Two Voices on WAC

By: Jackie LaRose and Dave Pawlowski 

Editor's note: The WAC Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) Institute will take place this spring from May 5-8. To highlight the tremendous opportunities for people who participate, we have invited two WAC veterans, Jackie LaRose (Teacher Education) and Dave Pawlowski (Physics and Astronomy) to share their thoughts on their experiences. Please click the above link to register for this professional development opportunity, or email Ann Blakeslee, Director of the Office of Campus & Community Writing, to learn more.

Jackie LaRose

About fifteen years ago, I was encouraged to attend the WAC Spring Institute. Colleagues told me this was a fantastic professional learning opportunity, and as a fairly new faculty member, I was definitely interested. I was a participant at that summer’s institute and have returned every year since. Ann Blakeslee recognized how a session related to college reading could be beneficial for participants, and, in typical Ann fashion, she recruited me to do such a session in the institute each spring. That’s one of the remarkable things about WAC. Ann nurtures participants in finding how their expertise fits into the WAC world, and the community continues to benefit. 

I am definitely a WAC groupie. In every institute, people are actively working to learn from each other and do work that is directly applicable to their jobs. There is time built in to collaborate and consult, as well as time to do the deep thinking that is not always possible during the academic year. But the learning is not restricted to the institute! Throughout the year, WAC “alumni” join together in book groups and seminars to dive into some of the most challenging and innovative topics associated with higher education today. I have participated in several of these endeavors. If not for WAC, my students would not have the experience of using Hypothesis or understand the value of shifting from traditional grading to ungrading. WAC has changed my teaching more than any other professional learning opportunity. 

Okay, now let’s be real. WAC is not just about academic rigor and creative thinking, although it definitely delivers in those areas. WAC is fun. Some of my closest friends at EMU are people from other departments and colleges whom I’ve met through WAC. I have this year’s WAC Spring Institute (May 5-8) on my calendar, and I hope I see many new faces there. I trust I’ll also reconnect with some of those WAC repeaters like me, who know that this incredible professional learning opportunity is an experience not to be missed.

Dave Pawlowski

During fall of 2011, I was asked to teach Phy420W (the capstone course for Physics majors) during the upcoming winter term for the first time in my short career. I had a few months to prepare for this, but most of that time was spent trying to figure out what type of project I was going to challenge the students with, and then learning for myself what was needed to actually complete said project. Unfortunately, this part of my prep (and other parts of my job) meant that the “W” part of the course was a bit of an afterthought. I figured I would talk to the students about the types of writing that we do as physicists, have them write a bunch of papers, read them, give them grades and that would be that. This was more or less consistent with my experience with writing in my discipline as an undergraduate. Simple enough. 

The end of the winter semester gave me a chance to reflect on how things went in the Capstone, and among several other opportunities for improvement, the writing aspect of the course stood out as something that needed much further development. The problem for me was that I had no clue how to teach writing, particularly in the physics discipline. Like many others in my field, my writing skills were developed mostly throughout grad school, where I had been able to get by more or less by trying to imitate the writing style that I saw in the publications, proposals and other documents I read. But it wasn’t very clear to me what tools I used to be a capable writer nor how to communicate this to my students during a short semester at the end of their undergraduate career.

It took longer than it should have, but after a few more years I participated in WAC. The workshop introduced me to best-practices in teaching writing, helped me see where writing education fit within a physics course, prepared me for helping students improve their writing, specifically in Phy420W, and, most importantly, gave me the tools that I was missing to be able to communicate with my students about their writing. I left WAC with ideas on how to improve my writing assignments, assessments, and syllabi and access to a community of other people interested in improving their own writing as well as their students’ writing. I didn’t really know what to expect out of WAC before it began. By the end, it was clear that participating in WAC was, and still is, one of the most important things I’ve done in my career at EMU.

On behalf of the Faculty Development Center, we hope you will join Ann and Jackie this year at the WAC Institute. Thank you in advance to all the facilitators of this program!