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Welcome to Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)

Writing Across the Curriculum Mission Statement

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is a sub-committee of the College Curriculum Committee. Both are standing committees of the Faculty Senate. The WAC sub-committee's primary responsibility is to review course materials submitted to the College Curriculum Committee in order to ensure that these courses meet the WAC requirement of the general education program. The WAC sub-committee is made up of full-time faculty members who are committed to teaching and using writing in their own courses and supporting other faculty also committed to student writing.

The WAC requirement assures that students have meaningful opportunities to write for a variety of purposes and in a variety of genres throughout their academic careers.  Writing is also integrated into courses as a means of learning course content and as a way to introduce students to more specific writing requirements in various disciplines.

WAC Committee Members

• Joan Simmons
• Kim Nowakowski
• Jeannette Hafey
• Dan Fraizer
• James Canning
• Richard Andersen

History of Writing Across the Curricululm at Springfield College

Springfield College is proud to have had a WAC program in place for more than 20 years.  The WAC program was first proposed in 1990 by Paul LeBlanc, Ron Johnson, Laura Maggio, Joel Parrish, and Ed Sims.

The orginal program had three goals:

• to help students improve their writing by providing them with many opportunities to write throughout their college careers;
• to integrate writing into courses as a means of learning; and
• to familiarize students with the kinds of writing associated with their future professions.

 
Writing was to be integrated into course requirements as a method of learning course content, as a method of inquiry, and as a way to value types of writing used in different disciplines.  Writing was a meant to be treated as a developmental process, and faculty members would engage students in that process by allowing them to work through successive drafts before submitting them for evaluation.

Good Practices for Teaching and Writing Across the Curriculum

Writing is a process of discovery and creation that takes time. Faculty members should organize their courses so that writing is a part of how students learn course content as well as a measurement of how well they understand that course content.

Writing requirements should be described in detail and in writing, and students should ideally engage in completing writing assignments in stages so they can meet all of the expectations of the assignment. Models of the kind of writing required should be provided and students should have an opportunity to share their drafts with each other in order to improve them.

Academic Success Center Resources

• Academic Success Center
• Writing in Disciplines

Submitting a WAC course

• Writing Across the Curriculum Course Proposal (.doc)
• Criteria for Evaluating Writing Assignments (.doc)

Additional Reading

• Reading Writing! How to Evaluate, Edit, and Respond to What Others Have Written (.pdf)

WAC Resources

• Plagiarism Across the Curriculum
• Plagiarism Handout (.pdf)
• WAC Clearinghouse at Colorado State