Theses & Dissertations

Welcome to the WAC Clearinghouse Theses and Dissertations Page. The theses are displayed below. If you'd like us to add a new thesis or dissertation to our list, please contact Kevin Eric De Pew.

Category: WAC History

Mahala, Daniel. (1988). Writing Utopias: Visions of the Uses of Literacy. | View Details

Current writing Across the curriculum Theory is animated by a range of utopian images that articulate the promise of enlightened curricular reform. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine WAC and its promise of regenerated community both in light of the author's own experience teaching Afro-American Studies in the WAC program at SUNY-Albany (Chapter 1), and in light of the radical political Theories of Paolo Freire, Fredric Jameson, and Michel Foucault. By considering the visions of community projected by WAC Theorists as, in Jameson's terms, symbolic acts, we find that WAC Theorists have sought to keep WAC viable by projecting utopian images that affirm both the boundaries of the discourse communities that secure the status of academics, and the intentions of power that inform the current configurations of disciplinary knowledge. Against this tendency, the author argues that an authentically utopian impulse for reform must foster socially conscious disciplinary critique. Among the writing Theorists whose visions are interrogated by this analysis are Maimon, Kinneavy, Fulwiler, North, and Knoblauch and Brannon (Chapter 2). In Chapter 3, this inquiry leads back to a consideration of the utopian dimensions of Marxism (Freire) and the anti-utopian dimensions of Post-Structuralism (Foucault) in an effort to determine the uses and limits of these strands of radical thinking in modern 'first-world' institutions like the university. In the final chapter, two detailed visions of classroom practice, the dialogic writing communities of Shor, and Knoblauch and Brannon, are examined. In opposition to these visions, the author returns to the Afro-American Studies class examined in Chapter 1, articulating a vision of radical pedagogy that acknowledges the tension between the goals of fostering authentic dialogue between teacher and student, and of revealing disciplinary knowledge as a historically constituted structure of power.

Peters, Laurence C.. (1986). Writing Across the Curriculum: Some Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on the Development of Writing Programs in U.S. Higher Education (United States). | View Details

In the 1970's and 1980's new ways of thinking about the task of teaching writing on the college level emerged in the shape of what have become known as writing Across the curriculum programs. Many of these programs represent a successful struggle against a pedagogy and a language philosophy derived from the classical era. The first three chapters of the dissertation examine the nature of that struggle. The evolution of the classical 'product-centered' bias of composition teaching is outlined in Chapter One. Chapter Two considers the contribution of two thinkers who resisted in their work the philosophical and epistomological premises of the classical language curriculum. Chapter Three considers the evolution of three research traditions which helped forge a new Approach to composition teaching by rejecting many of the key assumptions of 'scientific' writing research. The current state of writing Across the curriculum programs in the United States is the subject of Chapter Four. Some programs have fully integrated the new writing research into their curriculum organization, others have remained remarkably immune to the new approaches. A final chapter looks to the future and to the specific ways research and evaluative strategies can be used to improve our teaching of writing Across the curriculum.

Hopper, Carolyn H.. (1985). Writing Across the Curriculum: An Overview of its Movement in American Colleges and Universities. | View Details

The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement is rapidly spreading in American colleges and universities. However, writing Across the curriculum is not a quick fix for a literacy crisis, nor is it a back-to-basics movement. The basic assumption of the movement is that writing is a central way of learning in all subject areas. The teaching of writing is a responsibility shared by all faculty. The WAC movement implies significant criticism of the pedagogy, the goals, and the educational outcomes of many of our contemporary educational institutions. There are, therefore, many obstacles in implementing a successful writing Across the curriculum program. This dissertation examines the concept Maxine Hairston calls the paradigm shift, the importance of considering writing as process rather than product, writing as a way of learning and various modes of writing. It traces the roots of WAC from England, looks at existing WAC programs, examines philosophical and pedagogical implications inherent in WAC and attempts to draw some conclusions about the use of WAC programs at colleges and universities. After reading this analysis, an administrator, department head, or individual instructor should understand what WAC requires of a faculty, student body, and curriculum and be able to determine if WAC will work within a given setting or situation.

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