Curriculum: Writing Enriched Curriculum
Faculty Information
Benefits of WEC for Departments and Programs
- Improves student writing across class years and courses.
- Provides institutional support in achieving more optimal integration of relevant writing instruction into a department/program’s curriculum.
- Supports the collection of materials that can help departments/programs identify what students are learning in the major.
- Provides prospective majors and graduating seniors with a clear idea of the writing abilities developed through the major.
- Approaches change through a process that is faculty-driven, student-focused, institutionally-supported, and grounded in the intellectual priorities of each department/program.
Departments with Committee on Academic Affairs (CoAA)-approved Writing Plans
Department |
Liaison(s) |
|---|---|
Beth Belanger and Ani Mukherji |
|
Josh Newby |
|
Jennifer Tessendorf |
|
Jodi Dean |
Departments slated for Spring 2020 Writing Plan submission
|
Department |
Liaison(s) |
|---|---|
Biology |
Susan Cushman |
Education |
Audrey Roberson |
Environmental Studies |
Darrin Magee |
Other Departments in Progress
|
Department |
Liaison(s) |
|---|---|
Classics |
James Capreedy |
Music |
Charity Lofthouse |
Philosophy |
Eric Barnes, Karen Frost-Arnold, and Greg Frost-Arnold |
Spanish and Hispanic Studies |
Caroline Travalia, Fernando Rodriguez-Mansilla |
What makes WEC successful?
Through a series of facilitated meetings, departments and programs develop a Writing Plan that articulates key writing abilities, plans for curricular integration, and needs for instructional support. By foregrounding department/program faculty expertise, the WEC process allows departments/programs to build from pre-existing structures and identify ways to make student learning of writing more explicit and deliberate. WEC is an ongoing and iterative process, and Writing Plans are designed to be living documents; with the support of the WEC team, departments/programs review and revise their Writing Plans and implementation strategies on a scheduled cycle, and as desired.
Writing Plans
Writing Plans are documents in which a department/program’s faculty characterize writing in their discipline, name the abilities with which they would like students to become proficient, map these abilities into course curricula, and plan for relevant writing assessment and instructional support. The WEC process is designed to ensure that each Writing Plan is faculty-driven, reflects relevant definitions of writing and course structures, and further, that department/program faculty have regular opportunities to review and revise their plan. Because Writing Plans will be embedded in a major, each will be submitted to CoAA for review and will be publicly available to students.
Faculty Time Commitment
For faculty other than the department/program’s liaison, the time commitment is modest: faculty respond to an online survey (20 minutes), supply student writing samples, attend four-five department/program meetings dedicated to WEC, and review drafts of the Writing Plan and other materials. Faculty may also be involved in any implementation plans the department/program chooses to pursue, and some may choose to be involved in the iterative assessment of the Writing Plan, as well.
Departments/Programs will begin the WEC at department request. After the information-gathering phase, the creation phase of the Writing Plan will take each department roughly a calendar year, followed by an iterative and supported process of implementation and revision which is responsive to each department/program’s interests and needs.
History
In the spring of 2015, the faculty elected to participate in and adopt a Writing Enriched Curriculum (WEC) as part of our revised curriculum. With support from the Provost’s office, the following measures were taken to ensure that WEC is well-structured and widely supported:
Pamela Flash, the founding director of WEC at the University of Minnesota, conducted a workshop that introduced the HWS faculty to WEC at the Spring 2016 Opening Institute. Over 80 faculty members participated in this workshop.
A WEC Advisory Committee was formed, which initially included representatives from CoAA, CoFAC, the Provost’s Office, the DLC, the faculty at large, the WEC Director, and the WEC specialist. Currently, the Advisory Committee consists of representatives from CoAA, the Provost’s Office, the DLC, the WEC Director, and the WEC specialist.
WEC Program personnel were appointed. Hannah Dickinson was selected as the WEC Faculty Director; Susan Hess was named WEC Specialist, and a part-time administrative coordinator, Cheryl Galvani, was hired.
Pamela Flash was hired to advise the WEC Advisory Committee and Director on implementing WEC and to consult with HWS pilot departments.
The Chemistry, Philosophy, and Music departments agreed to participate in a WEC pilot.
Representatives from the WEC Advisory Committee and the pilot departments attended a WEC Symposium at the University of Minnesota.
Pamela Flash and her assistant visited HWS in May 2016 to facilitate half-day retreats with each pilot department and meet with the WEC Advisory Committee.
The WEC Advisory Committee developed an institutional timeline and plan to implement WEC in all departments and majors on campus. This plan was modified from that used by the University of Minnesota to better fit HWS.
Support for WEC
The WEC Program is made possible through the generous support of the Office of Academic and Faculty Affairs, which serves as the administrative home of WEC. The WEC Team, Hannah Dickinson, Susan Hess, and the WEC Administrative Coordinator Cheryl Galvani, will assist faculty through the creation, implementation, and review phases of the WEC process. Writing plan development and assessment is directly supported by the WEC Team and their institutional budget, while writing plan implementation is directly supported both by the WEC Team (and their institutional budget) and by additional campus resources like the Writing Colleagues Program, the Digital Learning Team, the Research Librarians, the Center for Teaching and Learning, and other sources of support.
Faculty Resources
Testimonials
“We're actually discussing curriculum as a department! This is fantastic. It's easy to get bogged down in the weekly business and rarely discuss what learning is happening throughout our department. This is giving the impulse to have conversation about something we know to be important, but don't often make time for.†– Josh Newby, Assistant Professor of Chemistry
“Our department has finished the stage of the WEC process where we created the list of writing abilities we want our majors and minors to have. This conversation will help make our department's instruction more coherent. In the cases where different faculty have different expectations of student writing, I am in a better position to make these differences transparent to students, since we had a department-wide conversation about the different sorts of abilities we're each aiming to emphasize with our students.†– Gregory Frost-Arnold, Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy
CONTACT
Hannah Dickinson
Director, Writing Enriched Curriculum
dickinson@hws.edu
Smith Hall
(315) 781-3352