Across the Disciplines, Volume 2
January through December 2005
Editors' Note: On Becoming Editor of ATD
Michael Pemberton reflects on the challenges of taking over as editor of ATD. (Published June 28, 2005)
Column: Pam Childers on WAC, CAC, and Writing Centers in Secondary Education
Pam Childers reflects on "the seasonal changes that metaphorically parallel our intellectual seasons at school." (Published February 9, 2005)
Special Issue. The Linguistically-Diverse Student: Challenges and Possibilities Across the Curriculum
The contributors to this special issue consider how linguistically diverse students (a group so varied that researchers and practitioners employ a number of categories for student identification, including ESL, EFL, ELL, ESD, ELD, bilingual, and Generation 1.5) are faring in disciplinary classrooms.
Guest editor: Ann Johns, Linguistics and Writing Studies, San Diego State University
Featured Articles:
Acquiring Expertise in Discipline-Specific Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Exercise in Learning to Speak Biology, by Trudy Bayer, Karen Curto, and Charity Kriley
Trudy Bayer and her colleagues report the results of a study with 70 senior undergraduate biological science majors enrolled in a required course on Writing and Speaking in the Biological Sciences.Their study indicates that students demonstrated significant expertise in enacting a highly discipline–specific oral communication task.They attribute these results to a combination of students' ability to successfully deploy discipline–specific discourse to their own tacit knowledge of their field and instruction in both the disciplines of rhetoric and biology. (Published June 26, 2005)
Bridging Disciplinary Divides in Writing Across the Curriculum, by Geoffrey A. Cross and Katherine V. Wills
Geoffrey Cross and Katherine Wills report the results of a longitudinal study that assessed whether faculty writing workshops could facilitate writing in heterogeneous disciplines by linking specific, workaday writing activities (Tschudi, 1986) with Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives (1974). Results show that participating faculty reported increases in reflective pedagogical practice, more critical selection of writing activities, and decreased time required to construct writing strategies to achieve disciplinerelated instructional goals. (Published June 26, 2005)
Plagiarism Across the Curriculum: How Academic Communities Can Meet the Challenge of the Undocumented Writer, by Jonathan Hall
Jonathan Hall argues that there is "a specifically WAC/WID approach to plagiarism" that can help us reduce plagiarism, help students incorporate sources into their writing effectively and honestly, and improve learning. (Published February 9, 2005)
WAC Pedagogy:
Practical Advice for Supporting Learning through the Use of Summary/Reaction Journals, by Melissa A. Thomeczek, Dave S. Knowlton, and David C. Sharp
The authors of this essay regularly require students to engage in informal writing as a means to promote learning. One form of informal writing is the summary/reaction journal. In summary/reaction journals, students read a chapter or article, write a summary of that reading, and then react by offering their own insights and responses to the reading. The authors provide a theoretical rationale supporting the use of summary/reaction journals. Then, the authors describe how they introduce summary/reaction journals to students, support students as they journal throughout the semester, and assess journals once students submit them. This description can provide guidance for other faculty members in all disciplines who might consider using summary/reaction journals. (Published October 15, 2005)
Reviews: CCCC 2005 Interactive Review
This review continues the ATD (and, previously, Academic.Writing) tradition of reviewing the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Read and respond to reports on individual conference sessions, workshops, and special events at this year's Conference on College Composition and Communication. (Published April 4, 2005)