Five Key WAC Best Practices for Instructors across the Disciplines

1. Five Key WAC Best Practices for Instructors across the Disciplines Presented by Deborah Schlacks, WAC Coordinator WAC Brown Bag October 8, 2012

2. The Key to the Key: What the WAC Best Practices Are All About • How we assign writing • How we provide coaching and scaffolding along the way as students do the assignments • How (and when) we respond to the writing

3. Best Practice #1 Providing detailed directions for writing assignments. The directions include • Explanations of learning goals for the assignment • Deadlines for various parts of the assignment along the way • Detailed evaluation criteria for the assignment

4. Best Practice #2 Providing opportunities for written or oral feedback on drafts of writing projects from fellow students in the class

5. Best Practice #3 Giving written or oral feedback on DRAFTS of major writing projects • Use a revision-oriented commenting strategy rather than an editing-oriented strategy • Hold students responsible for correcting errors (Note: The examples on the next two slides are from Bean 83-84.)

8. Best Practice #4 Using informal or short (minimally graded) writing assignments for one or more of these purposes:

9. Best Practice #4, continued • To help students do the formal, revised writing assignments of the course (breaking them into parts with separate deadlines) • To help students learn course content • To help students reflect upon their writing and/or thinking process

10. Best Practice #5 Encouraging students to seek assistance from the Writing Center!

11. Work Cited Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.