Extra credit assignments are often viewed with disdain by educators as opportunities to earn points for students that lack the study skills to do well on exams and quizzes. However, these assignments can serve as a platform for students to apply the course material to their own lives, optimizing their strengths and creativity, and encouraging them…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of integrating theatre-arts strategies and traditional strategies in high school English classrooms. The sample consisted of one eleventh grade English class of twenty-one students. Data were collected from students' cumulative grades. The study was conducted throughout an eighteen-week term,…

Noting that at Saint Mary's University (where the authors teach) the issue of spirituality is in the forefront of education and is seamlessly woven into required courses throughout four years of college in an attempt to "enhance students' spiritual and personal lives," this paper positions writing centers as a place for student inquiries…

A course taught at St. Augustine's College uses "A Voice from the South" (1893) by Anna J. Cooper (a collection of essays representing women as being bold, in-charge decision makers) as an example of how "Feminism across the Disciplines" is expressed. These essays, as well as works of a number of other writers, can be used in…

A teacher wants to help her middle school students who already hate poetry to appreciate William Carlos Williams' poem "This Is Just to Say," but her approach is ill-focused. In frustration, she assigns her students a punitive writing assignment. An approach that might have resulted in a better outcome could be achieved. It would have…

Two papers presented at two different conferences and both discussing issues related to writing across the curriculum, are presented in this document. The first paper, "Wanted: Guidelines for Teaching Writing in Non-Writing Courses," (Jan Keessen), presented at the 1992 "four C's" conference, discusses the need to gather data…

A writing across the curriculum program at Queensborough Community College in New York began its work on campus as Writing and Reading in the Technologies (WRIT) and chose to work with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology (ECET) department. The program's implementation was two-tiered. In Tier 1, over a period of three years, the WRIT…

Seeking to involve students more actively in their writing assignments, two teachers developed a group of sequential writing assignments with an interdisciplinary emphasis for students in an advanced writing course. The goal of these writing assignments was to give students who had solved most of their mechanical writing problems a chance to…

The contact zones in teaching writing are connected in multiple ways. A principal concern is how students learn to write for the disciplines, but the focus is the relationship between composition specialists and their colleagues throughout the disciplines. In the early days of writing across the curriculum (WAC), writing was seen primarily as a…

In six parts, this research panel report focuses on numerous aspects of an institutionally-supported project in Writing and Problem Solving across Disciplines conducted by four teachers at Central Oregon Community College in Bend, Oregon. The report's first section, "Introduction," is descriptive and gives some background on the research…

By linking a first-year writing class and an introductory chemistry class at Utica College of Syracuse University (Syracuse, New York) the instructor hoped to foster camaraderie among the students; help students see the connections between the two disciplines; and disrupt students' pattern of unquestioning acceptance of the authority of the…

Columbus (Georgia) College's Challenge Squared program consists of three 2-week enrichment day camps for gifted students in grades 5 through 10. In past years, students have worked with an artist to create local history murals and have written and produced video plays in cooperation with a media specialist. Most recently, students were involved in…

A semester-long faculty seminar at Hunter College involved teachers from 14 disciplines in weekly meetings regarding writing in the subject areas. Although the teachers read literature on writing and heard from outside writing experts, they spent most of the time working together on designing and criticizing writing assignments for their classes…

English or rhetoric and composition faculty must work to collapse disciplinary boundaries in their institutions. The challenge facing English departments is to collapse the "we-they" mentality, to develop productive partnerships with other departments, and to develop a healthy respect for other disciplines. At Yavapai College in Arizona,…

Three workshops conducted by consultants will help faculty members at Midway College in Lexington, Kentucky, incorporate effective writing instruction in the content areas. The first workshop will stress the importance of reading and writing to the learning process and provide concrete exercises that demonstrate how writing can be used to generate…