Writing Across the Curriculum: Teaching Discipline-Specific Writing to University Students

There has been a recent debate in the field of writing education that questions whether or not it is the sole responsibility of English teachers to teach writing to students. Proponents of a method called writing across the curriculum (WAC) argue that it is not. Writing should be assigned and taught in all subject areas not only to allow more opportunity for students to practice and improve, but also to teach students the different conventions that exist when writing in each particular field. The type of writing required in a psychology course, WAC proponents argue, is quite different from the writing required in English class. Every field has its own conventions, unique methods and protocols; this is no different when it comes to the way they write. The scientific differs from the artistic differs from the linguistic - we all do it differently (Riley, 1996). In this paper, I will discuss Perilou Goddard's article "Implementing and evaluating a writing course for psychology majors" (2003). In the article, Goddard describes a semester-long course called "writing in psychology" which he developed, taught, and evaluated. I will then discuss how the issue of discipline-specific writing instruction might affect the school where I will work in the future.

Goddard (2003) starts his article by explaining his reasoning for developing a course that focuses mainly on discipline-specific writing strategies. He paraphrases Nadelman who says that "even students who regularly earn As in their English classes often are shocked to receive critical feedback on their psychology papers" (p. 25). This difference in feedback occurs because of the many discipline-specific rules and conventions that exist in the field of psychology. Goddard developed and taught his Writing in Psychology course to fill what he sees as a gap in writing education - that students are never taught conventions in psychological writing or conventions of American Psychological Association (APA) formatting. He also mentions the improvement of students' writing skills in general as a function of the course, saying that the course "cover[s] use of library resources and acquisition of skills in topic selection, grammar, organization, and draft revision" (p. 25). Thus, Goddard's course covers both of the elements mentioned by WAC proponents - a chance for increased practice and instructor feedback as well as discipline specific writing instruction.

Goddard's course was structured in the following way: students were each required to complete a case report, an empirical study report, a conference abstract, and a literature review. The course fulfilled both a writing and a psychology course requirement. Rather than just handing in the final draft of an assignment, students were required to submit copies of their work in various stages of progress throughout the semester. Assignments stressed giving the student a chance to write in the ways that he or she would be required to write in a professional psychology setting: for example, for the "case report" assignment students were asked to prepare a professional report to be submitted to the psychologist who would be taking over the treatment of a fictitious patient. Throughout the course, emphasis was placed on helping students develop the right tone and helping them understand how adherence to APA formatting leads to precise and scientific work (Goddard, 2003).

Goddard (2003) evaluated his success in the course using three instruments: "precourse and postcourse tests on grammar and APA style and a 14-item Likert-type inventory assessing attitudes toward writing-relevant behaviors" (p. 27). His findings were that the course was a success in several areas. Firstly, students showed a marked improvement on the postcourse test as compared with what they knew on the precourse test in the areas of APA style and grammar. Secondly, the students' confidence improved in several key skill areas including "their ability to write empirical reports and literature reviews, . . .their skills in using APA style, conducting PsychINFO searches, and evaluating journal articles and information found on the internet" p. (28). Thirdly, "students' attitudes toward adaptive writing behaviors, such as writing multiple drafts and having others read and critique their drafts, also became significantly more positive" (p. 28).

I agree with Goddard that the course was a success, although I also agree with his caveat that it was in no way a magic bullet that transformed students into good writers overnight. The issue with writing education is precisely this: that it takes time and effort to correct written work. In this course, correction time was estimated at about 12 hours for each student enrolled (Goddard, 2003). It is because of the time consuming nature of correcting written work that students often fail to get the practice they need to become accomplished in a professional discipline. The psychology (or biology or history) teachers leave teaching writing up to the English teachers and students are never taught how to write in the way required by their specific discipline.
I think this issue is relevant to me as someone who hopes to teach the basic first-year student college composition course because I believe discipline specific writing courses such as the one developed by Perilou Goddard are going to become much more popular in the future. English teachers may be asked more and more to collaborate with field specialists to develop WAC plans for discipline-area courses as well as to develop entire discipline-specific writing courses. Having knowledge about this changing practice and about the rationale behind the WAC movement will enable me to be more versatile as an instructor and also possibly to help educate other teachers about the importance of discipline-specific writing instruction.

There are many things a student needs to learn in his/her college career, but often key skills such as writing and communication are de-emphasized in the effort to include a certain amount of content. This has negative ramifications for students. Students who are very knowledgeable in the field, but make mistakes on their application letter, for example, are not likely to be hired. Coming into the teaching profession with this knowledge and applying it when and where I can will be beneficial to my students in that I will be focusing on the real situations in which they will be required to write. Whether this involves basic skills like how to develop an essay and how to write a persuasive argument or it involves discipline specific items like MLA or APA formatting or rules for scientific writing, I hope what I've learned here will be beneficial to my students in the end. I believe it is important for teachers to understand how curriculum and instructional practices are changing and to try to implement those new strategies that seem to work. I will try my best to do so.

References
Goddard, P. (2003). Implementing and evaluating a writing course for psychology
majors. Teaching of Psychology, 30(1), 25-29.
Riley, S. G. (1996). Craft meets art as professors try writing across the
curriculum. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 50(4), 77-81.