Writing beyond the Curriculum: Fostering New Collaborations in Literacy

Abstract

s Susan McLeod noted more than ten years ago, the movement for writing across the curriculum at its best has been about change in the entire educational process at the university level (Defining 23). From its inception in small liberal arts colleges to its broad application in land grant universities and Ivy League schools, WAC has challenged teachers in every discipline to think more about the context and nature of student than they might within the traditional content-driven model of college teaching. WAC's attention to students' precedes the recent drive in higher education circles to shift universities from teaching to learning (Barr and Tagg; M. Miller; Schneider and Shoenberg). Indeed, WAC practitioners have become institutional leaders in faculty development and activist program design. Writing program administrators (WPAs) are often asked to participate in service task forces, teaching excellence advisories, technology roundtables, and core revision committees. Writing programs are now involved in service projects that connect the classroom to the community (Adler-Kassner, Crooks, and Watters; Cushman Public; Herzberg; Schutz and Gere) and in new instructional initiatives that draw on information technology and the Internet (Anson; Faigley; Hawisher, et al.; Walvoord; or see on-line journals such as Kairos). Our colleagues in the National Writing Project have for many years