WAC

Writing across the curriculum.... Until I read this essay, I took it for granted that the way I was learning how to write was "the right way." In all my years of school, I never got any complaints from my English teachers (except about my handwriting, and my papers running short, and the occasional lack of direction, but i'm not counting those). Even in college, I found writing to still be pretty easy to do, and faced few roadblocks. And when I read this essay, I realized why. I'm an English major. All we do is write, and we all write a certain way. I've never had to write a lab report, or anything scienc-y. When I've had the option of choosing between APA and MLA citation format, I've gone with MLA almost every time, in spite of the fact that I hear APA is actually simpler. The one writing class I had a hard time with was English 324, a class in which we had to write reports on computers and media and internet stuff. I struggled to make my papers flow as well as they did in my fiction and literature classes. Even my argument class was easier, because I could put some passion into those papers. But the research papers were a huge obstacle for me. I struggled in that class, even though I'm usually good at "English."

Thinking about this essay in light of my experience helps me understand just how different one type of writing can be from another. McLeod pointed out the difference between writing for literature and writing for history. I'm not sure that it should be the first-year composition instructor's job to teach all of these forms. Maybe the thing to do is to have a writing unit in whatever subject area the student is studying. If there really are that many different kinds of writing, requiring different rhetorical strategies, then there is no way they can all be covered in one class. If the students are allowed to investigate writing in their own field, then it might be worth it. But then it would be up to the writing professor to grade all of those different writing styles, and if he doesn't know what the standards are, that makes it all the more difficult to give accurate feedback.