Writing Intensive Guidelines - WIDWAC Program

The Writing Across the Curriculum Committee, a Standing Committee of the Academic Senate, has established the course requirements for approval as Writing Intensive as follows:

1. Writing - All WI Classes shall meet all of the following criteria:
   1. Throughout a semester, students spend a portion of their class time writing in the service of learning course material. This writing may be informal and un-graded.
   2. A minimum of 10 pages of formal writing will be assigned and will be achieved by assigning several short papers, one short paper plus a longer one, or one longer paper assigned in stages that are each guided and responded to by the faculty member.
   3. These 10 pages are responded to and returned to the student by the faculty member so that the student has the opportunity to revise before a final grade for the assignment is given.
   4. The faculty member regularly discusses student writing in class.
   5. Each time a writing assignment is given, the faculty member discusses and clarifies the assignment and his or her expectations for it.
   6. The students' written work is an integral part of the course grade. When combined with short-answer and multiple-choice tests and other forms of assessing student mastery of material, writing assignments should figure significantly (e .g . 30%) in the overall assessment.
   7. For liberal arts classes, at least one assessment instrument has a written component that figures significantly in the overall grading process.
2. Class Size: Size should in NO case be more than 25 students. The exact limit is to be determined by the academic department and the Office of Academic Affairs but in NO case will that limit exceed 25 students.