Frequently Asked Questions About WID
What is a writing-intensive course?
In writing-intensive courses, writing is used to help students learn the material they are studying. The variety of low- and high-stakes writing activities that students engage in while taking such courses also serves as a way in which we can continue providing students with the support and instruction they need in order to become better writers.
In the next few years, we expect the college to be offering a greater and greater number of writing-intensive courses. Once the electronic portfolio is officially instituted as a requirement for graduation, students will have to take two portfolio courses, which will reinforce and assess written communication. Also, if students do not pass the CPE, they'll be required to take a writing-intensive course in their major.
What are the requirements for offering a writing-intensive course?
Students in writing-intensive courses are required to be involved in writing on a regular basis. Such writing might function as a review of course material (e.g., writing a letter explaining a complicated computer programming function to someone who is not computer literate). A task like the one just described enables the instructor to see how well a student has learned the function and to see whether or not the student is able to describe it in her own words. Writing projects might also serve as a way of preparing students for upcoming class lectures or discussions on a particular reading (e.g., having students respond to a topic posted on Blackboard and then responding to one other student's response). The teacher can briefly review the student responses and touch on some interesting or problematic issues at the beginning of class. Other writing projects include staged activities leading up to the composition of a more high-stakes project (e.g., a research paper, lab report, or software review). These staged assignments encourage students to see writing as a process as well as a product. The LaGuardia WID website is designed to help you find ways of developing and offering such courses. In addition, in writing-intensive courses, written assignments must count for at least 20% of the final course grade and class size is limited to 25.
How can I cover all the course material while at the same time incorporating writing into my class?
The issue of coverage is a difficult and complicated one that most professors confront when they start planning a writing-intensive course. There are no easy answers or solutions.
Some professors do wind up cutting back a little bit on coverage in order to make room for writing. These teachers have often asked themselves crucial questions like "If I cover all the chapters in the textbook, will my students have really mastered the key concepts and terms? Are students going to remember their meaning and significance? Will they be capable of applying them when they go on to advanced study or become professionals?" As college graduates ourselves, we know the answer to these questions. Most likely students will forget a lot of the information covered, and, if they're not challenged to write in discipline-specific genres, it's likely they'll struggle to apply their book learning to practical applications. With these issues in mind, some instructors have opted to create innovative writing activities that encourage students to delve more deeply into certain important concepts. Other teachers have chosen to have students write on topics or issues that are particularly difficult to grasp. The emphasis is on having students better learn and retain the course material while also becoming better writers.
How am I supposed to respond to the students' grammar and writing skills if I'm not a teacher of composition?
It is not recommended that you ignore completely a student's problems with grammar or his weaknesses in other aspects of writing. However, there are a number of ways of determining just how much you should attend to these areas of student writing. For instance, when responding to low-stakes writing projects like journal writing, freewriting, or brainstorming, you probably don't want to comment on the quality of the writing. The point is to warm up the students' brains, to get them thinking, to get them to express what they know on a subject. When responding to drafts of higher-stakes projects like research papers and lab reports, you should find a way in which to comment upon grammar and other aspects of writing development.
Also remember, the Writing in the Disciplines committee is here to support you as you develop and offer writing-intensive courses. If you need help identifying the problems students are having in their writing, please feel free to draw on the expertise of your small-group leaders or your Writing Fellow, or take a look at the Resources section on this website, where there is more information on responding to student writing, the writing center, ESL tutoring, online tutoring, and the CUNY writesite.
Isn't teaching Writing the English Department's job?
Yes, the English Department does teach writing. But there are a number of good reasons for teaching writing in the disciplines as well. The most important reason, and a foundational principle of WID, is the fact that writing is a tool for learning. Students who write about a subject learn that subject better. LaGuardia's WID program emphasizes that writing should not be viewed separately from learning but rather is a necessary part of the learning experience.
Another reason that teaching writing is not just the English Department's job is that the CUNY Proficiency Exam features challenging interdisciplinary writing assignments. Students have to take the CPE when they reach 45 credits. Often, this is long after they have taken their last English course. So it is important that they continue writing in other courses if they are to pass the CPE. Section II of the CPE illustrates this point. It requires students to write an essay that both interprets a written passage and also interprets two graphs. This question shows the importance of writing not just in the context of an English class but also in the context of math, science, and the social sciences.
Why is LaGuardia's program called "Writing in the Disciplines" instead of "Writing Across the Curriculum"?
In practice, there is probably no difference between "Writing in the Disciplines" and "Writing Across the Curriculum." Our program is called "Writing in the Disciplines" to emphasize the fact that we view writing as a discipline-specific activity. That is, writing in a chemistry class or in a statistics class, for example, is not the same as writing for an English or History class. The way assignments are conceived and developed always depends on the kind of thinking skills the specific discipline requires. It is for this reason that the first question we ask when developing writing assignments is "What do you want the students to learn?"
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