WAC’s Core Curriculum – Writing Across the Curriculum

Writing Across the Curriculum facilitates an array of professional development opportunities designed to offer faculty a variety of ways to learn more about writing instruction and reflect on their teaching.

WAC’s Core Curriculum

WAC Foundations: 60 or 90-minute workshops focused on foundational concepts for teaching (with) writing
WAC Primer: a 4-session learning community designed to introduce faculty to teaching the WI
WAC Academy: a 7-session cohort-based faculty learning community exploring the intentional integration of learning to write within disciplinary courses and curricula
WAC Research Incubator: a semester-long cohort-based research community focused on writing instruction

If your department or college is interested in collaborating with WAC on one of these innovative professional development programs, please contact us at [email protected]. We are currently seeking partnerships for our fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters.

WAC Foundations Workshops: Fall 2025

Our workshops offer a brief, hands-on introduction into the foundations of teaching with writing.

Introduction to the Writing-intensive Course

Are you new to teaching a WI course or want a refresher on some of the basics? This workshop will focus on writing-intensive course design and help faculty prepare for the semester ahead. Join WAC staff to learn more about the new learning outcomes and begin drafting your WI course materials.

Days and times (held on Zoom):

Wednesday September 3, 10:00am-11:30am. Register here.

Providing effective and sustainable feedback

Want to develop a more sustainable and effective plan for providing feedback? This workshop focuses on key practices for increasing the impact and efficiency of the feedback you offer. We will explore the characteristics of effective feedback and some strategies for implementing them.

Day and time (on Zoom): Wednesday September 17, 2025 | 10:00am-11:30am

Registration: You can sign up here

Teaching writing in the disciplines

Want to help students produce better writing in your course? This workshop will introduce a core approach to teaching writing in the disciplines. Join WAC staff to learn more about the approach and support your students’ writing success.

Day and time (held on Zoom): forthcoming

Registration: forthcoming

Preparing career-ready writers

This workshop explores strategies for supporting students’ transfer of writing knowledge across writing situations

Day and time (held on Zoom): forthcoming

Registration: forthcoming

Faculty Learning Communities: Fall 2025

WAC Writing Assessment Inquiry Group

Last year, the WAC Committee developed a new rubric to assess writing-to-communicate (WTC) assignments. This fall, we are convening faculty who might like to or are planning to use the rubric in their courses this semester. If you would like to discuss how you are using the rubric this semester, join WAC staff and faculty across campus for monthly conversations about assessing WTC assignments. You can register here.

Request a Workshop

WAC Program staff are happy to offer one of our standing workshops to departments and programs. Descriptions of these workshops are below. If you would like to request a workshop, please email us at [email protected].

Designing High Impact Writing Assignments: Participants in this workshop will learn the design principles that contribute to engaging and meaningful writing experiences for their students. The workshop will begin with a discussion of the research that informs these principles and will quickly move into some strategies for implementing them into courses across the curriculum. The workshop will close by offering faculty some time to implement one of the strategies into their courses.
Small Teaching in the Writing-enriched Classroom: Inspired by James Lang’s popular book, Small Teaching, this workshop will introduce participants to some quick writing activities that can take as few as five minutes to effectively foster student learning in classrooms across the curriculum. The workshop will include a brief introduction to the writing-to-learn scholarship that informs these activities and will provide a sampling of model designs that participants can implement and build into their own teaching.
Providing Feedback to Support Student Revision: This workshop will help faculty increase student engagement with and the impact of their feedback. Participants will first learn more about how students revise before exploring some strategies for providing feedback to support more substantive student revision. The workshop will close by offering faculty some time to implement one of the strategies into their courses.

Consultations

The Writing Across the Curriculum Program supports all faculty across Mason who teach (with) writing. If you would like assistance in developing course materials – syllabi, assignments, or activities – to help your student writers, please contact us at [email protected].