentations, the typical engineering curriculum segregates communications instruction from technical coursework. But out of an increasing sense of responsibility to provide more authentic professional training, engineering educators are developing programs which bring “real-life” contexts into the classroom. As a result, technical communications instruction is changing in significant ways. Writing clinics are tailoring their services to the precise needs of those they serve and expanding the range of professional support they offer. Furthermore, writing across the curriculum has significantly influenced engineering by linking composing and understanding. New communications courses parallel professional classes, and some redesigned engineering courses actually integrate verbal communication with “subject matter” instruction, Since these broad structural renovations are paradigmatic for other professional programs, technical writing teachers can and should facilitate and support such developments.
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Preview this article: A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/rte/21/3/researchintheteachingofenglish15574-1.gif
May 1987
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December 1986
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I am coming on my twentieth year of teaching composition to college freshmen, and my fifteenth administering a composition program. These anniversaries incite me to think about the circles we who teach writing have perambulated in that time-to count the ways we have, for worse and better, changed how we shape composition programs, how we manage those programs, and how we teach the courses in them. From the fifties through my days as a student and then as a new teacher, rhetoric-meaning the analysis and presentation of arguments-dominated college composition programs. But at many colleges then, the English requirement included a literature survey, and composition programs often and awkwardly stirred rhetoric and literature in one pot. For example, research papers were on literary topics, an approach that encouraged publishers to produce hundreds of excellent casebooks, all recycled long ago. The rhetorical lion and literary lamb did not get on amicably, however. They tussled. The lamb often turned wolfish. The experiential programs of the early seventies-with their emphasis on narration and description, on journal writing, on films and visual arts as aids to invention-were a victory for the literateurs, and their last hour. For then came graduate programs in composition, and the gospel of process was heard in the land. Rhetoric-now meaning heuristic strategies-ascended. Literature became, and has remained, a negligible part of most composition programs. And today, as the slogan Writing Across the Curriculum is blazoned on textbook covers and eagerly mouthed by deans who see a way to save a buck, literaturemeaning the study of fiction, drama, and perhaps even (though that's radical) poetry for their own sweet sakes-dwindles to a thin shade in freshman writing