ERIC Number: ED465993
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 2000-Feb
Pages: 24
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Critiques of Writing across the Curriculum: Current and Alternate Ideologies.
Mahaffey, Cynthia Jo
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) initiative seeks to provide students with discipline-specific skills they will need in order to succeed, first in the university, and eventually in their chosen professional careers. This goal is accomplished in an egalitarian framework: all students are educated in the conventions of "academic writing" in a wide variety of core and elective classes throughout the university curriculum. However, an assumption is implicit that an academic or professional group agrees, whether overtly or covertly, that specific knowledge sets and ways of making knowledge are in some way normative. The result often is that individuals or the knowledge they bring with them to a particular discourse community may be excluded. This exclusion may manifest itself in the case of students of color, women, or gay and lesbian students. Indeed, WAC approaches in the university which do not foreground the ideology and gender assumptions in the disciplines marginalize all students. WAC university programs, administrators, directors, and teachers need to be able to show students the deep structures, ideologies, and power relationships in the education they carry with them into their writing, careers, and lives. (Contains 65 references.) (PM)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference (3rd, Vermillion, South Dakota, February 26-27, 2000).