Across the Disciplines, a refereed journal devoted to language, learning, and academic writing, publishes articles relevant to writing and writing pedagogy in all their intellectual, political, social, and technological complexity. Across the Disciplines shares the mission of the WAC Clearinghouse in making information about writing and writing instruction freely available to members of the CAC, WAC, and ECAC communities.
Editors' Note: On Becoming Editor of ATD
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2006.3.1.01
Michael Pemberton reflects on the challenges of taking over as editor of ATD. (Published June 28, 2005)
The Complexities of Responding to Student Writing; or, Looking for Shortcuts via the Road of Excess, Richard Haswell.
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2006.3.1.02
Responding to student writing in a formative way is time consuming for teachers in every discipline. Shortcuts such as correction symbols and checksheets are common, but how effective are they? In this article, Richard Haswell surveys the research into teacher response, using a discourse-activity model to cover all major aspects, and finds complications everywhere. He argues that the complexity of response cautions teachers about shortcuts yet also suggests ways to cull or revamp them. (Published November 9, 2006)
Making It Your Own: Writing Fellows Re-evaluate Faculty "Resistance", Judith Halasz and Maria Brincker with the help of Deborah Gambs, Denise Geraci, Andrea Queeley, and Sophie Solovyova.
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2006.3.1.03
Drawing on research and experience as doctoral Writing Fellows in the Borough of Manhattan Community College WAC Program, the authors explore faculty resistance through the lens of institutional, disciplinary, departmental, and personal constraints. The authors suggest that, if we listen and respond to faculty concerns, they become means to facilitate faculty engagement with and ownership of WAC. (Published August 24, 2006)
One More Time:Transforming the Curriculum Across the Disciplines Through Technology–Based Faculty Development and Writing–Intensive Course Redesign, Kelly A. Shea, Mary McAleer Balkun, Susan A. Nolan, John T. Saccoman, and Joyce Wright.
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2006.3.1.04
Shea and her colleagues describe a WAC project, born of their university's commitment to writing and ubiquitous computing, that engaged nearly 70 faculty members in WAC training over four years. The authors describe the project and its results, emphasizing three case studies of faculty members from psychology, mathematics, and nursing. (Published February 21, 2006)
Introductions in Examination Essays: The Case of Two Undergraduate Courses, Joseph Benjamin Archibald Afful.
DOI: 10.37514/ATD-J.2006.3.1.05
The author presents a study that employs a modified version of Swales' (1990) move analysis to investigates the generic structure of introductions in a total of 120 writing samples of Ghanaian undergraduates in English and Sociology. The study reveals differences between the two groups in their use of move-structures. (Published February 21, 2006)
This review continues the ATD (and, previously, Academic.Writing) tradition of reviewing the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Read and respond to reports on individual conference sessions, workshops, and special events at this year's Conference on College Composition and Communication. (Published April 17, 2006)
Disciplines across the curriculum increasingly respond to the visual culture into which our students graduate—and from which they come. This special issue explores the use of visuals to teach, to construct knowledge, and to deconstruct knowledge; specific disciplinary expectations concerning visuals as end products/forms of communication; the production, changes and/or effects visual technologies (from paper to screen) have had on our field; the intersections between/among visual/written/spoken pedagogies and productions across disciplines/interdisciplines; ways in which brain activity dedicated to writing intersects/affects/changes visual production.
Guest editor: Joan A. Mullin, University of Texas at Austin