supporting scholarly exchange about communication across the curriculum
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What kinds of writing can I include? What is writing in the disciplines? Do I have to be an expert in grammar? Do writing and peer review take up too much class time? How can I avoid getting lousy student papers? What makes a good writing assignment? How can I get the most out of peer-review? Why consider collaborative writing assignments? What writing resources are available for my students? What teaching resources are available?
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An Introduction to WAC Synthesis PapersA more complex response to assigned readings is the synthesis paper. Rather than summarizing or responding to a single reading assignment, the synthesis paper asks students to work with several readings and to draw commonalities out of those readings. Particularly when individual readings over-simplify a topic or perspectives on a question in your course, the synthesis paper guarantees that students grapple with the complexity of issues and ideas.Like other writing-to-learn tasks, the synthesis paper can be shorter and less formal, or you can assign it at or near the end of a sequence leading to a more formal paper.
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