Writing at Western
Writing at Western is a collaborative enterprise involving many areas and programs: developmental and composition classes designed to teach writing skills; writing-intensive classes that emphasize writing assignments in a range of disciplines; the Writing Center that help students with their writing projects; the Writing Across the Curriculum program and its academic and cultural events; and various student publications. The material below explains the several ways Writing Across the Curriculum (‘WAC’) operates at WNMU.
WAC Philosophy
Writing Across the Curriculum is based on the idea that writing is an effective learning tool and that writing skills cannot be confined to a few classes or a single department. Writing is essential to success in almost every career today. It is arguably the most important skill for any 21st-century college student. University students thus need a range of assignments given at all levels and in all areas of undergraduate and graduate work. Writing skills are also specific to disciplines; geologists don’t do the same kind of writing as nurses or accountants. As one researcher has noted, if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a university to educate a writer.
WAC promotes complementary approaches to writing
Writing to communicate
Often involves graded assignments with a designated “other” as audience. These assignments teach matters of form, structure, appropriate content, and the conventions of Standard English. They typically require revision in order to master an important learning objective.
Writing to learn
Often uses ungraded writing assignments that encourage students to “think on paper.” In this case, writers are their own audience. Summarizing a chapter or a lecture, for example, helps students discover what they already know and what they still need to learn. Keeping a journal based on a subject or even on a single book allows the student to more fully explore his or her relationship to that subject or text. And of course, continued practice in writing of any kind helps students to become more fluent and at ease with the essential act of putting thoughts into words.
Writing in the Disciplines
Focuses on teaching students the conventions specific to their particular academic discipline. Someone who has learned how to write a top-notch analysis of Hamlet might not be able to write a top-notch analysis of bee behavior. These assignments involve different conventions and these conventions must be learned.
“Writing to learn,” “Writing to communicate,” and “Writing in the Disciplines” are closely related practices that operate synergistically. All are important to a student’s development as a writer. All play a role in introducing students to the power of the written word.
Additional ‘WAC’ activities
One role of WAC on the WNMU campus is to encourage faculty to explore the use of writing assignments in their actual and virtual classrooms. Another role—equally important—is to organize campus events where writing of different kinds is celebrated. It was in this spirit that WAC organized Women’s Writing at Western, (honoring Women’s History Month) in 2015 and Shakespeare in April: 400 Years and Growing (honoring the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death) in 2016.
Recently ‘WAC’ has developed a complementary program called ‘RAC’ (Research Across the Curriculum) which organizes events pertaining to faculty research, writing, and publication.
Events
Greetings to Colleagues! Let’s talk about graduate students (their work, their needs, and your teaching.)
WAC has not had a gathering about graduate studies at WNMU for many years. Now is a perfect time. I would like to get together Friday, April 19th, from 2:30 to 3:45 (via Zoom) to consider a range of questions. These include:
1) What do you feel are your specific responsibilities as you guide these students into their professions or help them to enhance their success in disciplines they have already entered? Can you readily state your obligations?
2) Where do you see the poorest performance from graduate students? On the other hand, what are their most notable strengths? The graduate students I work with every day are eager, helpful, curious, idealistic, and dedicated. (Sometimes they work on discussions at three or four in the morning!) But I am also sometimes dismayed by what they cannot do or do as well as I think they should. This includes the two core skills of my discipline (Humanities/English): understanding and explaining literature and writing analytical essays. Some students tell me that they find a character or a passage from a poem “extremely moving,” “exactly represents how life is,” or “of the utmost importance to teach (in high school classrooms); but even quite late in a course a few students cannot readily explain how the techniques of the literature produce powerful impressions. If they worked harder could they do it? Maybe, but maybe not. And you cannot always predict from their applications (e.g., Letters of Intent) if they will be strong thinkers.
3) How are you addressing WRITING in your courses? How do you respond to weaknesses in written work from graduate students who are supposed to be able to write? How important is clear, grammatically correct, carefully structured writing in your classes? We are not Harvard or UNM or NMSU. Does this mean that we should not hold our students to very high standards in their written expression?
4) Do you offer a thesis course in your graduate programs? How many students enroll in it? How capable are they of completing a professionally informed and polished thesis in a 3 or even a 6-hour course? Do you use a rubric? On what basis do you decide whether it passes or fails or receives a given letter grade? What do you believe the purpose of a thesis course is in your discipline? Should there be a uniform standard for writing, mandating clear, thoroughly comprehensible writing in all master’s theses regardless of discipline? (Remember that a master’s thesis is a piece of professional writing that has a life beyond the course in which it is written. All WNMU theses are supposed to be archived in Miller Library. I do not know if they are catalogued, but I do know that master’s theses from other universities are catalogued in their libraries and sometimes available on the web.
As you can see, we have a lot to talk about. Our first order of business will be to rank these subjects in order of their importance to the attendees. Then we will jump in. This is a discussion-oriented event—please be ready to share your experiences and ideas.
Contact
Want more information?
Dr. Debbie Heller
Professor of English and ‘WAC’ Program Director
Western New Mexico University
Silver City, NM 88061
hellerd@wnmu.edu
575-538-6527