Elizabeth Nesius and Ken Ronkowitz from the Writing Initiative attended the International Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Conference this month held at Indiana University.
Featured speakers included Art Young, Clemson University, speaking on "WAC Today and Tomorrow: Composing in Many Modes and Media" and Terry Myers Zawacki, George Mason University, on "Researching the Local/Writing the International: Developing Culturally Inclusive WAC Programs and Practices"
The 2010 Conference was hosted by the Campus Writing Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. This biannual conference, the only U.S. conference dedicated exclusively to writing across the curriculum (WAC) and writing in the disciplines (WID), is typically of interest to people who are concerned with using writing to improve teaching and learning—faculty, administrators, and students from post-secondary institutions, as well as faculty and administrators from secondary schools.
Writing Across the Curriculum is a philosophy that maintains that writing is a valuable learning tool that can help students to synthesize, analyze, and apply course content; clear writing helps to develop clear thinkers in any curriculum.
Our own Writing Initiative philosophy is that All Teachers Teach Writing
. While English teachers are traditionally charged with teaching "learning to write," we promote other disciplines using "writing to learn" techniques.Some useful links for more information on WAC & WID efforts:
- WAC Clearinghouse and their journal (also at Colorado State) is at http://wac.colostate.edu/atd/
- The WAC program at George Mason University and their Writing Intensive course requirements.
- Writing Across the Curriculum in Middle and High Schools
- Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum
- WAC for the New Millennium: Strategies for Continuing Writing-Across-The-Curriculum-Programs
- Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide
