Theorizing WPA expertise as problem-oriented, stakeholder-inclusive practice, we apply the twenty-first-century paradigm of transdisciplinarity to a campus WID Initiative to read and argue that data-driven research capturing transdisciplinary WPA methods in action will allow us to better understand, represent, and leverage…

This symposium brings together a range of scholars to consider what economic forces have driven the development of independent writing programs, and how such programs are susceptible to economic conditions and pressures, perhaps even more so than neighboring disciplines in the humanities. It includes: (1) "Documents of Dissent: Hairston's…

This article examines founder Frank L. Gilyard's role in the establishment of the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania, through the dual lenses of African American rhetoric and performance studies. It concludes with an analysis of how these insights informed a community-based research course in honors first-year…

In a FIPSE-funded assessment project, a group of diverse institutions collaborated on developing a common, course-embedded approach to assessing student writing in our first-year writing programs. The results of this assessment project, the processes we developed to assess authentic student writing, and individual institutional perspectives are…

Discusses components of a model program for teaching graduate students how to teach writing. Ideally, the program would run prior to as well as concurrent with actual teaching. (HTH)

Focuses on two programs that anticipated current writing across the curriculum programs: the Functional Writing Program at Colgate (1949-1961) and the Prose Improvement Committee at the University of California at Berkeley (1950-1965). Discusses how both programs viewed writing as an activity to unify the intellectual community and link…

Identifies four areas concerning writing across the curriculum programs in which consensus across the campus should be sought: dealing with errors, common terminology, a process or routine for response, and enthusiasm for the effort. Includes response checklists. (HTH)

Describes the college's approach to the requirement for writing courses beyond freshman composition. The main avenues to enhancing writing across the curriculum are (1) guidelines for advanced writing courses, (2) tutoring, (3) workshops and inservice activities, and (4) liaisons among writing faculty and the program's coordinator. (HTH)

Notes that writing across the curriculum programs have caused increasing discomfort about the role that English teachers can and should play in cross-curricular writing programs. Suggests an approach to freshman writing that can provide an effective model for a program that appropriately includes among its participants teachers of English. (HTH)

Recounts the story of how the writing faculty at Washington State University successfully reclaimed their university's writing assessment program. Argues that writing teachers should be leery of assessment programs made by others, and should create their own assessment tools. (HB)