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I like Will's reminder. While many writing folks are mired in the trenches struggling to get comp courses acknowledged as legit SERVICE courses, I love to be reminded of rhet and comp departments existing in THEIR OWN RIGHT/WRITE. But to address Doug's question a bit more directly . . One reason that WID/WAC seems to have carried the day is that we know that generic comp courses routinely/poorly taught don't work very well, but for WID/WAC, well, hope springs eternal. Another reason WID is so popular among academics is that we are making the same mistake we've made on many other educational innovations. Take the "structure of the discipline" movement which swept education in the early 1960s supported by J. Bruner et al. The reasoning went that because professors and grad students recognized that disciplines have particular structures then these structures had to be taught in some way at every grade level. Thus A. Kitzhaber et al busily prepared English textbooks of classical mythology for Grade 6 kids. The salient error in reasoning is that what is true for professors is not necessarily the best way to teach people far away from being professors. So, yes, there are discourse communities, and they have acrane and fascinating mysterious rules, but that does not necessarily mean that first-year students should improve their writing via this route. This does not mean I am anti-WID. I am promoting in at our university. Because we are engaged in education, we should focus on the learner. Astin et al supply us with an incredible amount of reliable and valid data about American first-year students. If we accept its extrapolation to Canada, we know that our students are interested primarily in good jobs and secondarily in big money. It seems much easier to teach writing through their interests than throught the generic course we tried two years ago. Shall we start a Rhet and Comp department? Let's see: 6 professors, a secretary, a new building, a new section in the library, a new computer lab. Will Women's Studies, Business, and some other department all forego the 2 new faculty positions etc etc etc? Knowing the answer, we think that WID is more feasible, and may--just MAY--be doable. Jim Bell Ph. (604) 960-6365 Learning Skills Centre Fax (604) 960-6330 University of Northern BC email [log in to unmask] 3333 University Way Prince George, BC Canada V2N 4Z9 =========-=-========-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=