WAC in the Classroom

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WAC in the Classroom

• Strategies for incorporating WAC pedagogies into
  YOUR class!

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The WAC philosophy is applicable to courses in
disciplines throughout the university.
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The main tenets of WAC are
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Writing is the responsibility of the entire
academic community Writing must be integrated
across departmental boundaries Writing
instruction must be continuous during all four
years of undergraduate education Writing
promotes learning and only by practicing the
conventions of an academic discipline will
students begin to communication effectively
within that discipline
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So, how do we incorporate a WAC model into
various kinds of classes?And why?
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First, we must recognize that our students are
already writers TXT messaging Blogging
Email
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From Susan McLeods presentation What is Writing
Across the Curriculum? What Does a WAC Program
Need to Succeed?
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From Susan McLeods presentation What is Writing
Across the Curriculum? What Does a WAC Program
Need to Succeed?
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The teaching of writing is not just the job of
writing teachers. Part of WACs mission is to
reinforce the value of writing in and to all
disciplines.
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The Colorado School of Mines WAC website answers
many questions that faculty consider when
presented with a WAC pedagogical model, most
notably
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"Isnt teaching writing the job of the high
schools and first-year composition courses? Why
is this being pushed over on us?"These
students today! I tell ya, they just can't write!
Where do I begin?http//www.mines.edu/ac
ademic/lais/wc/wac-FAQ.html
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Professor Julianne NewmarkWriting Across
Communities Community Safety and
HealthWelcome to English 111. Our course will
be designed around various concepts of
community this can mean the community from
which you come, the community to which you aspire
to belong professionally, or the community of
which you are currently a member, the university
community. We will be Writing Across
Communities in our course this semester, and I
will ask you to draw upon the writing experiences
you have had already to help you to enter new
community discussions. One of the most important
communities we will discuss this term will be the
community of our classroom. We will examine the
ways in which our community of students engages
with itself and with the outside world, at
various removes. How do you all as students
interact with the larger university and its
various academic departments, with the city of
Socorro, with New Mexico as a state, with our
nation, and with our world? We will bring all of
these various communities into conversation
through the texts that you read and, more
importantly, that you create this semester. How
do we express community through writing? How do
we create community through writing?
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Key community-building aspects of my course
Group discussion Non-graded expository
exercises Peer review exercises Writing in
various genres
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Group Scaffolding Exercise,as used by a Colorado
School of Mines Senior-level Geophysics course.
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Like a scaffold, each part of this project builds
upon the previous part. Some professors might
incorporate this scaffolding scheme over the
course of an entire semester. I chose to utilize
this model over five weeks.
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Four-part project1. Problem Definition2.
Audience Analysis3. Solutions Report4.
Final Problem Solving Report
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With creative and innovative assignments, a WAC
model of involving writing across disciplinary
communities and in individual courses allows
writing to complement--rather than
hinder--course goals, as the Campus Writing
Program at CSM succinctly states.
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WAC at UNM is dedicated to bridging boundaries
and enabling students to communicate across and
from various kinds of communities through
writing.Within your disciplinary community,
how might you incorporate writing in your
classroom?
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Consider these questions1. How do you -- or
do you -- use writing in your class?2. How
could you apply some of the tenets of the WAC
philosophy (as demonstrated by my classs
scaffolding exercise) to your class?3. What
benefits can you envision from applying WAC to
your class? What challenges do you envision?