English 891WC - S-Writing Across Curriculum

This course explores the development of writing across the curriculum (WAC) in higher education; WAC is often described as an education movement that emphasizes writing to learn as well as writing in the disciplines (WID). Historians of college composition, such as David Russell, have traced the origins of writing across the curriculum to the late 19th century as universities increasingly emphasized disciplinary specialization. By the 1960s and 70s, the WAC movement began to influence academic programs, curricula, and pedagogy in US universities and British K-12 schools. In this seminar, we?ll learn about the history of WAC development in educational contexts, the ideologies underlying these movements, research on WID teaching and learning, and descriptions and analyses of WAC/WID program structures and administration. Beyond broad understanding of the WAC/WID movement, the seminar asks us more specifically to take up critiques that Donna LeCourt and Victor Villanueva raised 20-30 years ago: How might we work against assimilationist and exclusionary tendencies when teaching students to write in the disciplines? More specifically, how might we envision a critical, including anti-racist, approach to WAC/WID commitments and practices?

This class is open to English graduate students only.