Writing-across-the-Curriculum: Advice from Pre-Service Educators to University Educators.

This paper examines students' practical knowledge to visualize and to design methods by which writing can be addressed across the curriculum. During two semesters of a teacher preparation course, Content Area Reading and Writing in Secondary Education, students discussed how Writing across the Curriculum (WAC) could be better incorporated by educators across the university campus in both traditional and non-traditional disciplines that are often not associated with writing. These secondary majors represented a wide variety of disciplines including Agriculture, Art, Business, Computer Science, English, Foreign Language, History/Geography, Home Economics, Industrial Technology, Health/Kinesiology, Mathematics, Music, Psychology/Philosophy, Science, and Theater. Even seasoned educators have difficulty incorporating writing as a pedagogical tool across the curriculum, particularly in those content areas that traditionally do not emphasize writing. In fields such as music, industrial arts, kinesiology, art, and other non-writing classes, educators often face the problem of determining how writing may be utilized. One solution to this problem may be to look to students, rather than educators, for ideas on how writing may be incorporated in a variety of disciplines. Students' comments are discussed in relation to current theoretical assumptions about the relationship between writing and thought. (Contains 22 references and a table of data.) (Author/SC)