By: Ann Blakeslee and Beth Sabo

A few days ago, I (Ann) heard an NPR reporter say, in talking about ChatGPT, that maybe we won’t need to teach students to write anymore. We suspect that if that was suddenly the case, there might be a few “Hurrahs” and a fair amount of relief. There goes that problem of grading student writing and all that time we have to spend on it. We also suspect some of our students might also be happy, but for different reasons - lots of them.

But this blog post isn’t about ChatGPT and whether it will lead to the downfall of writing. (If you want our honest opinion – and not to rain on anyone’s parade – we don’t believe it will. Why would we want to give up on writing, one of the best pedagogical tools we have for teaching and supporting our students’ thinking, especially their critical thinking?)

Can we really imagine a world where we don’t write? Writing and communicating are at the center of so much of what we do, personally and professionally, every single day. They’re things we want our students to be able to do well and that we know they’ll have to do well to succeed in the workplace, even in a world infused with AI. At EMU, we have a long history of encouraging and supporting our students in learning how to write. Our consultants in the University Writing Center work hard to help students in any class and subject area in which they’re assigned writing. We also have a long history of offering support to all of you for teaching and supporting student writing. Did you know that EMU’s Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program is now in its 23rd year? There are even still a few of us around who participated in that very first WAC Institute in 2000.

Since then, many EMU faculty and lecturers have participated in a WAC Spring Institute, a WAC Advanced Institute, or one of our Dialogues, Spotlight Speaker Series, or Book Groups. If you’re someone who has, you hopefully have benefited from the collegiality and camaraderie that occurs in WAC events (we’ve been very fortunate that way!). If you have not ever participated in a WAC event, we invite you to do so. Now, we would argue, would be a great time for that.

Perhaps more than ever, the quality and meaningfulness of the assignments we give our students truly matter, whether we’re teaching a General Education course or an advanced course in our program. Students enjoy assignments that engage and challenge them; research in writing supports this strongly (see The Meaningful Writing Project: Learning, Teaching, and Writing in Higher Education, 2016, and Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking and Active Learning in the Classroom, 2021). As faculty, most of us enjoy reading the writing that our students produce when they’re engaged and challenged. Writing then becomes more of an exchange and a dialogue, and our students have the opportunity to have their voices heard and to receive meaningful responses to their writing.

WAC provides a space and opportunity for any EMU faculty member and lecturer (it’s open to anyone who teaches) to dedicate time, not only to thinking about writing but also to thinking about their pedagogy. It also is a space to meet similar-minded colleagues from across the university and to engage in thoughtful exchanges about the work we do in our classrooms. You’ll leave WAC energized and excited about your teaching and with many new ideas about ways to assign meaningful writing and to support your students as developing writers.

Here are a few comments some of our colleagues have made about WAC in the past:

• This is the single best teaching and learning event on campus. It is well organized, covers a lot of ground, and celebrates the successful teachers on campus. We need more WAC!

• The presentations were some of the highlights, in my opinion. It was very helpful to hear, see, and experience how various concepts from previous WAC Institutes got put into application all across the disciplines. It was really helpful to see those concrete realizations, and also to get examples spanning the entire spectrum, from creating more informal, short writing assignments to breaking up one big academic paper over one semester. I also found the presentation about how to better support students with learning disabilities very informative.

• Every session was well paced to allow fast capturing of the new ideas and "teaching the teachers" business. I learned a lot in every session and the content . . . made a lot of impact on my future plans for my students and my career.

• I really liked the opportunity to meet so many colleagues from different departments, which seems rare in our daily teaching life.

Whether you’re new(er) to EMU and/or to teaching, or whether you have been at EMU and/or teaching for many years, there’s something for everyone at the WAC Institute. Please consider joining us this year as we explore the many considerations involved in assigning and responding to student writing – including planning and developing assignments; supporting students through instruction, feedback, and staged activities; using both formal and informal writing (higher- and lower-stakes assignments); responding to and assessing student writing, particularly in ways that are equitable; and much more, including ways to think about and incorporate technology like ChatGPT. If this interests you, and if you’re with us on the importance of continuing to teach writing, you can complete this form to apply (the deadline to apply is February 24). See you in May!