Writing and Teaching the Disciplines in France: Current Conversations and Connections

Abstract

Writing in the disciplines (WiD) and writing across the curriculum (WAC) are important university-wide intellectual projects often grounded in liberal arts and general education philosophies. In France, WiD/WAC discussions are growing out of the curricular realities of writing as central to success in all disciplines and of a new student population obtaining access to higher education. These curricular issues are framed by a complex history of who takes responsibility for teaching writing and for researching the teaching of writing.This article presents the threads of these discussions at two recent French conferences, where debate about writing to learn, writing as meaning-making, writing in the disciplines, argument strategies across disciplines, forms of voice, intertextuality, and writing as membership in a domain were central. WiD programs of the kind supported by Cornell’s Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines might be quite effective in this very different cultural setting.