by Steffanie Triller
Fry
According to the WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum)Clearinghouse, the basic principles of WAC encourage the entire academic
community to take responsibility for student writing. These principles encourage
writing that crosses departments, subjects, and disciplines, encourage
continuous writing instruction during students’ time in college, and explain
that students learn by writing; moreover, in order to learn the conventions of
any academic discipline, the basic principles claim that students must practice
writing in that discipline (“Basic principles of WAC”).
This
winter, the SNL Writing Program will pilot a revised version of its Writing
Workshop course that invites students to write in the disciplines, (a practice
known in rhetoric and composition circles as WID) or, to add another acronym to
our SNL catalogue, to “Write Across the Grid” (WAG).
Students
who elect the Writing Workshop course will now have the option of using the
course to focus on a writing project in the humanities, social sciences,
sciences, or the student’s focus area. As part of their investigation into what
makes for strong academic writing, they will also consider what it means to
write with a purpose and audience in the particular discipline that they have
chosen. We in the Writing Program believe that this revised course will better
support SNL students at all levels of writing and at all points in the program.
It also fills a gap in SNL’s curriculum: there is no other course that
specifically prepares students for the writing tasks they will encounter when
they take courses in the A, H, S, and Focus Area domains.
But I find this a fruitful moment
to remember that writing in SNL’s writing-intensive program is not only taught
in Writing for Competence and Writing Workshop. Few SNL students overall take
Writing Workshop, and yet all students must WAG, practicing the conventions of
writing in the humanities, the social sciences, and science and technology with
each course that they take. Per the “basic principles” listed above, we all
share responsibility for writing instruction, even if we are not writing
instructors.
According to Gottschalk and
Hjortshoj, writing courses, though they prepare students for the myriad tasks
that they will assume in their disciplinary courses, were never meant to
replace writing instruction in the disciplines. Rather, “Real writing
instruction has always occurred in other fields, contexts, and forms, in
courses of all sizes and at all levels throughout the curriculum – wherever
teachers take active measures to help their students write effectively” (6).
In The Elements of Teaching Writing: A Resource for Instructors in All
Disciplines, Gottschalk and Hjortshoj go on to say that this can be as
simple as being thoughtful and explicit about your own knowledge and
expectations. Meanwhile, the aptly titled section “How can I avoid getting
lousy student writing?” on The WAC Clearinghouse site provides practical tips
for crafting clear assignments and offering students instructive models that
make your expectations transparent.
In her tips for writing in the sciences for SNL students, SNL Resident Faculty member Dr. Akilah Martin
concludes, “Finally, science and scientific writing has the same goal as any other
genre and that is to report data in a detailed format, so as to provide the
reader an opportunity to evaluate the validity of the results and conclusions
centered only on the facts presented” (“Writing in the Scientific World”).
Whether our genre uses the words “report,” “data,” and “results” or “narrate,”
“story,” and “experience,” we can all give students clear expectations for
purpose, audience, and style in their writing, better enabling them to “Write
Across the Grid.”
Works
Cited
“Basic principles of WAC.” The WAC Clearinghouse. Colorado State University, n.d.
Web. 29 October 2015. <http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/pop3a.cfm>
Gottschalk, Katherine, and Keith Hjortshoj. Introduction. The Elements of Teaching
Writing:
A Resource for Instructors in All Disciplines. Boston: Bedford / St.
Martin’s, 2004. 1-11. Print.
“Writing in the Scientific World.” SNL Faculty Support:
Writing Resources. The
School for New Learning at DePaul
University, 17 October 2015. Web. 29
October 2015.
Resources for Writing
Across the Curriculum/Grid:
Consider using some time during your first class session to
remind students of or ask them to reflect on what they have already learned
about writing. Then, share your own expertise in writing in your field, and
invite your students to think about how what they already know can apply to the
writing that they will do in your course. These resources may be of use to you:
The WAC Clearinghouse: http://wac.colostate.edu/intro/index.cfm
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing
Center: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/ (see “Writing for Specific Fields”)
DePaul’s University Center for Writing-based Learning: http://condor.depaul.edu/writing/writers/types.html
(see “Common Writing Assignments”)
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