By Tami Dimock

For 20 years, the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program has been a positive force at George Mason, encouraging faculty members to include writing assignments in courses of all academic disciplines to better prepare students for life after college. In the fall of 1995, however, it took a giant leap forward by implementing the writing-intensive requirement.

Passed by the Faculty Senate in 1993, the writing-intensive requirement states that all Mason undergraduates must successfully complete at least one upper-level writing-intensive course within their majors.

According to Chris Thaiss, English, and director of WAC, "Writing Across the Curriculum means using writing as a part of teaching across the spectrum of the university." He adds that the program evolved out of the recognition that students not only need to learn to write, but to improve their writing and use it as a tool of learning, particularly in the courses of their majors, where most of their college time is spent. That means going beyond the standard English composition courses required of all students.

"The practice of writing needs to continue beyond the English 101 and 302 levels," says Ruth Fischer, English, and associate director of WAC. WAC extends the responsibility for teaching writing across the majors, Fischer notes, so that students benefit not only from the knowledge of the English faculty in their composition courses, but also from the faculty in their specific disciplines, "who can provide the kind of focused feedback that they need in order to write in their majors successfully."

Writing-intensive courses must meet certain criteria. For example, class size is limited to 35 students, each of whom is required to submit at least 3,500 words of writing to be graded. Most importantly, however, writing assignments must emphasize the process of drafting and revision, so that students learn the process, become more comfortable with it, and, as a result, improve and grow as writers and effective communicators.

According to Thaiss and Fischer, the many degree programs at Mason meet or exceed the writing-intensive criteria in different ways. For example, Public and International Affairs designates all of its 300-level courses as writing intensive; History designates its core course in historical methods (HIST 300) and its capstone seminar (HIST 499); Systems Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering designate their year-long senior design projects; and Computer Science has spread the requirement over six courses from the first year through the senior year. At present, there is an average of two writing-intensive courses per major at George Mason.

"Implementing WAC principles with nursing students has made a tremendous difference, not only in improving their writing, but in helping them see how different styles of writing are related to their practice," says Jeanne Sorrell, College of Nursing and Health Science, and a member of Mason's WAC Committee. The committee, which comprises faculty representatives from each undergraduate college, was established by the Faculty Senate to design, implement, and assess the writing-intensive requirement, as well as to provid e ongoing instruction and ideas for faculty on how to use and respond to student writing.

Sorrell developed a course called Nurses as Writers, which she says "focuses on practical, on-the-job types of writing that nurses need in their practice." The class has proven to be quite popular in the College of Nursing and Health Science. "We also have a writing-intensive course in which nursing students write about issues that are important to nursing practice," says Sorrell, who enjoys seeing students get involved with different types of writing.

According to Eugene Norris, Computer Science, and a WAC Committee member, one effect of the writing-intensive requirement has been "to increase faculty awareness of the need for and the benefits derived from teaching good writing skills." Norris now finds himself phrasing answers to student questions more in terms of effective expression. "By having students pay attention to the clear expression of their ideas, they seem more able to deal with the abstractions of computer science than students were in past years," he says. Because computer scientists are mainly applied scientists, Norris notes, they work on other people's problems, making effective communication a necessity. "Whatever job a computer science graduate finds himself or herself in, he or she will spend more time writing and presenting than doing anything else."

Stanley Zoltek, Mathematical Sciences, and chair of the WAC Committee, explains why the writing-intensive requirement applies to his discipline, usually associated more with numbers than writing skills: "In mathematics, you know that you understand a subject when you can teach others about it. Students come closest to this experience when they are assigned work that requires them to justify and explain their work in a manner that can be read by their peers. Responses that only contain numbers and equations are not acceptable."

Almost as soon as the writing-intensive requirement was implemented at Mason, the WAC Committee began evaluating its i mpact. Assessment began with a 1996 query of department chairs, undergraduate coordinators, and faculty to determine the extent of their participation in the program. At that point, 90 percent of degree programs already were fulfilling, or nearly fulfilling, the criteria for writing-intensive courses included in their curricula.

In 1997, a series of questions that focused on students' writing experiences at Mason was included in the spring survey of graduating seniors. The results showed that 92 percent of students surveyed had taken at least one course within their major requiring the revision of a paper, project, or other assignment, and 78 percent of those surveyed had taken three or more courses. Forty-five percent said these courses "very much" improved their writing abilities, while 41 percent thought their writing was "somewhat" improved. A large majority of students noted that several other skills were developed through the writing process as well, including organization, critical thinking, grammar, problem solving, and the ability to argue a position.

The third phase of assessment occurred in fall 1997, when Thaiss and Fischer conducted in-depth interviews with department chairs and undergraduate coordinators. Interviews covered topics such as the impact of the writing-intensive requirement on faculty; the perception of strengths and weaknesses of student writing in the major; the prevalence of writing in the degree programs' course offerings; and the use by faculty members of available WAC resources designed to help them incorporate WAC principles into their curricula. (Listed on WAC's website, these resources include instructional workshops, sample syllabi from writing-intensive courses, informative brown bag discussions, and the Writing at Center newsletter.) Interview results will be presented this spring to the administration and the Faculty Senate.

"Interest in WAC assessment across the country is increasing," notes Thaiss, "so people are looking for good assessment instruments." Indeed, since conducting the faculty interviews, he and Fischer have received numerous requests for their assessment questionnaire from WAC programs around the nation.

While WAC assessment is an ongoing process that serves to update and improve the program, signs indicate that the writing-intensive requirement already is making a difference at Mason--in the eyes of the faculty and the students, who are becoming better writers because of it.

For more information about WAC and the writing-intensive requirement, visit Mason's WAC website at http://www. gmu.edu/departments/wac.