Abstract
This paper illustrates some of the problems and successes that the authors encountered while integrating ALN into a writing across the curriculum program and an online writing lab at a large research university. Using transcripts from ALN class discussions, the authors examine students’ networked interactions and analyze the classes’ responses to a variety of online assignments in a class on English composition and pedagogy, a course on electrical and computing engineering, and a class on writing technologies. In so doing, the authors set forth several pedagogical principles which emerged from their experiences with ALN in their individual classes but which also share a number of commonalities with effective WAC practices.
Highlights
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement has been a powerful force for change in American higher education
At colleges and universities where there are WAC programs, faculty often assign more writing, are likely to become more involved in their students' learning, and often change their pedagogical approaches to more interactive and participatory modes with students writing frequently in response to their instructors and classmates
Pemberton introduces the engineering TA, Bevan Das, and the Writers' Workshop to any student in the WAC classes who has signed onto PacerForum.) In what follows, we focus on our own experiences in using learning networks, along with those of one of our engineering colleagues, Burks Oakley
Summary
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement has been a powerful force for change in American higher education. The use of computer networks in the service of learning and the teaching of writing has become commonplace[4], and one need only glance at the weekly Chronicle of Higher Education to note the plethora of articles that promote ALN Those of us who have worked with computer networks recognize their promise, but we realize that computer networks can be used to support teaching approaches every bit as ill-considered as those found in some traditional correspondence courses where instructors send out course materials to students who are expected to absorb the material and send back answers to prescribed questions, with little interaction occurring between the instructor and students. We end with a few broad-based suggestions that have come to guide our own use of electronic networks in writing-intensive courses
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