Writing In the Disciplines/Writing Across the Curriculum Program

The City University-wide Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiative begun in 1999 is an exhortation to all CUNY faculty to reevaluate their pedagogical theories and practices. It is effectively a challenge from the administration of the entire university system to reflect on how knowledge is gained or constructed, the role of discipline-specific discourse, their teaching methods, syllabi and course organization, and the writing assignments they give.

At Queensborough Community College the WAC initiative has taken the form of dual program that emphasizes both writing across the curriculum and writing in the disciplines, that is, the use of writing to learn activities to promote improved skills in writing generally and in discipline-specified discourses.

Professors involved with the WAC program at QCC have found that confronting the challenge has been rewarding thus far. Music instructor Sheila Schonbrun notes, “I had been looking for years for ways to bring students to have belief in their own powers of thought, and to liven discussion of the material that we were studying. Most of the work done under the ‘writing intensive’ umbrella seems to be effective in doing just that.”

Yet, Instructor Schonbrun’s comment might be countered with the argument that many faculty are wary of getting their students to express their own thoughts at the expense of rigorous content absorption. Art History Professor Jo Ann Wein has found however, “judging from my experience [in the Fall 2001] semester, I believe that the combination of ‘low stakes’ and ‘high stakes’ writing assignments that will be distributed throughout the semester will enable students to work and learn steadily through writing, and to gain the skill, information and enjoyment of art within a knowledge of the civilization that produced it and its contribution to our collective culture today.”

Some professors are finding that the format of their courses has changed, such as Politics and Government Professor Peter Bales who states that he posed one of the key questions of his government course at the end of the semester, but that “I now intend to post the question at the beginning of the course and allow the students to make their minds as we progress.”