Overview of Writing Across the Curriculum

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is based on the belief that students learn about writing in all of their classes—not just in specialized writing courses. Scholarship on WAC agrees: 

• 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  
• only by practicing the conventions of an academic discipline will students begin to communicate effectively within that discipline (The WAC Clearinghouse) 

 Even though WAC believes that writing is everyone’s responsibility, it does not assume that every professor plays the same role.  This chart shows the differing roles that might be played by “writing specialist” faculty and those in other disciplines.   

Development of the Moody WAC Initiative

While writing is essential to student success at Moody, most students need more than one class to master the academic writing expectations shared by all courses, and they need help remembering and effectively adapting what they learn to later classes.

These concerns led to the development of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) task force at the beginning of the 2021-2022 academic year. WAC draws from scholarship in Writing Studies and operates from a core, evidence-based principle: that writing instruction works best as a whole-team project.

Through the fall and spring semesters, Moody’s Writing Across the Curriculum task force investigated how WAC might benefit both Moody faculty and students. This document describes the group’s recommendations for a strong, sustainable Writing Across the Curriculum initiative that can be developed and implemented over several years.

The three primary goals of the WAC initiative include creating: 

• A shared language to talk about writing 
• Shared expectations for student writing growth
• Shared resources to support both faculty and students with writing

As the repetition of "shared" implies, this project seeks to coordinate (though not standardize) writing instruction throughout the undergraduate experience.