Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC), Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing (CSTW)
Overview
One of the core challenges of teaching writing is the fact that students bring widely varying experiences with culture, education, and language to classrooms. By incorporating strategies to promote transparency (Winkelmes et al. 2016) and culturally sustaining pedagogies (Paris and Alim 2017), instructors can promote transparency in teaching and learning and be responsive to the diverse range of their students’ needs. Participants in this week-long seminar with the WAC program in the CSTW will first comprehensively examine their course curriculum and identify the unique needs of their diverse student populations. Using insights from this examination, they will consider how to engage these students and promote their success through writing. By the end of this seminar, participants will have designed or redesigned a sequenced writing assignment for their course.
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Learn more about Endorsement requirements and offerings.
Apply for Endorsement
Complete your required documentation.
Learning Outcomes
Participants will be able to:
- Identify and articulate core learning outcomes for a course and at least one assignment to develop or revise
- Identify “bottlenecks,” or places in a course where students struggle to advance their learning via an assignment and frame learning strategies to model tasks and provide opportunities for students to practice
- Design an assignment and related activities which promote transparency in learning and teaching as a way of breaking through identified bottlenecks
- Develop strategies to promote accessible and culturally sustaining learning
- Construct a plan to assess student learning that promotes transparency, accessibility, and culturally sustaining pedagogies
Participation Requirements
Requirements include the following:
Participants must register for and be accepted into the Teaching through Writing endorsement seminar. Seats are limited.
Visit the CSTW website for more information about the WAC seminar.
- Participants must attend all sessions of the Seminar
- Participants meet face-to-face for 15 hours (five sessions, three hours each)
- Participants must complete drafts of two core documents during the seminar:
- A prompt for the core assignment that was designed or redesigned
- An assessment plan for their assignment
Verification
The final teaching endorsement application will require you to upload a signed completion of criteria document from CSTW.
Program Elements
Required Hours: 15-20 hours (15 in the seminar, and up to five hours of work on assignment composing outside the sessions)
Timeline: 1 academic term (offered over several weeks during a term, or over a week during break).
| TITLE | DELIVERY METHOD | HOURS | DESCRIPTION |
|---|---|---|---|
Seminar Core | In-person | 15.0 | The WAC staff guides participants through the process of identifying curricular goals, identifying the needs of their diverse student populations, designing transparent assignments and activities, and planning how to assess student learning through writing. There are five sessions, three hours each. Sessions occur either five days in a row or five weeks in a row, depending on when it is offered. There may be up to five hours of additional work completed at home in between sessions one and five. |
Get Started
Learn more about Endorsement requirements and offerings.
Apply for Endorsement
Complete your required documentation.