Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is a pedagogical philosophy that posits writing is not confined to a disciplinary domain. WAC pedagogy provides discursive connectivity by unifying rather than dividing learning and writing into disciplinary camps. For example, the ideological relations between art, science, business, and technology are placed into pedagogical interaction rather than curriculum stasis. In this way, all modes of learning are critical to active thinking. Indeed, writing, reading, listening, and speaking are not only the underpinnings of meaning-making, they are also a catalyst for developing multiple points of view on a topic.
With this position, students are oriented as undergraduates that writing is not fixed to the English Department, but is a dynamic feature in every course at Sacred Heart University (SHU). Therefore, the WAC Program at SHU is focused on an overarching goal—to provide students with rhetoric and writing strategies for strengthening their inquiry-based interdisciplinary discourse. Whether writing in a traditional classroom setting or writing in a digital environment, WAC pedagogy provides students with progressive writing instruction and approaches to synthesize their messages for joining an academic, professional or personal conversation.
The WAC program at SHU also conducts
workshops for faculty wherein current writing and teaching pedagogy is presented and discussed. Topics have included, effective grading strategies, teaching students how to revise and re-vision their writing, decoding verbal signs and visual claims. Another feature of the WAC program at SHU is the annual Interdisciplinary Writing Contest, which calls above all on non-English majors to tell us what they are writing about in their particular discipline.
This website provides many useful resources and links to information for writing. We invite you to browse through our WAC website to learn more about rhetoric and writing. If you have questions, contact:
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)