Hi Doug (and others)
Clarkson had a WAC program in place 15 or so years ago which
required a set number of WI courses. Unfortunately, the program
was put in place without a university-wide proponent or
"regulator" so over time it lost its direction.
More critically though, the program eventually failed because
its creators assumed that Writing Intensive meant that
there would be some writing instruction. That was a pretty
big assumption. We ended up with various writing
requirements and little actual instruction. And, of course,
faculty who were offering "WI" courses complained
because their students were such bad writers and they dropped
the WI requirements because it took too long to grade all
the miserable papers.
I'm currently on a campus-wide committee that is trying to
re-draft a foundation experience for students. As part of
this, we are working toward a model that would have two
slates of courses - Writing Instruction and Writing Intensive
(though, we're using the term "communication" instead of
"writing" since we want to also address speech and visual
design). We've used the metaphor of a two legged stool to
argue for the Instruction courses, claiming that simply
requiring writing isn't sufficient. Though, once we talked
about actually _teaching_ writing everyone went running
in the other direction.
I'm very interested to see what you come up with. Without
putting you through all sorts of trouble, could you post
your workshop notes or something?
thanks,
- brent
------------------
Brenton Faber
Associate Professor
Co-Director
Center for Ethics and Communication
Clarkson University
Potsdam NY 13699
[log in to unmask]
On Wed, 2004-05-19 at 15:14, Doug Brent wrote:
> I'm putting together a workshop on the state of WAC and I want to update
> myself on what other people are doing. I'm especially interested in
> which universities use a writing-intensive course model. I'd be even
> more grateful for specific resources such as the criteria used for WI
> courses, how many of them must be taken, how this is enforced -- the
> logistical nitty gritty.
>
> If everyone is willing, I'd suggest replying to the list rather than to
> me personally -- there have been a number of such discussions that
> started on CASLL and then moved off-list, and I for one would have liked
> to follow the conversation; I'm sure many others will be interested
> too. Nice break from viagra ads.
>
> Thanks, all!
>
> Doug
> --
> Dr. Doug Brent
> Associate Dean (Academic)
> Faculty of Communication and Culture, University of Calgary
> 2500 University Drive N.W.
> Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
> Voice: (403) 220-5458 Fax: (403) 282-6716
> http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dabrent
>
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To leave the list, send a SIGNOFF CASLL command to
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For the list archives and information about the organization,
its newsletter, and the annual conference, go to
http://www.stu.ca/inkshed/
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