After reviewing my career as a teacher of composition and literature and as a writing program administrator of writing across the curriculum, I discuss the potential of poetry across the curriculum as an important tool for writing “against” the curriculum of academic discourse. When they write poetry, students often express meaningful thoughts and emotions not readily available to them in disciplinary languages and contexts.

How can we prepare the workforce of tomorrow to meet the increasing writing demand placed upon them in the Information Age? In this text, Anne Beaufort provides a multidimensional response to this critical question. Through analyzing the knowledge domains writers draw upon in specific writing situations, Beaufort illuminates the conditions that contribute to the ongoing development of writing skills. Using findings gathered in a longitudinal study of four women, Beaufort renders an ethnographical account of how writers are socialized into ways of communicating according to the conventions of their workplace. Beaufort offers a view of the developmental process entailed in attaining writing fluency in school and beyond, and the conditions that contribute to acquiring such expertise. Her book illuminates what it takes to foster the flexibility and versatility writers must possess in the workplace of the 21st century.

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.

Writing should be the business of the entire school community. This was the principle behind Michigan Tech's influential writing-across-the-curriculum program, which from 1977 to 1984 involved 250 faculty from virtually every discipline in fourteen intensive writing workshops. What have been its measurable effects on both faculty and students? What are the implications for other teaching communities? What are the implications for individuals within and without English and humanities departments? Young and Fulwiler bring together eighteen essays from participants and program staff that address these questions from different perspectives and with a variety of evaluative techniques.