Post 227: What is Writing in The Disciplines?

Post 227: What is Writing In the Disciplines?

Writing in the Disciplines means teaching students the writing conventions of their field or discipline. In an ordinary English Composition class, I can give students essay topics from the ProCon.org website for them to write their essays, but in a WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum)  class, I have students choose topics that they will use from their discipline.  I also have students write in either APA, MLA or Chicago Turabian so that students become familiar with the research formatting of their discipline.

Students are introduced to the writing conventions of their field through exemplars, model papers or WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum) assignments that resemble what they will be expected to write in their field. Science majors learn to write a lab report or keep a lab notebook,  Business majors learn how to write a business letter, Social Sciences and Humanities majors learn how to do a literature review or a movie review just to name a few assignments.  Having good example papers and templates of writing helps students visualize what they will be expected to write in their majors.

Remember, a WAC class is only the beginning of the writing experience for students. Students are expected to learn more in depth writing convention rules as they take classes in the content area of their major but a WAC class gives students the writing foundations to succeed.

In ENGL 110, the WAC class to which I was Course Lead at AMU, I assigned my WAC students to do a Position Paper and an Argumentative Evaluation paper, but there are alternate WID assignments that mimic professional writing such as:

Think of alternate forms/formats. Although the research essay is the most common kind of WID assignment, it's not the only format that students can use to learn about disciplinary writing conventions. If professionals in your field use any of these types of writing, consider using these formats to help students understand the thinking and writing of your discipline:

• Project or lab notebook
• Progress report
• Management plan
• Position paper
• Interpretive essay
• Casebook
• Review of literature
• Journal or professional article
• Project proposals
• Grant proposals
• Reading Journals
• Jargon Journals
• Summarizing a Popular Article in the field
• Lab/field reports  (From the WAC Clearinghouse Website)

The WAC Clearinghouse Website suggests that if a WAC teacher decides for her students to do a research essay, WAC suggests that students should also learn how to use the school library, how to find credible sources on the internet, how to read scholarly articles and to give students a chance to work on parts of the final assignment as separate tasks.  In my class lessons in my ENGL 110 WAC class,  I give students access to video tutorials on how to use the AMU library as well as the AMU librarian email address and her hours of availability to assist students with research. I also have a massive lesson on the different between scholarly articles and popular culture articles. In my DQ forums, I separate the parts of the essay into parts so students can peer edit each other's papers and discuss what topics they want to do for their essay.  I actually found it much harder to plan and prep for a WAC writing class than the traditional English Composition essay class!! But I learned a lot in the process.

For more information on WAC,  go to this website address: https://wac.colostate.edu/resources/wac/intro/wid/