Writing across the Curriculum

an entry for the Encyclopedia of English Studies and Language Arts, Alan C. Purves, ed. (National Council of Teachers of English, Volume II, 1994, pp. 1299–1302). Prepared by Martha A. Townsend, University of Missouri-Columbia.

Writing across the curriculum, commonly shortened to WAC, is a significant educational movement that has established itself in a surprising number of institutions—from elementary and secondary schools, to two-year colleges, to liberal arts colleges and large research universities—in only the past twenty to twenty-five years. The phrase “writing across the curriculum” originated with a research project begun in the mid-1960s conducted by James Britton, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, and Harold Rosen at the University of London Institute of Education. The 1975 book based on their work, The Development of Writing Abilities (11-18) (Macmillan), is one of WAC’s founding documents. In its most general sense, WAC refers to the notion that writing should be an integral part of the learning process throughout a student’s education, not merely in English courses but across the entire curriculum. No single method characterizes the movement, and wide variations occur in its practice. What unifies the variations, however, is a recognition by WAC advocates and practitioners that learning to write and think is a vastly more complex process than is usually acknowledged and that WAC is not a movement to promote better spelling, punctuation, and grammar use.

The WAC movement’s rapid growth is partly a response to a need felt by many in the public and in the academy for improved literacy instruction. Numerous social factors—such as changing educational demographics, increased demand for higher education, declining test scores, open admissions policies in public colleges, and media attention (e.g., “Why Johnny Can’t Write,” Newsweek Dec. 9, 1975)—have contributed to a perceived “literacy crisis.” Students’ language skills, the thinking goes, have suffered in recent years. The WAC movement may be seen as one attempt to address this concern at all educational levels.

In Britain, the activity is situated in the secondary and primary schools. In America, WAC is largely, though not entirely, a postsecondary phenomenon. In both countries, WAC’s central concern does not usually focus only on students’ writing but also encompasses to one degree or another all of their language abilities—writing, reading, speaking, listening, and especially thinking—along with the relationship of these abilities to the larger issues of teaching and learning. Often, faculty development is a main focus of WAC programs, the assumption being that as instructional ability improves, student learning improves.
WAC is an active, lively, and growing field. Four different surveys of U.S. higher education institutions conducted between 1984 and 1991 found from one-third to one-half of the respondents reporting that they had already established or expected to establish WAC programs. A proliferation of books, articles, academic conferences, professional journals, and teleconferences reflect WAC’s momentum and potential to effect educational reform.

The terminology related to the movement is by no means settled or constant. Other common descriptors include: “language across the curriculum” (the term more generally used in Britain); “writing in the content areas” (used generally in the U.S. elementary and secondary system); “writing to learn” (often used in opposition to “learning to write” and to refer to frequent, short, perhaps ungraded writing assignments intended to deepen students’ engagement with course content); “communication across the curriculum” (in institutions whose programs specifically stress all language skills); and “writing in the disciplines” (used generally to refer to writing intended to help students acquire the vocabulary, conventions, and ways of thinking in a specific subject area). Bazerman, in this volume, assigns an even more specialized definition to writing in the disciplines. Whole language, a related though not entirely parallel concept, is associated with elementary education.

A 1985 College Composition and Commlunication survey of 194 WAC programs in the U.S. done by C. W. Griffin (CCC 36) identified three common premises on which most programs in higher education are based: (1) Writing must be practiced and reinforced throughout the curriculum in order to maintain skills learned at the beginning of one’s education, (2) to write is to learn, and (3) since written discourse is central to higher education, the quality of student writing is a universitywide responsibility. WAC programs assume a variety of shapes depending on an array of factors at the institution developing them: the institution’s educational mission, the makeup of the student population, the financial resources available, the training and expertise of WAC leaders, the degree of administrative commitment, and so on. One variety of WAC is situated in departments of English and takes an expanded, cross-disciplinary approach to traditional freshman composition; reading and writing assignments for these courses are grounded in specific disciplines. A more frequent version of WAC incorporates writing instruction into courses in the disciplines, usually in advanced rather than introductory courses. Yet another version features “linked courses” in which students enroll simultaneously in, say, a history course and a separate writing course with coordinated reading and writing assignments. Overall, WAC programs are remarkably idiosyncratic in their curricula, structure, and administration. Experienced practitioners have come to know that for programs to be effective, they must conform to the specific needs of individual institutions.

Theory/Influences/History

Most WAC programs have lists of specific curricular or instructional goals, but explicit, concise theoretical statements defining the programs are somewhat harder to find. The lack of foundational treatises may be due in part to the WAC movement’s rapid and recent growth, in part to the complexity of the movement, and in part to WAC programs’ result-oriented rather than research-oriented aims. Although dissertations and graduate courses that examine WAC from a variety of perspectives are beginning to appear, formal studies, especially at an advanced level, lag (as is typical in newly emerging fields). A number of theories and thinkers influential to the WAC movement can be identified, however.

For example, the London research project led by Britton (a study of some 2000 pieces of school writing done by eleven-to-eighteen-year-olds), took function and audience in writing as two of its guiding interests. From James Moffett’s Teaching the Universe of Discourse, Britton’s group derived a theory of audience in writing. Based on linguist Roman Jakobson’s theory of language functions, Britton’s group identified three categories (transactional, expressive, and poetic) as most commonly appearing in required student writing. Poetic writing functions to please the self and others; it exists for its own sake. Transactional writing functions to get things done, such as to inform or persuade; it exists for practicality’s sake. Expressive writing functions as a means of exploring or “thinking aloud on paper”; it exists primarily for the writer’s sake and is perhaps the most relevant of the three functions for WAC practitioners. The principles of function and audience in writing remain as central, theoretical considerations of the WAC movement.

David Russell (cited later) demonstrates that, contrary to popular opinion, writing has been a concern in U.S. secondary and higher education for some time. He charts the birth of the current WAC movement from the early 1970s, when educators were forced to rethink language instruction due to open admissions policies in universities and racial integration in secondary schools. Educational opportunities that had previously been available only to the elite shifted to include wider, but also less well-prepared, groups of students. Mina Shaughnessy’s research on basic writing—conducted as a result of her work with City University of New York students admitted under open admissions in the early 1970s—and the subsequent publication of Errors and Expectations was widely influential. During this early period, federal granting agencies (FIPSE, HEW, NEH) and private philanthropic organizations (Bush, Exxon, Ford, General Motors, Lilly, and Mellon foundations, among others) provided funding to develop WAC programs.

Concurrent influences shaping the WAC movement include the concept of general education and, of course, research on the composing process and writing-process pedagogies. WAC programs have been successfully developed at all types of institutions. But it is at liberal arts institutions that the earliest and longest-lasting programs developed and where the faculty are usually the most receptive, perhaps because the role of writing is so deeply embedded in liberal arts curricula. In the early 1970s Harriet Sheridan spearheaded one of the first WAC programs at Carleton College, a highly selective liberal arts institution in Northfield, Minnesota. Inspired by Carleton’s success, Pennsylvania’s Beaver College in 1977 held the first WAC faculty development workshop, led by Sheridan at the invitation of Elaine Maimon (considered one of the movement’s most influential proponents). Maimon’s WAC texts Writing in the Arts and Sciences and Readings in the Arts and Sciences are informed by a philosophy of liberal learning and take theoretical grounding from Shaughnessy’s work, James Kinneavy’s views on the aims and modes of discourse, Kenneth Bruffee’s views on collaborative writing, and Richard Rorty’s views on the social construction of reality. Other notable programs have been developed at Michigan Technological University, the University of Michigan, and the Baltimore Area Consortium, a collection of over twenty colleges, two-year colleges, universities, and virtually all of the public and private school districts in the area. On the secondary level, the Bay Area Writing Project added WAC to its summer institutes in the 1980s.

Characteristics of WAC Programs

Generally, WAC programs promote pedagogical reform rather than curricular change. Typically, WAC programs originate out of faculty and administrators’ concerns about students’ inability to write, through a concern that their institution should be doing its part to address the “literacy crisis.” It’s important to note that literacy “crises” are continual. Russell documents numerous such outcries at various periods over the years. Social historian and literacy expert Harvey Graff outlines the same phenomenon; his publications trace multiple instances of crisis, each with its own set of fears and debates. Often, these instances coincide with widened access to education for previously excluded groups.

Faculty attitudes toward student writing often change early on in new programs, however, as they begin examining the complexities required for students to master academic discourse. As faculty come to understand writing as a habit acquired during lifelong practice rather than a set of skills to be learned by a given point in one’s education, program goals often shift to include writing to learn as well as learning to write. WAC programs typically offer interdisciplinary faculty workshops as a means of informing faculty about theory and methods. Often programs develop writing centers where students may receive tutorial assistance from composition specialists, assistance beyond the help that faculty in the disciplines may be comfortable handling. Many WAC programs are affiliated with general education requirements at the institution.

Characteristics of WAC courses include seeing students as makers and discoverers of meaning and seeing instructors as coaches and learners along with students, rather than as the center of authority. Shorter, multiple drafts of writing along with revision of writing are encouraged in preference to single, longer term papers due at the end of the course. Courses usually have critical thinking or higher-order thinking skills as a goal of the writing assignments. Journal writing, collaborative writing, and using peer groups in the writing process are common. WAC courses often incorporate active learning techniques, use study guides as preparation for written assignments, and emphasize the writing/speaking relationship. There is usually less lecturing than in traditional courses and greater emphasis on class discussion. Argument, supported with appropriate evidence, is a feature of much WAC writing, as are writing assignments that do not separate form from content.

Research on WAC is difficult since assessing teaching and learning are among the most challenging tasks facing education. Often, the hoped-for gains in student growth aren’t manifested until well after a given course or even an entire degree is completed. WAC program evaluation is complex, too, due to program complexity and lack of comparability. Nonetheless many studies have been undertaken using various formats; qualitative analyses, ethnographies, and case studies are the most common. Comprehensive, longitudinal studies on the role of writing in general education show that students’ writing ability, critical thinking ability, general knowledge, and overall satisfaction with education increase when they take courses that emphasize writing. Similar findings are reported in the second Harvard Assessment Report, which showed that the relationship between the amount of writing for a course and students’ level of engagement with a course is stronger than any other relationship between student engagement and any other course characteristic.

Current Controversies/Issues

In Programs That Work Fulwiler and Young itemize six “enemies” of writing across the curriculum. (1) Uncertain leadership: The success of WAC programs depends largely on the skill and experience of program administrators, many of whom are not accorded full faculty status or granted equal participation in the academic community. (2) English Department orthodoxy: Despite the fact that the academic community looks to departments of English for informed composition instruction, many traditional English faculty see their responsibility as teaching literature and see composition theory and pedagogy as inferior endeavors to be handled by graduate teaching assistants and junior and part-time faculty. (3) Compartmentalized academic administration: Although reading, writing, and critical thinking form the basis for most other academic enterprises, they are often subordinated to the specialized knowledge around which disciplines are organized and institutions are run; the structural anomaly of WAC programs within institutional frameworks and their sometimes (though incorrect) identification with remedial instruction makes them financially and politically vulnerable. (4) Traditional reward system: Despite the fact that “good” undergraduate teaching is expected, many departments and institutions place a higher value on research and publication in promotion, tenure, and merit considerations. (5) Testing and quantification: The increase in the number of students seeking higher education has contributed to an emphasis on evaluation rather than learning; writing is reduced to demonstrating knowledge through machine-scorable “objective” tests and grammar drills, rather than being expanded to discovering knowledge through more time-consuming and seemingly “subjective” explorations. (6) Entrenched attitudes: Students, conditioned by rote memorization and regurgitation of test taking, resist methods they perceive as obstacles to expedient education; instructors, threatened by efforts to alter their teaching, resent interference in their established practice; administrators, expecting WAC to serve as a “quick fix” to long-standing and complex problems, are unwilling to make the long-term commitments necessary to ensure program success. Numerous misconceptions about the teaching of writing—students should learn to write, once and for all, in high school; writing instruction in college amounts to remediation; writing is a skill that can be learned in a series of discrete steps; writing cannot be taught or, conversely, anyone with a college diploma can teach writing; writing research is not “real” research; real writing is done in isolation, to name just a few—combine with the last category of entrenched attitudes, say Fulwiler and Young, to present the most significant enemy facing WAC. Attitudes and academic structures must be changed if WAC’s goal of improved undergraduate learning and communication is to be achieved.

The future of the WAC movement is uncertain. One measure of WAC’s success is that the federal and private agencies that once provided “seed money” to help start new programs now see WAC as having become institutionalized. But that means they also see no further need to support WAC efforts, a clearly problematic conclusion for many institutions. James Kinneavy says WAC “may be the best academic response to the literacy crisis in English-speaking countries,” but warns that “it cannot be a total social response” and that “the jury is out” in determining its effectiveness (Writing across the curriculum, in Teaching Composition: Twelve Bibliographical Essays, p. 377). Russell describes WAC as “the most widespread and sustained reform movement in [a long history of U.S.] cross-curricular writing instruction” (Russell, p. 272) and he is “optimistic (though very cautious) about WAC’s ultimate success” (Herrington, p. 5). Nancy Martin is concerned that earlier, successful policies for language instruction “are not much in evidence today” but finds promise in “an interest in the processes of learning and in the ways in which teaching may be accommodated to these processes” (Herrington, 201). Whatever the ultimate outcome of the current WAC movement, there is no doubt that the changed pedagogical practices of thousands of teachers have reached hundreds of thousands of students.

Martha Townsend

Further Reading

Fulwiler, Toby, and Art Young, eds. Programs That Work: Models and Methods for Writing Across the Curriculum. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1990.

Herrington, Anne, and Charles Moran, eds. Writing, Teaching, and Learning in the Disciplines. New York: Modern Language Association, 1992.

Russell, David R. Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870–1990: A Curricular History. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1991.

Walvoord, Barbara E., and Lucille P. McCarthy. Thinking and Writing in College: A Naturalistic Study of Students in Four Disciplines. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1990.

Young, Art, and Toby Fulwiler, eds. Writing Across the Disciplines: Research Into Practice. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1986.

See also: Active Learning, Audience in Writing, Collaborative Writing, General Education, Language Acquisition, Language across the Curriculum, Modes of Discourse, Social Construction.