In the Long Run: A Study of Faculty in Three Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Programs

Designed to allow teachers immersed in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs and those still contemplating increasing the use of writing in their courses to peer into classrooms of those who have participated in such programs for years, this book reports on the long-term impact of WAC programs on faculty. The authors draw on interviews, questionnaires, classroom observations, student evaluations, and course documents from more than 700 faculty, one to 15 years after their first WAC experiences. Almost without exception, faculty members were changed by their WAC experiences, in some cases profoundly. What the authors discovered is that many faculty found the most meaningful changes they made were not changes in teaching strategies—since those were constantly shifting—but changes in teaching philosophy: a realization of how learners need to be involved in learning and of the many roles that writing can play in learning.

Publication Information:Walvoord, Barbara E., Linda Lawrence Hunt, H. Fil Dowling Jr., Joan D. McMahon, with contributions by Virginia Slachman and Lisa Udel. (1997). In the Long Run: A Study of Faculty in Three Writing-Across-the-Curriculum Programs. Urbana, Ill: National Council of Teachers of English. Available at https://wac.colostate.edu/books/walvoord/

Publication Date: March 15, 2011

NCTE on WAC

Books in this series are presented on the WAC Clearinghouse courtesy of the National Council of Teachers of English. This book can be purchased in print formats from the NCTE online bookstore.

Table of Contents

Open the entire book: 9.2 Megs

Front Matter

1. Introduction and Review of Research

2. Context and Methods for the Study

3. Detailed Reports: The Institutions, Their WAC Programs, and Their Research Methods

4. What Did Faculty Expect from WAC?

5. What Did WAC Experiences Mean to Faculty?

6. How Did WAC Affect Philosophies and Attitudes about Teaching?

7. WAC Teaching Strategies: What Worked, What Didn't, and Why

8. WAC and Faculty Career Patterns

9. Conclusions and Implications

Appendix A: University of Cincinnati Questionnaire on Teaching Changes, Administered to a Random Sample of Faculty, 1993-1994

Appendix B: Whitworth College Questionnaire to Faculty Teaching W-I Courses, 1995

Appendix C: University of Cincinnati Questionnaire to Faculty on WAC Outcomes, 1991-1992

Appendix 0: Whitworth College Questionnaire to Students in W-I Courses, 1989-1991

Appendix E: Interview Questions Used on All Three Campuses, 1993-1995

Works Cited

Index

Author

Contributors

This book is available in whole and in part in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). It is also available in print at NCTE.