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- Some history
- How the BMCC program works
- Faculty development
- Basic WAC principles
- Frequently asked questions
- Useful websites and a key text
- WAC coordinators and committee
- WAC office
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs have developed at hundreds of two- and four-year schools around the country since the 1970s. From this collective experience have emerged basic principles and best practices for integrating writing in discipline courses from accounting to zoology and in professional training programs such as nursing and engineering.
The current WAC program at BMCC began in Fall 1999, implementing a mandate by the CUNY Board of Trustees that "each college intensify and expand its programmatic efforts to strengthen the teaching of writing . . . in all disciplinary areas" as part of a system-wide effort to strengthen the quality of CUNY undergraduate education and prepare students better for post-college employment. Writing in various forms promotes the understanding of course content, enhances the power to think critically and cogently, and enables students to demonstrate knowledge in discipline-appropriate ways.
To support the mandate on strengthening writing in undergraduate curricula, CUNY currently provides funds directly to the colleges to underwrite faculty development and to establish individual college WAC programs. At the same time, the University has established the Writing Fellows program, which yearly brings 6-7 CUNY doctoral students to each campus to help implement WAC.
The BMCC WAC program is administered by the WAC Coordinators working with an interdepartmental WAC Committee. Each term, WAC solicits participation by faculty in a series of professional development workshops, after which they are eligible to teach a Writing Intensive (WI) course capped at 25 students. First-time implementers can work with one of the CUNY Writing Fellows—graduate students familiar with WAC principles and practices.
To date, many faculty from 17 departments and programs — Accounting, Business Management, Computer Information Systems, Co-op Education, Corporate and Cable Communications, Developmental Skills (Critical Thinking, Linguistics), English, Ethnic Studies, Health Education, Math, Modern Languages, Music and Art, Nursing, Speech, Social Science (Anthropology, Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology), Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics), and Teacher Education — have participated in the WI-preparation workshops series.
From time to time, WAC also offers workshops for adjuncts and holds an "open house" where WI teachers showcase some of their assignments.
Beginning with the freshman cohort of Spring 2008, all BMCC students are required to take at least one Writing Intensive course to graduate.
Preparing to teach writing-intensive (WI) courses
Application for Fall 2008 Faculty Development Workshops (.doc)
In the past, interested faculty learned about implementing a writing-intensive course by attending several workshops, for which they were remunerated. This academic year we are piloting a new faculty development program which involves more intensive training in return for one course off during the training semester.
For each session, participants will read selections from John Bean's Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom and Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson's Effective Grading: A Tool for Learning and Assessment, as well as other material. The workshops are experiential, in keeping with the WAC concepts we want to convey: that writing is a complex cognitive and linguistic process; that it is learned through experience; that students understand writing tasks better as they become aware of their own writing and thinking processes; and that when we teach, we may overlook the complexity of what we are asking students to do. Unless faculty have taken part in writing workshops, they haven't written in a public way that helps to demystify the process. Writing and reflecting together with peers exposes writing as a process that varies with task and writer, and also gives us a chance to learn strategies from each other that enhance our teaching.
In the workshops, we touch on ways of helping writers get started (e.g., freewriting, cubing, listing); ways of responding to writing (focus on what the writer's trying to say, take account of where the writer is in the process, use rubrics that tell students what is expected, avoid line-editing); what makes good writing (content vs. form, features that facilitate or detract from communication); how to use writing to help students with reading (such as double-entry journals and annotating); and a variety of writing-to-learn activities, sometimes referred to as low-stakes writing. We also ask participants to revise assignments they already use, taking into account discipline-specific discourses and genres. Faculty participants from across the curriculum—Science, Nursing, Speech, Business, Music, Art, Math, Health Ed, History, Psychology, Teacher Education—share assignments and offer suggestions to each other. Finally, participants begin the process of revamping the syllabus of the course they want to teach as writing-intensive (designated WI at registration and capped at 25). All of this stimulates thinking not just about writing but about many other aspects of pedagogy.
Targeted one-shot workshops
In addition to the workshop series for teachers who want to teach a WI course, WAC occasionally offers four-hour workshops for departments, e.g., for Early Childhood Education, Social Science, Science. If you don't feel ready to commit yourself to doing a WI course, the one-shot workshop will give you ideas about effective ways to use and respond to writing, as well as a chance to share ideas about writing and learning with colleagues teaching courses like yours.
Writing is not simply a form of assessment but an essential part of the learning process.
Frequent and well-designed assignments, formal and informal, promote the kind of active, critical learning essential to genuine mastery of course material.
Good writing assignments should be an integral part of course design, devised to accomplish the learning aims of particular courses.
Surface correctness (freedom from error) is only one characteristic of effective writing. Equally if not more important are conscious purpose, clear structure, cogent reasoning, and adequate development of ideas.
Writing is discipline- or context-specific, involving questions of audience, purpose, tone, structure, and format. Discipline teachers are able to provide the most relevant instruction in writing for their own disciplines.
Writing is a process, from the generation of ideas through drafting, revision, and editing (and perhaps further revision) – the same kind of process faculty use when writing for publication or academic purposes, perhaps even when producing student handouts. Assignments should be designed to encourage students to make use of the writing process.
Some writing is informal or ěn "low-stakes" – e.g., done to gather and sort ideas, to respond to reading, to reflect upon work done: in short, writing done to learn rather than to demonstrate learning. Teachers need not grade, comment on, or even read every piece of low-stakes writing they ask students to do.
Student writing—and confidence in writing —improves with practice, especially when assignments build in process and furnish opportunities for revision.
What's the benefit of putting more emphasis on writing?
We've talked to teachers in almost every department since our current WAC program started in 1999, and we all want the same things from our students: we want them to be active learners who read effectively, question texts, make connections, reason cogently – and are able to show us that they can do these things. Multiple-choice and short-answer questions, while they have their uses, don't promote these abilities. Though not a magic bullet, the use of various writing activities creates better learners in your classroom.
What types of writing assignments are useful for helping students to learn?
Faculty are most familiar with traditional formal assignments, especially book commentaries or research papers. But there are many other kinds of writing activities that contribute to lively and active learning, and a number of ways to design formal assignments for maximum effect. See the section on Writing Assignments for a description of informal writing-to-learn activities as well as suggestions for shaping formal assignments.
If I give up Scantron sheets for writing assignments, won't I drown in a sea of paper?
Not everything your students write needs to be graded or even read: writing-to-learn assignments may be for the student's eyes only, or may call for peer feedback. And for formal writing tasks, the kind that are intended to demonstrate as well as enhance learning, you can "scaffold" your assignments, giving feedback only at appropriate points, and you can also reduce final response-and-grading time by making your objectives and criteria of judgment explicit in the assignment itself. See Writing Assignments.
I'm not an English teacher! Will I have to teach grammar and punctuation?
One of the misconceptions that burdens both teachers and students is that good writing chiefly means absence of error. Surface correctness is highly desirable. But for many students, achieving such proficiency is a long-term project, a skill to be acquired through much practice in many courses, not "injected" once and for all in English comp courses.
Moreover, an error-free paper that says very little or doesn't engage with the issues and problems in your course is not what you want anyway, even though it may be less irritating to read. Content, organization, development come before editing and surface correctness. You may want to intervene once a student has something substantial on paper, but as a teacher in a discipline course, it is not your primary responsibility to teach grammar and punctuation. In Tools for Students, you will find an editing manual and handout on using and documenting sources; students can access these on the Web or you can download both and have them duplicated for distribution to your students. The BMCC Policy on Plagiarism is also available there.
I've noticed that many of the writing-to-learn tasks in the Writing Assignments section are done in class. Won't this cut down my time to cover course material with the students?
Many teachers fear that if they use in-class writing activities (even though many such activities take only a few minutes), they will have to sacrifice "coverage." But think about this: you may cover the material – but does that mean the students cover it? Perhaps some of what you are accustomed to lecturing on might have to be dropped or handled more briefly, or perhaps it might be incorporated in a writing activity. You may find changes like these a good trade-off for superior understanding of other important concepts or information. You'll be the one to decide. The attempt to include writing is an opportunity to take a fresh look at your course.
Useful websites and a key text
Compendious as we would like to make this site, it can't possibly provide all the information and tips you can use to integrate writing effectively into your pedagogy. There are perhaps hundreds of WAC and WAC-related websites. Here's a sampling of the best:
The WAC Clearinghouse For those who get deeply into the practice of writing across the curriculum and also its connections with the classroom use of electronic media, this is the mother lode. With links to nationwide WAC and CAC (communications across the curriculum) programs, downloadable electronic books, and several journals, there may be more than you have time to fully explore – but take a look: http://wac.colostate.edu . (A published article on WAC by BMCC colleagues Lisa Rose and Rachel Theilheimer, "You Write What You Know: Writing, Learning, and Student Construction of Knowledge," is also accessible on The WAC Clearinghouse home page. Click there on The Wac Journal, Back Issues, Vol. 13.)
LaGuardia Community College
http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/wac/designing.htm On designing assignments.
http://www.lagcc.cuny.edu/wac/resources.htm Other resources.Massachusetts Institute of Technology
http://web.mit.edu/writing/Faculty/createeffective.html On principles of creating, sequencing, and formatting writing assignments.University of Delaware Writing Center
http://www.english.udel.edu/wc/ 29 pages of tips, including Alternative Paper Assignments, Tips on Grading: Using Rubrics, Managing the Paper Load, with additional weblinks.University of Hawaii at Manoa
http://mwp01.mwp.hawaii.edu/wi-programs.htm A selective clickable list of WAC and writing-program sites across the country, chock full of tips, ideas, and duplicable handouts.Queens College
http://web.cuny.edu/academics/oaa/uei/wac/glossary-terminology.html List of WAC terminology and concepts. Includes a bibliography and links to writing resources.York College
http://york.cuny.edu/wac Check out York's film: Draft Draft My Paper!University of Louisville
http://www.louisville.edu/provost/wroffice/new2-1jackman.html On creating effective assignments.
http://www.louisville.edu/provost/wroffice/new3-3cross.html Scroll down to "taxonomy of course objectives" for a list of types of writing assignments to reinforce specific learning objectives.Indispensable Reading
The "bible" is John C. Bean's comprehensive and very readable Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (Jossey-Bass, 1996). Faculty who participate in WAC's prep sessions for teaching writing-intensive courses receive this book as one of their perks.See also the texts and journals available on line at The WAC Clearinghouse http://wac.colostate.edu
WAC coordinators and committee
Penelope Lewis (Head WAC Coordinator, Social Science Department, N-611, x5247
plewis@bmcc.cuny.eduGay Brookes (Faculty Development Co-Coordinator), Developmental Skills, N424, x 1403
gbrookes@bmcc.cuny.eduJack Estes (Writing Fellow Coordinator), Social Science, N614, x5254
jestes@bmcc.cuny.eduMahatapa Palit (Writing Fellow Associates), Business Management, S659, x5256
mpalit@bmcc.cuny.eduKatherine M. Conway (Writing Fellow Associates), Business Management, S-658, x8213
kconway@bmcc.cuny.edu
Francesco Crocco, English, N-711, x8293
fcrocco@bmcc.cuny.eduHoward Meltzer, Music and Art, S110, x 5032
hmeltzer@bmcc.cuny.eduLauren N. Goodwyn, Science, N-652, x 5269
lgoodwyn@bmcc.cuny.eduSegundo Pantoja, Ethnic Studies, S640, x 1373
spantoja@bmcc.cuny.eduLisa Rose, Social Science/ Human Services, N615, x 1227
lrose@bmcc.cuny.eduRachel Theilheimer, Social Science/ Early Childhood, N609, x 1217
rtheilheimer@bmcc.cuny.eduErwin Wong, Academic Affairs, S724, x 8322
ewong@bmcc.cuny.edu
S424, in the Quiet Study Area