Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)
The mission of the Writing Across the Curriculum program is to create a culture of writing at the University of St. ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, enabling students to think critically, to engage deeply in their learning, and to write with confidence, precision, and grace.
Through WAC, St. ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ graduates are prepared to write effectively not only in college, but throughout their lives as professionals, as citizens, and as human beings who want to make a positive impact on the world.
WAC Requirements
Students complete 16 credits of WAC-flagged courses:
Students learn to practice writing as a process: generating and developing ideas, offering helpful feedback to others, using feedback from instructors and peers to revise drafts, and editing near-final drafts. This writing process is used to promote critical thinking as well as to produce quality academic writing. Enrollment in WI sections is capped at 20 students.
Students complete a series of informal, low-stakes writing assignments that promote critical thinking and facilitate learning course content. Enrollment in WTL sections is capped at 25 students.
Students learn the genres and conventions of writing in their major fields of study and the rationales behind them. The writing process is supported at critical stages of development and includes instructor feedback on drafts. Enrollment in WID sections is capped at 20 students.
WAC Requirements for Transfer Students
The WAC requirements do not apply to students who come to St. ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ having completed the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum or an AA degree.
Other transfer students must complete the following:
- Either a Writing Intensive OR a Writing to Learn course
- Writing in the Discipline course
Non-transfer students who wish to apply for transfer credit for an individual WAC requirement (e.g., a Writing Intensive course taken at another university) will find information on the Transfer Credit section lower on this page.
Seminars
In order to teach WAC-flagged courses, faculty complete a five-day WAC certification seminar introducing them to WAC pedagogies. This ensures that students receive writing instruction that is consistent.
Topics covered include the following:
- How to use writing to fulfill course learning objectives.
- The relationship between writing and thinking: how writing can be used as a tool for critical thinking as well as for learning and engaging with course content.
- How to support students as they engage in a recursive writing process that includes brainstorming, drafting, revision, and editing.
- Effective ways to plan, present, sequence, and assess both formal and informal writing assignments.
- Helpful and efficient ways to respond to student writing and to teach students to respond effectively to one another's writing.
Once faculty complete the seminar, they customize what they have learned to their specific courses.
Workshops
All St. ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½ faculty are welcome to participate in one- and two-hour workshops on a variety of topics connected to writing pedagogy across disciplines. Workshops are facilitated by UST faculty as well as outside speakers. Recent topics include the following:
- Inclusive Classrooms: Helping ELL Students to Thrive
- Saving Faculty Time, Increasing Student Learning - Developing and Deploying Checklists for Writing Assignments Across the Disciplines
- Alternatives to Traditional Grading: Advantages and Challenges
- AI as Your Teaching Assistant: Tracking Writing Progress and Building Community
- Scaffolding Writing with Sources in the Age of AI
- Preparing Students to Work Effectively in Peer Feedback Groups
- How Might We Re-Design Writing Assignments in Light of ChatGPT?
- The Latest Guidance.
- The Class Journal: "The Mind on the Page" in the Core and in the Major
- Teaching Students to Use Feedback (and getting them to use it!)
Pedagogical Philosophy
At St. ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, we want students to see themselves as writers, and not as students completing writing assignments. To achieve this goal, faculty across the disciplines work together to convey the following principles about writing:
Effective writers have agency
They actively make choices about everything from the content, form, and genre of the writing to voice, individual words, and punctuation. Writers make these choices to act upon and with their readers. To write is to act.
Effective writers are rhetorically astute
For any given writing task, they know how to analyze the audience and its expectations and needs, the purpose of the writing, and the role of the writing in the larger context: interpersonal, professional, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, etc. They craft their writing carefully to meet—and sometimes, to challenge—readers' expectations.
Effective writers understand that writing is connected to thinking
The first draft is rarely, if ever, the best. Instead, writers know that the more they work on a piece of writing, the more they come to understand what they really want to say. This work can include the process of "thinking on the page" (freewriting, brainstorming, etc.), talking with others, research, drafting, working with feedback from others, revising, and editing. Each step in this often-circular process leads to better thinking and more effective writing. All this takes effort and patience.
Effective writers know themselves as writers.
Through practice with writing in various academic disciplines and lots of self-reflection, they have learned what works best for them: when to dive in and when to wait; the best writing spaces and tools; when to type and when to handwrite or sketch; when to use AI tools and when to use databases; when to consult others, when to take a break. Every writer is different, so self-awareness is crucial to becoming strong and flexible writers who can adapt to whatever writing contexts they face throughout their lives.
Effective writers have agency
Effective writers have agency
They actively make choices about everything from the content, form, and genre of the writing to voice, individual words, and punctuation. Writers make these choices to act upon and with their readers. To write is to act.
Effective writers are rhetorically astute
Effective writers are rhetorically astute
For any given writing task, they know how to analyze the audience and its expectations and needs, the purpose of the writing, and the role of the writing in the larger context: interpersonal, professional, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½, etc. They craft their writing carefully to meet—and sometimes, to challenge—readers' expectations.
Effective writers understand that writing is connected to thinking
Effective writers understand that writing is connected to thinking
The first draft is rarely, if ever, the best. Instead, writers know that the more they work on a piece of writing, the more they come to understand what they really want to say. This work can include the process of "thinking on the page" (freewriting, brainstorming, etc.), talking with others, research, drafting, working with feedback from others, revising, and editing. Each step in this often-circular process leads to better thinking and more effective writing. All this takes effort and patience.
Effective writers know themselves as writers.
Effective writers know themselves as writers.
Through practice with writing in various academic disciplines and lots of self-reflection, they have learned what works best for them: when to dive in and when to wait; the best writing spaces and tools; when to type and when to handwrite or sketch; when to use AI tools and when to use databases; when to consult others, when to take a break. Every writer is different, so self-awareness is crucial to becoming strong and flexible writers who can adapt to whatever writing contexts they face throughout their lives.
Transfer Credit
Students who have taken Writing Intensive, Writing to Learn, or Writing in the Discipline courses at other colleges and universities may apply for transfer credit to fulfill a WAC requirement.
To apply, students provide evidence that the course met the criteria for the specific type of WAC course. For details, please contact us here: wac@stthomas.edu
Note: The WAC requirements are intended to give you substantial practice with the writing process at a college level. They may not be met with AP or IB exam credit.