Improve Writing Ability

Although we ourselves have enthusiastically advocated writing across the curriculum and related reforms, we have found no convincing research base for these programs.

The above comment reflects the current status of a nation-wide educational program known as Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC).

Writing Across the Curriculum refers to focusing on writing in courses besides English composition such as biology, history, literature, mathematics, and chemistry. WAC has several strong features, but in some ways it has been oversold. Also, it tends to shift the responsibility and accountability for teaching writing away from where they belong, the English class.

WAC – which has the goals of improving writing ability, reasoning skill, and course mastery in academic subjects – emerged from the same tradition and teachers that produced the process approach partly to rectify the disappointing performance of the process approach in English classes.

English teachers find the question "What should I write about?" a perennial problem with the process approach. So process theorists suggest that students use the approach for writing about the subject matter of other courses. Writing about the material in a history or chemistry class solves the problem of what to write about.

Also, process theorists are finding the process approach less effective than expected for strengthening students' writing and analytical skills in English classes. They maintain that the problem is that students are not writing enough in other classes.

A primary rationale for WAC is the claim that writing is a way of discovering new knowledge, ideas, and insights. The major evidence for the claim comes from reports by some professional writers that they are often surprised by what they write, that characters in their novels or plays develop independent personalities and control what the typewriter prints.

In WAC students are told they should write without expecting class credit or teacher comments but solely for their improved understanding and course mastery; however, teachers find them generally unconvinced. Most students take an assignment seriously only if it is to be handed in and contributes in some way to their grade, claiming all courses place heavy demands on their time. Perhaps if WAC activities showed more dramatic benefits, students would find them more intrinsically motivating. As it stands, if teachers don't bother periodically collecting, evaluating, and crediting WAC assignments, students don't bother doing them.  

Taking notes while reading textbooks is among the oldest yet best ways of using writing to improve learning. It is also, ironically, the one writing activity WAC has neglected to encourage because of its stress on having students write freely, express impressions, and use the process approach to create their own meaning.

Relationship Between Thinking and Language

Teaching Writing: Inquiry Approach

Writing Relationship Sentences

Teaching Usage and Functional Grammar

Run-on Sentences

Verb Problems: Tense And Form

Combining Sentences Having the Same Subject or Predicate

Combining Sentences With Prepositional Phrases