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Chapter Topics: [ I. Administration & Governance] [ II. Funding, Budget and Operations] [ III. Personnel ] [ IV. Other Personnel Policies ] [ V. Curriculum and Related Policies ] [ VI. Student Academic Affairs ] [ VII. College Relations ] [ VIII. Resources & Services ] [ Glossary of L&S Terms ]
Chapter V Contents: [ V.1 Registration, Timetable & Enrollment Management ] [ V.2 Class Size & Course Enrollment Restrictions ] [ V.3 Instructional Workloads and Class Meeting Times ] [ V.4. Academic Program Review Guidelines ] [ V.5 Curricular Changes ] [ V.6 Academic Assessment ] [ V.7 General Education Requirements ] [ V.8 Writing Across the Curriculum ] [ V.9 The L&S Honors Program ] [ V.10 Service Learning and Community Based Research ] [ V.11 Instructional Materials ] [ V.12 Special Course and Non-Standard Fees ] [ V.13 Use of Readers ] [ V.14 Faculty & Student Evaluations ] [ V.15 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Compliance ] [ V.16 Students Called to Military Service ] [ V.17 Holding Classes Off Campus ] [ V.18 Directed Study Issues ]

V.8 THE L&S PROGRAM IN WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM AND WRITING INTENSIVE COURSES

Writing Across The Curriculum
Director: Brad Hughes
Department of English
6187F Helen C. White Hall
(608) 263-3823
bhughes@facstaff.wisc.edu 

The L&S Program in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) helps faculty in all disciplines find successful ways to integrate writing activities into their teaching. To that end, staff in the WAC program:

sponsor workshops for faculty and TAs on designing effective writing assignments and responding to student writing
develop workshops on writing for faculty in individual L&S departments
consult individually with faculty and TAs about the writing component of their courses
help departments plan and develop Communication B and writing-intensive courses
publish a handbook for faculty about teaching writing-intensive courses
publish a newsletter, Time to Write, that features innovative ways in which L&S faculty use writing in their courses
maintain a library of sample assignments and of articles about using writing assignments in different disciplines

Contact Brad Hughes, the director of the WAC program, to arrange for this kind of consultation or to request any of these materials.

The L&S WAC program, like similar ones at most universities around the country, encourages faculty to make writing activities a central part of their teaching. Among the many reasons for emphasizing writing in courses across the curriculum:

writing is an important means by which students can learn the subject matter of a course; carefully designed writing assignments can, for example, help students learn to understand and respond critically to course readings, prepare them to participate in a class discussion, synthesize lectures and readings, or propose and test new ideas for research; writing provides opportunities for students--and faculty--to generate ideas, shape them into coherent form, and share them with others for criticism and improvement
students need to write regularly throughout their undergraduate studies; to some extent, writing is a skill that atrophies if it's not practiced; having students write in many courses across the curriculum thus builds on the foundation established in the new first-year communication courses
the kinds of thinking and writing done vary in different disciplines and majors; incorporating writing activities into courses across the disciplines provides important opportunities for students to learn to do the kinds of intellectual work done within their majors and to prepare for the writing they'll do as part of their careers

Undergraduate Writing Fellows

The Undergraduate Writing Fellows program, which is part of the L&S Writing Center, trains carefully selected undergraduates to serve as peer writing tutors, called Writing Fellows, who assist students and professors in Comm-B and writing-intensive courses. Chosen through a competitive application process, Writing Fellows write comments on drafts of assigned papers and hold conferences with all students in a course, offering suggestions for revision before the papers are turned in to the professor to be graded.

Since its beginning in 1997, this program has placed Writing Fellows in courses across the L&S curriculum, including African Languages and Literature, Afro-American Studies, American Indian Studies, Art History, Chemistry, Communication Arts, Communicative Disorders, Comparative Literature, English, Geography, History, History of Science, ILS, Languages and Cultures of Asia, Literature in Translation, Mathematics, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, Theatre and Drama, Women's Studies, and Zoology.

Faculty and instructional academic staff are eligible to apply to work with a Writing Fellow if they:

will have between 15 and 40 students enrolled in the course
are willing to meet regularly with the assigned Fellow(s) to discuss assignments
are willing to adjust their course syllabus to allow time for revision and to require that all enrolled students work with the assigned Fellow(s)
are teaching a Communication-B or writing-intensive, or a course with at least two writing assignments spread out during the semester

To learn more about the Writing Fellows program or to apply to work with a Fellow in a course, faculty should contact Emily Hall, Associate Director of the Writing Fellows program (ebhall@facstaff.wisc.edu, 263-3754), or Brad Hughes, Director of the Writing Center (bthughes@facstaff.wisc.edu, 263-3823). The number of Writing Fellows is limited, so the sooner faculty indicate their interest, the better.

Assistance with Communication-B courses

During Welcome Week in both the fall and spring semesters, the L&S Program in Writing Across the Curriculum holds training sessions for TAs who are teaching Communication-B courses. Faculty are also welcome to attend these sessions. WAC staff are available to consult individually with TAs and faculty about designing a sequence of writing assignments for a Comm-B courses, and about strategies for teaching students about writing within a particular discipline. They are also available to team-teach brief units on writing in Comm-B courses. For schedules of the Comm-B training and to arrange for individual consultations, contact Brad Hughes.

Writing-Intensive Courses

Beyond the General Education requirements in communication, faculty and staff in the College offer more than 150 courses designated as "Writing Intensive" (WI) in each academic year with a total enrollment of over 6,000 students. Current guidelines for this voluntary program appear below. The decision of whether or not a course is to be designated as a WI course is decided on a semester-by-semester and instructor-by-instructor basis. The Writing-Across-the-Curriculum program plays a key role in assisting faculty and staff in developing such courses. There are several models for WI courses, depending on the discipline of the course. Departments are particularly encouraged to develop Writing-Intensive courses in the major to complement and extend the General Education communications requirements. A writing requirement in one's major department sends a strong message to students that writing is important in their discipline of choice, both as an aid in promoting learning and understanding, and as a necessary skill for later employment.

Current Guidelines for WI Courses:

Writing-Intensive (WI) courses take many different forms, but they all share the assumption that writing facilitates learning. Writing-intensive courses do not teach writing; they instead use a wide variety of writing activities, closely integrated with the course material, to help students master the knowledge and the skills relevant to that course. Although there is no strict requirement about the number of pages students must write in such a course, students should write regularly throughout the semester, and their written work should constitute a significant portion of their final grade. Ideally, students should be given the opportunity to write in a variety of forms, both formal (for example, book reviews, lab reports, observation reports, research papers) and informal (for example, journals, responses to lectures or readings, course dictionaries of important course terms and concepts).

Writing-intensive courses further assume that writing is a process. This means that students should be given the opportunity to develop and revise some of their work before it is evaluated and graded. During the writing process, some class time should be devoted to discussion of writing; such instruction might include a discussion of discipline-specific writing models or a brief lesson on a particular writing issue. In addition, students should be given the opportunity to receive feedback on their writing from peers and from the course instructor and then to revise their work based on this feedback.

Minimum Requirements

To be designated as writing-intensive, a course must fulfill the following minimum requirements. Exceptions to some of these requirements may be made for faculty who have compelling pedagogical reasons to adjust these requirements.

Writing assignments must be an integral, ongoing part of the course, and the writing assignments must constitute a substantial and clearly understood component of the final course grade. Assignments must be structured and sequenced in such a way as to help students improve their writing. Instructors in writing-intensive courses should not just assign writing; they should help students succeed with and learn from that writing.
There must be at least four discrete writing assignments spread throughout the semester, not including in-class essay exams.
At least one assignment must involve revision; the draft and revision may count as two discrete writing assignments. Exceptions will be allowed for instructors who instead choose to use a sequence of repeated assignments.
Students must produce a total of at least 14 double-spaced pages (c. 4000 words) of finished prose; this total does not include pages in drafts. When the writing is in a foreign language, a lower number of total pages may be appropriate.
Instructors must provide feedback on student's writing assignments.
Some class time must be devoted to preparing students to complete writing assignments. Some options include:
discussion of assignments and of evaluation criteria
analysis and discussion of sample student papers
discussion of writing in progress, using examples of successful work from students
peer group activities that prepare students to write a particular paper, such as sharing and discussion of plans, outlines, strategies, theses, drafts
discussion or presentations of students' research in progress
instruction about a how to write a particular type of paper or about solving a common writing problem
 

Strong Recommendations

Departments may wish to limit enrollment to 30 or fewer students per instructor.
The course syllabus should explain the writing-intensive nature of the course and should contain a schedule for writing assignments and revisions.
Assignments should follow a logical sequence and should match the learning goals for the course. Among the many options: assignments can move from more basic to more sophisticated kinds of thinking about course material; assignments can move from clearly defined problems toward more ill-defined problems for students to solve; assignments can move from familiar to new perspectives on course material; assignments can give students repeated practice that builds particular thinking and writing skills; complex assignments can be sequenced--students write proposals for research, write drafts, receive feedback on drafts, and then revise their papers.
Assignments should include time for students to prepare to write and time for them to reflect on their writing.
Courses should include some informal, ungraded writing (such as journals, freewriting, reading logs, questions, proposals, response papers . . .), in order to encourage regular practice with writing, to help students reflect on and synthesize course material, and to provide opportunities for students to discover promising ideas for formal papers.
Students should receive detailed written instructions for each writing assignment, including an explanation of the goals and specific evaluation criteria for that assignment.
Instructors should require students to keep all of their writing in portfolios and to submit their past writing with new papers, so that instructors can gauge and guide students' improvement as writers.
Instructors should hold at least one individual conference with each student.
Instructors should have students complete midterm and final evaluations of the writing component of the course.
Instructors should consult with the staff of the L&S Program in Writing Across the Curriculum about the design of the writing component of their courses.

Models to Illustrate Number of Assignments and Number of Pages of Writing in Writing-Intensive Courses

Model #1 

one 3-page paper, with draft and revision
one longer paper, c. 10 pages, with a proposal, draft, and revision
one 3-page paper

Model #2. 

two 2-page papers, one of which is revised
two 6-page papers, one of which is revised

 

Model #3. 

two 8-page papers, each with a draft and revision

Model #4. 

five 1-page response papers
one 10-page paper, with a draft; developed from one of the response papers

Model #5. 

two 5-page papers, one revised
a graded journal

Model #6. 

one 5 or 6-page paper, which is revised
one 5-page take-home midterm
one 5 or 6-page paper

Model #7. 

two 2-page papers
one 5-page group project report
one 3-page paper
one 5-page paper, with draft and revision

Model #8

one three-page paper
one 20-25-page paper, with proposal, draft, and revision

 


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