• Is Writing Across the Curriculum Effective? | Writing To Learn, Learning To Write | By Request…December 2004
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  • a WAC program is a change in attitudes toward writing” among teachers and administrators as well as students (p. 116): “Through writing, every student does have an opportunity to respond, to participate, to learn actively rather than passively, and to think independently…. A WAC program, founded on a process approach to writing instruction, also provides every teacher an opportunity to take a fresh look at writing” as more than just a product to be graded for punctuation and other surface-level errors (p. 116).
  • researchers concluded that writing-to-learn activities “can have a small, positive impact on conventional measures of academic achievement” (p. 29). The use of metacognitive prompts in which students could “reflect on their current knowledge, confusions, and learning processes proved particularly effective” (p. 50). It also appeared that the longer the period of time over which writing activities were spread and repeated, the greater their effect on student learning.
  • “all writing practices carry cultural values, and instruction consisting of informal, expressive, and exploratory writing practices may be an affront to some writers as much as an invitation to personal discovery learning…. Writing to learn is a literate practice that assumes cultural norms” (pp. 350–351). How students from different ethnic, linguistic, educational, and socioeconomic backgrounds benefit from particular writing strategies has not been studied in nearly enough depth.
  • “how student ability is related to the impact of writing to learn” (p. 53). While some writing activities may indeed be a good match for more print-oriented students who already have strong reading and writing skills for their grade level, it’s possible that these same activities could limit subject-area learning for students who perform better in other ways. Writing activities that are poorly designed or that ask students to do more than they are developmentally ready for may also have a negative impact on learning.

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