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What is WAC at Kingsborough? |
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 In
1999, the Trustees of CUNY mandated a University Initiative to place writing
at the center of a comprehensive education. This initiative, referred to
as Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC), aims to integrate thinking and reasoning
skills into a variety of written modes for use in courses throughout the
undergraduate curriculum. In addition to increasing the amount of writing
undergraduates encounter in general, the initiative includes the establishment
of "Writing Intensive" courses as a graduation requirement for
all students. According to University guidelines, “These measures are meant
to help students meet the ever-increasing demands for better communication
skills in both the workplace and advanced education. In addition, our students
must prepare to pass the new CUNY Proficiency Examination (CPE), a three-hour
reading and writing exam required for graduation from the community colleges
and for transfer into the senior colleges.”
This website is designed to provide easy access to information about WAC and its implementation at Kingsborough; to list resources about writing assignments and WAC-related websites in the various disciplines; to inform about WAC-related workshops, activities and opportunities; and to initiate a forum for sharing WAC-related experiences with others in the Kingsborough community. What is a Writing Intensive (WI) course? In accordance with University guidelines, Kingsborough Community College offers courses that are designated as "Writing Intensive" if they follow certain criteria. Faculty members representing all departments and career programs determine the types of writing tasks that are appropriate for the enhancement of thinking and writing skills typical in each area. In addition, faculty members receive release time for the creation of WI courses, and are assigned classes with a cap of 25 students. Preliminary criteria for WI courses include: • Grading is based substantially on the assessment of written work. Formal writing usually accounts for 25-50% of the final grade. • Both informal and formal writing assignments are included in the course. • For those classes in which research or term papers are due, instructors schedule dates for drafts and revisions. This process allows for the return of drafts and revisions with comments on both form and content for the final version. • Models of the different types of writing are provided and discussed in class. How Do Instructors Benefit from WAC and/or WI courses? The advantages of incorporating writing into existing courses and/or of teaching a WI course include: • Reinvigorating the classroom atmosphere as students engage in more active learning. • Providing a greater number of opportunities to provide feedback, guidance and even mentoring to students. • Finding new ways of helping students develop skills that will help them excel in their future work environments. • Expanding the teaching repertoire to include new instructional skills as well as immediate feedback from ungraded writing. • Developing professionally through workshops that offer guidance and assistance with the creation of WI courses, including computer-enhanced instruction. • Presenting potential new areas of faculty publication. • Creating opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration and research. What is Informal Writing? The most fundamental aspect of informal writing is that it is not assessed or graded. Some of these assignments need not even be read by professors. Instructors may collect this coursework and write responses, use them to begin class discussions or as the basis of longer writing assignments (see the section on formal writing below), or simply check off whether or not they have been completed. Informal writing is advantageous for two reasons: students have a greater number of opportunities to engage with course content through writing, and instructors are not forced to grade an inordinate amount of work. The different kinds of informal writing include: focused writing; journals, or learning logs; small group work; and semi-formal writing. For focused writing assignments, students are asked to write about a given question for 5 to 10 minutes, often at the beginning or at the end of class, and are to hand in their papers. They may be asked to: • Summarize the significant points of a particular reading or problem assigned for that specific day. • Explain the most important aspects of a lecture they have just heard. • Describe what they did not understand about a reading, problem, or lecture. • Ask a question, or say what is new about a reading, problem, or lecture. Throughout the semester, students may also be asked to keep journals, or learning logs. These logs, guided by instructor-assigned questions, or problems, can provide students with a continuous focus on content. They may also help both students and instructors track progress in a course. In their journal entries, students can: • Explain their agreement or disagreement with a course-related statement. • Describe what they liked and did not like about a specific reading or lecture. • Summarize and raise questions about a particular reading or lecture. • Solve a problem and describe the method they used in order to do so. • Respond to a question using material from the textbook and their own experience. • Keep a diary of their learning experiences in the course. Along with the use of focused writing and/or journal entries, students may also meet in small groups (4-5 people) to share ideas and produce a summary of an existing project, or even assemble a new writing product. This type of small group work permits students to: • Collaborate on written answers to questions about a reading, experiment, or lecture. • Share questions from a lecture, lab report, or response to a reading. • Summarize the critical issues in a text, article, or paper for presentation to the class. Semi-formal writing assignments are written for a given audience (students, instructors, designated readers) and are recognized by students as "counting" in some way, such as by a system of checkmarks indicating exemplary, adequate, or inadequate work. They, however, are not graded individually as are formal writing assignments. These responses can be aimed towards a revision, can involve real dialogue around course content and can permit students to: • Write letters, memos, lab reports, synthesis papers, summaries, or reaction papers. • Develop several short papers that build upon one another as steps toward completing a larger project. • Answer in-class, timed essays on questions similar to those likely to appear on the CPE—based on class content. • Compose short essays on assigned questions at home for use in small group discussions in class, or online. What is Formal Writing? Formal writing should document understanding of course content and the ability to communicate effectively in the form and style favored by a particular discipline. In WAC and WI courses, traditional writing assignments are often altered to allow students to draw on ideas generated through informal writing assignments. In this way, students are taught how to reflect on questions over time, collaborate with their peers, create drafts and revise their work. Some ways in which instructors can assist students in developing a final product to be graded at a later time are to: • Have students turn in formal work in different stages. This moves the student through the paper writing process gradually and decreases the possibility of plagiarism. • Discuss essay exam questions in advance in small groups. • Permit students to revise term papers based on feedback from their instructor and fellow classmates. |
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