Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Going It Alone
“Going It Alone: Supporting Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) When There Is No WAC Program”
Gale, Charlotte
This article is centered around a university that has up to a six-year program in pharmacy science with other medical-related curricula, which relates to the author’s statement that it is an “unfriendly place for writing” (2). The students believe that anything that is important should rotate around the facts they need to know. [btw—a major issue in teaching critical thinking.] Many of the students have chosen certain careers because they believed that the available jobs in that career would not involve writing (3).
The author wanted to promote “thinking and writing” but did run into several obstacles (4). One of the obstacles was that faculty were concerned about the increased workload (4). Professors seemed to always want the “writing specialist” to talk about writing and explain its importance (6).
A writing proficiency examination is used by the school; about 39% of the students fail the examination and have to take a remedial course. Most of the students failing said they have never had to write or think about a complex problem (7).
One of the successful WAC activities at the school began in the students’ second year, when they created a cover letter and a resume, and was followed up the fourth year by an updated cover letter and resume. Another successful activity was the use of drug research article abstract writing (6).
Buried away at the end of the article was a final notation that might be the most important element in the entire article: faculty who used writing assignments in their classes received poorer student course evaluations than those who assigned no writing. Apparently, the students felt being asked to write was unreasonable (11).
