WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUMMargy
Stewart , Coordinator
Ongoing writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) activities include the following: Writers' Circles Students, staff, and faculty meet three or four times a semester to share first drafts and give each other initial responses. Featured Student Writer Faculty may nominate excellent student-authored material for publication on Washburn's web site. The Featured Student Essay is available online. Conversations with Featured Writers Student authors who have been published on Washburn's web site meet for living room chats with students in Freshman Composition and anyone else who wishes to attend. The gatherings are held in the Living Learning Center. WAC Discussion Group Faculty get together and talk about writing in their courses. On occasion, faculty have worked together on experimental assignments, collaborative research, and publication. Participants have come from the College of Arts and Sciences and the Schools of Law, Nursing, Business, and Applied Studies. The group has given numerous presentations at area schools and presented papers at scholarly conferences around the country. In addition, this group published an article about some of its activities in a leading WAC journal ("Faculty Collaboration and Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Assignments: Linking Teaching and Scholarship," in Language and Learning Across the Disciplines. 4:1 (May 2000): 67-70). Coffeehouse Readings One of the experiments undertaken by the WAC Discussion Group was the use of creative writing assignments to help students learn a variety of subjects, including math, music, biology, physical education, business, art, and psychology. The results were so successful that the group decided to share them with the rest of the campus through coffeehouse readings. The Coffeehouse Reading, at which students and faculty share creative writing they have done about their subjects, has become an annual spring event. Individual Consultation Individual faculty members often invite WAC coordinator Margy Stewart to brainstorm with them about ways of improving student writing in their courses. Questions or comments about this Web site may be addressed to: Margy Stewart, margy.stewart@washburn.edu |