Writing-Enriched Curriculum
Frequently-Asked Questions
- What is the Writing-Enriched Curriculum (WEC) project?
- Why is the University of Minnesota investing in this new initiative?
- How is Writing-Enriched different from Writing-Intensive?
- What’s going to happen to Writing-Intensive courses?
- How are units selected to participate in the three-year WEC pilot?
- What are Writing Plans?
- What is the Campus Writing Board?
- What kinds of resources support the WEC initiative?
- How will we know that the WEC initiative is working?
- What do faculty members who have participated in this project say about it?
- How does the WEC initiative relate to other new initiatives affecting undergraduate curricula?
- University administrators, faculty members, and undergraduates agree that writing is essential to academic study and research, professional performance, and self-realization. They agree also that instructors in the disciplines are best qualified to teach the writing of their fields.
- Students are confused about the University’s current WI requirements. They find, for example, that courses not designated as writing-intensive actually require more writing than courses that carry a “W” and that WI courses are in many cases sequenced irregularly and sometimes counter-intuitively into programs’ curricula.
- Faculty members express confusion about what constitutes “writing” and “writing instruction” within the context of the courses they teach and also about which writing abilities they can reasonably expect of first-year and fourth-year students.
- Funds from the Bush Foundation support the three-year pilot process (2007–2010). More specifically, these funds (almost $1 million) are used to buy release time for Faculty Liaisons within participating units, allowing these individuals to take time to engage their faculty colleagues in the process and to draft rich Writing Plans.
- The second and third phases of the WEC Process (Writing Plan implementation and assessment) are directly supported by personnel from the WEC Team (link to team page) and the five programs that comprise the University’s Center for Writing. Depending on units’ Writing Plans, other services that may be brought into the implementation process include the Center for Teaching and Learning, University Librarians, and the Digital Media Center.
- The University’s Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education has been providing colleges with funds to support the Writing Intensive Initiative since 1999 and affirms its commitment to increasing that funding as the university transitions from WI to WEC in the following excerpt from a memo sent by Provost Sullivan and Vice Provost McMaster in February 2008 to Undergraduate Deans and Department Heads:
- “The WEC process has enabled me to examine what I do in most productive ways, as well as introducing me to new and exciting pedagogical possibilities in writing instruction. Many of my colleagues have expressed the same enthusiasm….I am convinced that [my department] will now provide even more coherent, consistent, comprehensive and effective writing instruction because of our participation in the WEC Project and the development of a departmental Writing Plan.”
- “In our program, the faculty have a sense of being overloaded and any new initiatives have to be considered very carefully in terms of available resources… [As a result of piloting the WEC Project,] there is an increased awareness of the WEC requirements [designated in the units’ Writing Plan] as faculty teach the courses that have been targeted. My own courses have included some of the concepts that are being included, in a more formal manner, and my evaluation of writing assignments has improved.”
- “We in the [. . .] Department have prided ourselves on teaching writing well for years. But I am convinced that the [. . .] Department will now provide even more coherent, consistent, comprehensive, and effective writing instruction because of our participation in the WEC Project and the development of a departmental writing plan. Because we cannot separate how we teach writing from how we teach our subject, the WEC project has also facilitated a broader and extremely useful review and revision of our program for majors. My colleagues and I very much hope that the University will expand and promote the WEC program – with all the necessary resources, including staffing and funding – and continue to support it into the future.”
- “The WEC team (1) gave ample time to revise surveys that reflected language and issues in our department ; (2) adapted processes to respect our culture, e.g., inviting part-time faculty, graduate students and staff to participate; (3) was excellent in providing timely minutes of meetings; and (4) were able to work with faculty members who were not always understanding of the process and expectations.”
1. What is the Writing-Enriched Curriculum (WEC) project?
The WEC project pilots a process for meaningfully infusing writing and writing instruction into all undergraduate curricula at the University of Minnesota. After a three-year pilot period (2007–2010 ) in which the project will engage 22 academic units, a course for expanded implementation will be determined.
2. Why is the University of Minnesota investing in this new initiative?
Data gathered by the Faculty Writing Consultant program (2002–2006) as well as faculty focus groups conducted by the Writing Task Force (2005) and its Writing Across the Curriculum Working Group (2005) indicate that
So, despite our success in getting students to take more courses that involve writing, confusion expressed by instructors and students suggests that we have not achieved a deep integration of writing at the departmental or individual level. Our faculty realizes that requiring writing-intensive classes does not ensure better writing and that educational change cannot take place without the deep involvement of those who are doing the teaching.
These perspectives were captured by the Provost’s Writing Task Force when they proposed in their 2006 report that “a commitment to improving student writing must be a distinguishing feature of a baccalaureate degree from the University of Minnesota, across all majors and all disciplines of study…We recommend a systematic and comprehensive change in undergraduate writing so that instruction is woven throughout a student’s undergraduate curriculum, not inserted in pieces.”
In 2007, the Bush Foundation awarded the university almost $1 million to support the development and piloting of a Writing-Enriched Curriculum project.
3. How is Writing-Enriched different from Writing-Intensive?
The WEC project continues and expands the direction initiated by the Writing Intensive (WI) requirement. While the WI requirement has successfully met its goal of ensuring that University of Minnesota students write more, current WI coursesare not consistently sequenced into degree programs and in some instances may not reflect departmental consensus or programmatic logic. Therefore, where the WI requirement focuses on individual courses, WEC focuses on undergraduate curricula and faculty ownership. As a result, writing will be ubiquitous, integrated across a student’s intellectual development from the freshman year through graduation, creating a culture of continuous growth and improvement for student writers.
4. What’s going to happen to Writing-Intensive courses?
WI courses will continue to be offered and to be required for Twin Cities students. As appropriate, these courses will be integrated into Writing Plans, and once a significant number of academic units have initiated the WEC process and new systems for the fiscal support of writing instruction are in place, the future of the WI requirement will be determined.
5. How are units selected to participate in the three-year WEC pilot?
Selection of pilot units is based on multiple factors or dimensions that include the nature of the discipline and its discourse, the size of its undergraduate programs, its college affiliation, and its history with the WI initiative. Each semester, therefore, the WEC Team tries to include a science, a social science or humanities, a unit with a professional affiliation, and a field that incorporates significant non-verbal communication.
As of Spring 2008, nine units are engaged in the pilot: Mechanical Engineering (IT); Political Science (CLA); Horticultural Science (CFANS); Design, Housing, and Apparel (CDes); History (CLA); Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (CBS), Nursing (AHC), Geography (CLA), and Spanish and Portuguese (CLA).
6. What are Writing Plans?
Writing Plans are documents in which a unit’s faculty define and characterize writing in their discipline, name the abilities with which they would like students to become proficient, map these abilities into undergraduate courses, and plan for relevant writing assessment and instructional support.
The WEC process is designed to ensure that each Writing Plan reflects individual units’ disciplinary definitions of writing, departmental course structures, and instructional dimensions, and further, that those units’ faculty have regular opportunities to assess and revise their plan.
All Writing Plans are designed to address a set sequence of questions. In Summer 2008 we will post the five Writing Plans that have been approved by the Campus Writing Board.
7. What is the Campus Writing Board?
Underscoring its commitment to Writing-Enriched degree programs, the Provost’s Office has created an entirely new legislative body, the Campus Writing Board, with responsibilities that parallel the role of the Council on Liberal Education. Board members have been appointed and formally charged by the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education to oversee approval of WEC Writing Plans and Writing-Intensive courses. The board’s inaugural meeting was held on March 31, 2008.
8. What kinds of resources support the WEC initiative?
Support for the WEC process comes from three sources:
“We understand that implementation of department Writing Plans will require additional financial resources and we have included new funds in budget planning. It is also expected that as WEC begins to replace the current WI requirement, resources that have supported WI courses, both central and collegiate since 1999, will continue to support departmental Writing Plans. In short, financial support for writing instruction will be enhanced rather than diminished in coming years.”
9. How will we know that the WEC initiative is working?
Assessment of Writing Plans is in the hands of faculty within participating units. Once Writing Plans have been created and implemented for two semesters, the faculty collaborate with WEC Team members to conduct an assessment of both their Writing Plan and its implementation. Writing Plans can then be revised and resubmitted to the Campus Writing Board.
10. What do faculty members who have participated in this project say about it?
11. How does the WEC initiative relate to other new initiatives affecting undergraduate curricula?
In the context of recent Strategic Positioning efforts, the University has adopted undergraduate Student Learning Outcomes and Student Development Outcomes, revised the Twin Cities Liberal Education Requirements, and implemented a new Twin Cities undergraduate writing initiative, with a focus on development of a Writing-Enriched Curriculum.
To varying extents, each of these efforts engages faculty members in a process of questioning and discussing characteristics and benchmarks of discipline-specific knowledge and discourse and then translating these characteristics into abilities that students can develop as they take courses in their majors. Taken together, these initiatives represent an important partnership that supports student learning, brings greater coherence and accountability to our undergraduate education, and recognizes important differences among academic disciplines.