Resources on Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID)

Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC).

The Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC) promotes writing instruction and education across all contexts for teachers, teacher-scholars, writing center directors, writing program leaders, administrators, and graduate and undergraduate students.

Eodice, Michele, Anne Ellen Geller, Neal Lerner, et al. The Meaningful Writing Project.

The authors hoped that by asking seniors at three very different institutions to self-report their meaningful writing experiences, they would be able to describe a range of assignments college students have actually been asked to complete, describe how students navigate the expectations of writing assignments across the disciplines, and explore the experiences, beliefs, and aspirations students bring to their writing and learning.

Foundations of Teaching (with) Writing. George Mason University, Writing Across the Curriculum.

What are the foundations of teaching with writing? This page offers some information about foundational practices for teaching with writing and provides suggestions for further reading.

Hughes, Brad. “Why Should You Use Writing Assignments in Your Teaching?” University of Wisconsin–Madison, Writing Across the Curriculum.

Countless faculty—in every discipline across the university—make writing an integral part of their teaching and reap benefits from doing so. Why? Here are some of the many reasons writing is an especially effective means for students to learn.

Kiefer, Kate, Mike Palmquist, Nick Carbone, Michelle Cox, and Dan Melzer. “An Introduction to Writing Across the Curriculum.” WAC Clearinghouse, 2018.

This guide offers information about WAC—writing across the curriculum.

Malye, Julia. “On Writing in the Fine Arts.” Teaching With Writing: The WIC Newsletter, 30 Nov. 2016, Oregon State University.

For this article, the author interviewed Lee Ann Garrison, Director of the School of Arts and Communication at Oregon State University, about teaching writing in the fine arts.

Teaching with Writing. University of Minnesota.

Browse online resources for integrating writing into courses across disciplines: assignments, rubrics, discipline-specific resources and more.

WAC Bibliography. WAC Clearinghouse, 2022.

The bibliography, developed and presented in collaboration with CompPile, was developed to support teachers across the disciplines who are interested in using writing and speaking in their courses; scholars who are interested in WAC theory and research; and program administrators, designers, and developers who have interests in the latest work in faculty outreach, program design, and assessment.

Whithaus, Carl, Karen Lunsford, and Jonathan Alexander. The Wayfinding Project.

The Wayfinding Project is led by a core of three University of California researchers who, over the past several years, have been engaged in a collaborative and multi-campus research project that examines the “writing lives” of UC students three to ten years after graduation.

Basgier, Christopher, and Amber Simpson. “Reflecting on the Past, Reconstructing the Future: Faculty Members’ Threshold Concepts for Teaching Writing in the Disciplines.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 17, no. 1–2, 2020, pp. 6–25.

This study uses narrative analysis of faculty survey and focus groups responses to identify three threshold concepts for the teaching of writing in the disciplines, complementing the existing work on threshold concepts in writing itself: (1) effective writing pedagogy involves iterative, multifaceted change; (2) students’ development as writers can be supported through scaffolded interventions; and (3) genres can be taught as actions, not (just) as forms. The authors also suggest additional candidates for threshold concepts for the teaching of writing in the disciplines and comment on the value of narrative for promoting faculty reflection and assessing WAC faculty development.

Boquet, Beth, and Neal Lerner, editors. Special Issue: WAC and High-Impact Practices. Across the Disciplines, vol. 13, no. 4, 2016.

A central tenet of writing across the curriculum and in the disciplines is that the use of writing goes far beyond improvement of students’ skills. Instead, writing is essential to learning and to the processes of development that higher education aims to foster. What might not be as clear to those of us in WAC and WID programs is how we map our work onto these higher-level outcomes. In this special issue of Across the Disciplines, contributors describe those maps in relation to the Association of American Colleges and Universities research on high-impact practices.

Burgess-Proctor, Amanda, Graham Cassano, Dennis J. Condron, Heidi A. Lyons, and George Sanders. “A Collective Effort to Improve Sociology Students’ Writing Skills.” Teaching Sociology, vol. 42, no. 2, 2014, pp. 130–139.

Nationwide, academic sociologists at all types of higher education institutions face the challenge of working to improve students’ writing skills. In this article, the authors describe a collective effort by a group of faculty members in one undergraduate sociology program to implement several effective writing-improvement strategies. The authors advocate aiming to improve students’ writing by working together on a united front rather than working in isolation. After explaining the origins of the collective emphasis on writing that emerged in their group and briefly outlining the writing-improvement strategies that they utilize, the authors use student survey data to reflect on major themes before concluding with a discussion of the merits of their collective approach.

Carter, Michael, Miriam Ferzli, and Eric N. Wiebe. “Writing to Learn by Learning to Write in the Disciplines.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication, vol. 21, no. 3, 2007, pp. 278–302. 

The traditional distinction between writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines (WID) as writing to learn versus learning to write understates WID’s focus on learning in the disciplines. Advocates of WID have described learning as socialization, but little research addresses how writing disciplinary discourses in disciplinary settings encourages socialization into the disciplines. Data from interviews with students who wrote lab reports in a biology lab suggest five ways in which writing promotes learning in scientific disciplines. Drawing on theories of situated learning, the authors argue that apprenticeship genres can encourage socialization into disciplinary communities.

Chmarkh, Mustapha. “‘Writing to Learn’ Research: A Synthesis of Empirical Studies (2004-2019).” European Journal of Educational Research, vol. 10, no. 1, 2021, pp. 85–96.

This paper adds to writing-to-learn research by reporting on empirical and conceptual studies on the subject matter but also by speculating on the learning virtues that writing offers besides its function as an assessment tool—namely, that it can provide students with an adequate avenue to reflect on their learning. For this purpose, the author reviewed 17 studies spanning a 17-year period (2004–2020) and representing both the L1 and L2 contexts. Findings indicated that writing to learn is an effective instructional strategy across different grade-levels and disciplines both in the L1 and L2 teaching and learning contexts.

Cox, Anicca. “(Re)Mapping Disciplinary Values and Rhetorical Concerns through Language: Interviews about Writing with Seven Instructors across the Performing and Visual Arts.” Writing In and About the Performing and Visual Arts: Creating, Performing, and Teaching, edited by Steven J. Corbett, Jennifer Lin LeMesurier, Teagan E. Decker, and Betsy Cooper, WAC Clearinghouse/University Press of Colorado, 2019, pp. 37–54.

This small study, based on interviews with seven university-level instructors of visual and performing arts from ceramics and sculpture to painting and drawing to music and field arts, investigates the uses of writing in art-making practice and instruction. The chapter explores personal narrative, interview analysis and extant literature on the subject, ultimately arguing that visual and performing arts disciplines have much to offer to writing studies in terms of a reconsideration of reflective, embodied, exploratory and assistive approaches to writing.

Defazio, Joseph, Josette Jones, Felisa Tennant, and Sara Anne Hook. “Academic Literacy: The Importance and Impact of Writing Across the Curriculum – A Case Study.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, vol. 10, no. 2, 2010, pp. 34–47.

The paper provides case studies of how four faculty members who teach in undergraduate and graduate programs at the Indiana University School of Informatics promote academic literacy throughout the curriculum. The paper describes the writing assignments in several courses, the objectives of these assignments in enhancing the writing skills of students, the pedagogical approaches used by the faculty members and a discussion of the results. Suggestions for assessing student writing are also provided.

Falconer, Heather M. “‘I Think When I Speak, I Don’t Sound Like That’: The Influence of Social Positioning on Rhetorical Skill Development in Science.” Written Communication, vol. 36, no. 1, 2019.

Negotiating membership within a disciplinary community is as much an exercise in rhetorical facility as it is content expertise. Where individuals reside in the hierarchy of membership is determined by not only what they talk and write about, but how. Yet there are many factors that can impact newcomers’ acculturation into a disciplinary community on a rhetorical level. In this article, the author uses positioning theory and intersectional identity to examine how Anne, a woman of color participating in undergraduate research in science, learned to read and write as a scientist and the ways her social position as a woman, person of color, and low-income and first-generation student influenced her perception and adoption of the discourse as her own. The author argues that social positioning influences students’ views of scientific discourse and affects their rhetorical skill development as scientific writers. Because recognition as a group insider is heavily influenced by discourse, this research has potential implications for those interested in retention and persistence of women of color in STEM, as well as for those interested in changing learning cultures and incorporating writing instruction into disciplinary arenas.

Florida State University Editorial Collective. Special Issue: Writing Across the Curriculum and Assessment: Activities, Programs, and Insights at the Intersection. Across the Disciplines, vol. 6, 2009.

The last decade has produced new ways of thinking about WAC as well as new ways of thinking about how to assess WAC. This special issue of Across the Disciplines explores how assessment can help us understand, support, and enrich all such WAC efforts, and outline why and how assessment is an appropriate mechanism for doing so.

Hanstedt, Paul. “Reforming General Education: Three Reasons to Make Writing Across the Curriculum Part of the Conversation.” Liberal Education, vol. 98, no. 4, 2012.

What follows are three reasons why—all political instincts to the contrary—it’s probably better to fold conversations about writing across the curriculum into the larger debate about general education models, scaffolding, institutional support, and student needs.

Harding, Lindsey, Robby Nadler, Paula Rawlins, Elizabeth Day, Kristen Miller, and Kimberly Martin. “Revising a Scientific Writing Curriculum: Wayfinding Successful Collaborations with Interdisciplinary Expertise.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 72, no. 2, 2020, pp. 333–368.

Interdisciplinary collaborations to help students compose for discipline-specific contexts draw on multiple sources of expertise. Science, technology, education, and mathematics (STEM) programs particularly rely on their writing colleagues because (1) their academic expertise is often not writing and (2) teaching writing often necessitates a redesigning of existing instructional materials. While many writing studies scholars have the expertise to assist their STEM colleagues with such tasks, how to do so—and, more fundamentally, how to begin such efforts—is not commonly focused on in the literature stemming from these collaborations. This article addresses this gap by detailing an interdisciplinary Writing in the Disciplines (WID) collaboration at a large, public R1 university between STEM and writing experts to redesign the university’s introductory biology writing curriculum. The collaborative curriculum design process detailed here is presented through the lens of wayfinding, which concerns orientation, trailblazing, and moving through uncertain landscapes according to cues. Within this account, a critical focus on language—what we talk about when we talk about writing—emerges, driving both the collaboration itself and resultant curricular revisions. The work reveals how collaborators can wayfind through interdisciplinary partnerships and writing curriculum development by transforming differences in discipline-specific expertise into a new path forward.

Jeon, Ah-Jung. David Kellogg, Mohammed Asif Khan, and Greg Tucker-Kellogg. “Developing Critical Thinking in STEM Education Through Inquiry-Based Writing in the Laboratory Classroom.” Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, vol. 49, 2021, pp. 140–150.

Laboratory pedagogy is moving away from step-by-step instructions and toward inquiry-based learning, but only now developing methods for integrating inquiry-based writing (IBW) practices into the laboratory course. The authors designed and implemented an IBW sequence in a university bioinformatics course. The authors observed dramatically improved student engagement and indirect evidence of improved learning outcomes over a similar workshop without IBW. Based on student feedback, initial discomfort with the writing component abated in favor of an overall positive response and increasing comfort with the high demands of student writing. Similarly, encouraging results were found in a semester length undergraduate module at the National University of Singapore (155 students).

Kramer, Tereza Joy, et al. “WID Course Enhancements in STEM: The Impact of Adding ‘Writing Circles’ and Writing Process Pedagogy.” Across the Disciplines, vol. 16, no. 4, 2019, pp. 26–38.

This study reports on a quantitative assessment of enhancements to a Writing in the Disciplines course in Kinesiology. The assessment coded student writing produced in semesters before and after a Kinesiology course was enhanced with both iterated peer review groups and writing-process scaffolding. Analysis of the results revealed significantly higher scores in five Learning Outcomes developed to align with the Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing (2011). These findings offer quantitative evidence that adding writing-process pedagogy and iterated peer review improves student outcomes in both writing and critical thinking.

Moon, Alena, Anne Ruggles Gere, and Ginger V. Shultz. “Writing in the STEM Classroom: Faculty Conceptions of Writing and Its Role in the Undergraduate Classroom.” Science Education, vol. 102, no. 5, 2018, pp. 1007–1028.

Writing is widely recognized as fundamental to the construction and communication of scientific knowledge. Building on this relationship between writing and knowledge construction, writing-to-learn (WTL) activities have shown to be effective in many science classrooms, but have not been widely implemented at the postsecondary level. To address the lack of implementation, we investigated potential adopters of this pedagogy. Potential adopters, postsecondary faculty, are unique given the key role writing plays in their professional practice as researchers. Because of this unique feature and the fact that an instructor’s theoretical orientation toward a construct impacts their instruction of that construct, an investigation of postsecondary faculty’s conceptions of writing instruction is necessary to understand the way writing is being used in the postsecondary classroom. To this end, 33 STEM faculty across multiple disciplines and positions were interviewed about writing and its role in their classes. A phenomenographic analysis resulted in four faculty “types” consisting of unique combinations of concept and practice, organized according to compatibility with WTL. Profiles were built that describe unique conceptions, desired outcomes, and challenges for each type. These profiles provide an understanding of the relationship between faculty’s conceptions and instructional practices regarding writing and lay the groundwork for understanding how writing is used in the postsecondary classroom.

Oates, Laurel Currie. “Beyond Communication: Writing as a Means of Learning.” The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute, vol. 6, no. 1, 2000, pp. 1–25.

In this article, the author examines the belief that writing facilitates learning from several perspectives. Part I describes the writing-to-learn movement, beginning with James N. Britton’s and Janet Emig’s assertions that writing is a unique method of learning and ending with John M. Ackerman’s claim that writing is no better and, is sometimes worse, than other modes of learning. Building on the evidence described in Part I, Part II discusses writing to learn in light of four theories: behaviorism, Linda S. Flower and John Hayes’s models of the composing process, Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia’s models of knowledge telling and knowledge transforming, and cognitive psychology. The final part, Part III, suggests which types of writing are likely to foster law school learning and how they can be used to facilitate the construction of new knowledge and the development of legal expertise.

Press, Marlyn, and Linda Epstein. “Nine Ways to Use Visual Art as a Prewriting Strategy.” The Language and Literacy Spectrum, vol. 17, 2007, pp. 31–39.

This article looks at the use of art in developing students’ prewriting ability. The activities, strategies, and objects used provide students with the background knowledge, motivation, vocabulary, structure, and fluency they need to compose and rehearse written pieces. The article describes research conducted on the effects of combining art with writing instruction. Finally, the article shows how various art activities and lessons help children develop strategies for improving their prewriting by providing a solid base of ideas and text structures at this initial stage.

Reynolds, Julie A., Christopher Thaiss, Wendy Katkin, and Robert J. Thompson, Jr. “Writing-to-Learn in Undergraduate Science Education: A Community-Based, Conceptually Driven Approach.” CBE—Life Sciences Education, vol. 11, no. 1, 2012, pp. 17–25.

Despite substantial evidence that writing can be an effective tool to promote student learning and engagement, writing-to-learn (WTL) practices are still not widely implemented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, particularly at research universities. Two major deterrents to progress are the lack of a community of science faculty committed to undertaking and applying the necessary pedagogical research, and the absence of a conceptual framework to systematically guide study designs and integrate findings. To address these issues, the authors undertook an initiative, supported by the National Science Foundation and sponsored by the Reinvention Center, to build a community of WTL/STEM educators who would undertake a heuristic review of the literature and formulate a conceptual framework. In addition to generating a searchable database of empirically validated and promising WTL practices, their work lays the foundation for multi-university empirical studies of the effectiveness of WTL practices in advancing student learning and engagement.

Russell, David R. “Writing Across the Curriculum in Historical Perspective: Toward a Social Interpretation.” College English, vol. 52, no. 1, 1990, pp. 52–73.

Russell argues that cross-curricular writing instruction has never made a permanent impact on academia for two structural reasons. First, it resists the fundamental organizing principle of modern academia, the compartmentalization of knowledge. Second, it upsets the usual methods of regulating access to coveted social roles by challenging the convenient assumption that writing is a single, generalizable skill, learned (or not learned) outside a disciplinary matrix—in secondary school or freshman composition—and not related in any discipline-specific way to the professional roles associated with a discipline.

Bazerman, Charles, Joseph Little, Lisa Bethel, Teri Chavkin, Danielle Fouquette, and Janet Garufis. Reference Guide to Writing Across the Curriculum. Parlor Press/The WAC Clearinghouse, 2005.

Reference Guide to Writing Across the Curriculum traces the Writing Across the Curriculum movement from its origins in British secondary education through its flourishing in American higher education and extension to American primary and secondary education. The authors follow their historical review of the literature by a review of research into primary, secondary, and higher education WAC teaching and learning. Subsequent chapters examine the relations of WAC to Writing to Learn theory, research, and pedagogy, as well as its interactions with the Rhetoric of Science and Writing in the Disciplines movements. Current issues of theory and practice are followed by a presentation of best practices in program design, assessment, and classroom practices. An extensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading round out this comprehensive guide to Writing Across the Curriculum.

Cox, Michelle, Jeffrey R. Galin, and Dan Melzer. Sustainable WAC: A Whole Systems Approach to Launching and Developing Writing Across the Curriculum Programs. National Council of Teachers of English, 2018.

Cox, Galin, and Melzer introduce a theoretical framework for WAC program development that takes into account the diverse contexts of today’s institutions of higher education, aids WAC program directors in thinking strategically as they develop programs, and integrates a focus on program sustainability.

Dean, Deborah. What Works in Writing Instruction: Research and Practice. 2nd ed., National Council of Teachers of English, 2021.

Using teacher-friendly language and classroom examples, Deborah Dean looks closely at instructional practices supported by a broad range of research and weaves them together into accessible recommendations that can inspire teachers to find what works for their own classrooms and students.

Gardner, Traci. Designing Writing Assignments. National Council of Teachers of English, 2008.

Effective student writing begins with well-designed classroom assignments. In Designing Writing Assignments, veteran educator Traci Gardner offers practical ways for teachers to develop assignments that will allow students to express their creativity and grow as writers and thinkers while still addressing the many demands of resource-stretched classrooms. Gardner explores how to balance pedagogical and curricular goals with the needs of multiple learners while managing everyday challenges such as mandates, testing, and the paper load. She uses her classroom experience to provide ideas on how to effectively define a writing task, explore the expectations for a composition activity, and assemble the supporting materials that students need to do their best work. This book includes dozens of starting points that teachers can customize and further develop for the students in their own classrooms.

Gasiewski, Diana, and Scott Warnock. Writing Together: Ten Weeks Teaching and Studenting in an Online Writing Course. National Council of Teachers of English, 2018.

This book narrates the experience of an asynchronous online writing course (OWC) through the dual perspective of the teacher, Scott Warnock, and a student, Diana Gasiewski, who participated in that OWC. Both teacher and student describe their strategies, activities, approaches, thoughts, and responses as they move week by week through the experience of teaching and taking an OWC.

Young, Art. Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum. 4th ed., Pearson Education, 2006.

Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum, presented here in its fourth edition, provides a comprehensive, accessible discussion of teaching writing across the curriculum. Written by one of the leaders in the field of writing across the curriculum, it offers a brief introduction to WAC and then discusses how writing can be used to help students learn and communicate. Art Young writes that this book can “serve as a guide to teachers who have been assigned or who have volunteered to teach a required ‘writing-intensive’ course in their discipline as well as to faculty who themselves decide to include student writing. whether occasionally or frequently, in their courses.” In addition to serving as a guide for teachers of WAC courses, this book also serves as an invaluable resource for faculty in English departments and writing programs.

Young, Richard. Toward A Taxonomy of “Small” Genres and Writing Techniques for Writing Across the Curriculum. The WAC Clearinghouse, 2011.

Toward A Taxonomy of “Small” Genres and Writing Techniques for Writing Across the Curriculum offer more than 150 “small genres” collected over a number of years by Richard Young in collaboration with Joanne Sipple and others. “The question I asked was whether we could get faculty to use writing in unconventional ways,” explained Young. “Ways that didn’t require them to invest a great deal of time in responding to student writing but that would nonetheless give students both an authentic writing task and feedback on their writing.”

Cripps, Michael J., editor. Across the Disciplines: A Journal of Language, Learning, and Academic Writing. 2000–present.

Across the Disciplines, a refereed journal devoted to language, learning, and academic writing, publishes articles relevant to writing and writing pedagogy in all their intellectual, political, social, and technological complexity.

Hall, Susanne E., editor. Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments. 2017–present.

Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments is a biannual, refereed online journal that publishes academic writing assignments accompanied by reflective essays. We publish assignments directed at both undergraduate and graduate students from all academic disciplines. Prompt is an open-access journal, with all articles freely available to all readers.