WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) at Wright State University is a comprehensive program extending writing throughout each student's undergraduate career. The Writing Across the Curriculum program consists of two parts—Writing in General Education and Writing in the Major—and serves the following purposes:

1. To improve students' writing proficiency—their ability to develop ideas and transmit information for an appropriate audience in an organized, coherent fashion while writing with appropriate style and correct grammar, usage, punctuation and spelling.
2. To encourage students to use writing as a learning tool to explore and structure ideas, to articulate thoughts and questions, and to discover what they know and do not know, thereby empowering students to use writing as a tool of discovery, self-discipline, and thought.
3. To demonstrate for students the ways in which writing is integral to all disciplines, essential to the learning and conveying of knowledge in all fields.

Part I: WRITING IN GENERAL EDUCATION

1. All undergraduate students who first enroll at the University Fall Quarter 1996 or thereafter must complete a minimum of four writing intensive (WI) general education courses, or allowable substitutions, in addition to the two required courses in freshman composition; transfer students will complete the WAC/GE requirement in proportion to the amount of the general education program they have completed when they enter the University (see Academic Standards and Requirements section of the Undergraduate Catalog).
2. Each WI section of a GE course will include writing assignments totaling approximately 1500 words, which will be evaluated for content, form, style, correctness, and overall writing proficiency and give students the opportunity for revision and improvement. Assignments may take many forms and include a mix of formal writing (e.g., a number of short papers evaluated in both draft and final form, a long assignment broken into smaller parts, thus allowing for multiple drafts, feedback, and revisions,) and informal writing (e.g., journals, logs, short responses to lectures, essay examinations). All the writing will count as part of students' performance in the course.
3. WI sections are offered in required GE substitution courses, as well as in standard GE courses. In instances where the required substitutions are a sequence of two or three courses, only one of the courses in the sequence may be writing intensive.
4. Students must pass the "writing intensive" portion of a GE course in order to fulfill the university requirement for the program. Grading for the WI portion of a course is pass/no entry. Students are encouraged to complete all four Writing Intensive GE courses (as well as English 101 and 102) or to have demonstrated writing proficiency as described in #5 below by the time they have attained junior status.
5. Students who do not successfully complete the WI portion of four GE courses (excluding English 101 and 102) may satisfy the requirements for writing proficiency in GE in any one of the following three ways:
   1. pass the WI portion of at least two GE courses and earn a grade of C or better in an approved advanced writing course.
   2. pass the WI portion of at least two GE courses and prepare an acceptable portfolio that includes writing on demand.
   3. earn a grade of C or better in an approved advanced writing course and prepare an acceptable portfolio that includes writing on demand.

The combination of four writing intensive courses in GE and two writing intensive courses in the major means that the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at WSU requires each undergraduate student to complete a minimum of six writing intensive courses in addition to their required freshman composition courses.

*pass = the equivalent of a C grade or better

NOTE: GE writing intensive courses will be available within a number of areas, including (but not limited to) the following: Area II (all Non-Western World classes); Area III (SOC 200, WMS 200; EC 290, and some sections of EC 200); Area IV (all Great Books classes); Area V (some classes); Area VI (all classes). Students completing the 1987 General Education program may count writing intensive courses in the 2003 GE program toward fulfilling their writing intensive requirements.