WHY & HOW TO IMPLEMENT WAC ENGL 101
Dr. Michelle Hall Kells
mkells@unm.edu
Tenets of WAC (Writing Across the Curriculum)
WAC maintains that:
 Writing is the responsibility of the entire academic community;

Writing must be integrated across departmental boundaries;

Writing instruction must be continuous during all four years of undergraduate education;

Writing promotes learning and only by practicing the conventions of an academic
discipline will students begin to communicate effectively within that discipline.
Writing Across Communities: WAC—with a Difference
The aim of the Writing Across Communities project at the UNM is to facilitate recruitment,
retention, and success of New Mexico's diverse student populations through enhanced literacy
education at every level of their college academic career (including, but not limited to, the First
Year College Composition sequence). Toward these aims, WAC calls attention to issues related
to student access, authority (authorship), awareness, and application of effective literacy
practices. WAC promotes literacy education across diverse cultures; learning styles;
ethnolinguistic groups; knowledge-making systems; genre conventions; disciplinary styles.
Dimensions of Literacy
Writing Across Communities recognizes the diverse ways of reading (interpreting) and
responding (writing) to the world. Literacy practice is always embedded in ever-shifting sets of
economic, political, social, cultural, and linguistic factors.
To map these complex factors, Writing Across Communities (WAC) coalesces the dimensions of
literacy at UNM into three components:
 Civic/Community Literacy (bridging students’ home communities and cultures);
 Academic Literacy (inviting students into academic disciplinary discourses);
 Professional Literacy (facilitating entrée into the work place literacies that they seek to
learn and the professional communities they will join after graduation).
ENGL 101 WAC Curriculum
The First Year Composition Sequence ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 are critical points of entry into
academic, civic, and professional literacies. The First Year sequence should help new college
writers understand, explore, and practice writing in diverse genres for a variety of rhetorical
situations (including but not limited to academic essayist literacy).
WAC English 101 is an introduction to college composition from a rhetorical perspective. This
course explores the different uses of writing for various contexts by providing models, practice,
and feedback. We focus on the writing process, inquiry (exploration and research), organization,
style, revision, editing, communication strategies, and the use of library and electronic sources
of information. WAC ENGL 101 prepares students for other courses in college writing such as
ENGL 102, ENGL 219, ENGL 220 as well writing-intensive courses in the major.
WAC ENGL 101 actively engages students in writing for diverse audiences by helping them to
analyze rhetorical situations, construct interpretations of texts (orthographic and visual), and
generate writing samples in a variety of genres (forms). During the semester, students have
extensive practice in writing, editing, and presenting their work. To support the emphasis on the
writing process, multiple drafts of major projects are required as well as exploratory exercises
designed to develop critical thinking skills.
Group work, peer review, reader response journal writing, conferencing, and oral presentations
are integral features of the course. Through inquiry, students reach beyond the limits of their
own experience to examine how ideas work and why. By experimenting with different genres,
students learn how to use language and literacy as conduits for achieving a range of rhetorical
purposes.
The first half of the course concentrates on the development of new writers by exploring multiple
voices and genres of writing. Students produce:
Reader Response Journal (3500 words);
Literacy Narrative (1500 words).
The second half of the course focuses on generating texts for different readers. Students practice:
Writing for Academic Culture (Exploratory Research Project 1500 words);
Writing for Public Culture (Raising Awareness Essay 1500 words).
The final products of the course are:
Portfolio of three Writing Projects;
Writing Sample for WAC ENGL 101 Digital Anthology
Required Texts
The Norton Field Guide to Writing. Richard Bullock.W.W. Norton, 2006. ISBN: 0-393-97776-5.
A Writer's Resource: A Handbook for Writing and Research. Elaine P. Maimon and Janice H.
Peritz. McGraw Hill, 2006. ISBN: 0-07-294405-6
Learning Objectives (Outcomes) for WAC ENGL 101
 Engage the writing process and practice revision;
 Define purpose and craft organizing statements (thesis);
 Apply organization and structure (genre);
 Integrate different ideas and perspectives (synthesis);
 Evaluate and reflect critically (engagement);
 Edit for clarity and correctness (grammar and style);
 Analyze the rhetorical situation (audience; purpose; stance; genre; media).
Further information, curriculum, and resources available at the UNM WAC Web site:
http://www.unm.edu/~wac/