• inclusivity, feminist theory, technical and professional communication, writing in the disciplines, social justice, technology, WAC

The WAC Journal has a rich legacy and is the longest-running journal devoted to writing across the curriculum in the field. It is published by Parlor Press, the WAC Clearinghouse, and Clemson University, which is recognized as a national leader in writing and multimedia across the curriculum and digital creativity. The WAC Journal is a “double-anonymous” peer-reviewed journal, published annually. We aim to publish work that explores the multiple theoretical paradigms, diverse approaches, and potential intersections between writing across the curriculum and topics of feminism, technology, and inclusion. We welcome submissions from all WAC scholars. 

The WAC Journal endorses the WAC Clearinghouse's "Advice for Reviewers":

We strongly encourage all reviewers to follow these best practices to ensure constructive and collegial feedback to all those who submit their work for publication consideration.

The WAC Journal is available in print and online versions. To obtain a printed volume of the journal, please view our subscription information. To view the online version, please follow the links below.

 

2025 Call for Papers: WAC and Its Institutions: Reclaiming Practices of Freedom

Sarah Ohmer, Sophia Hsu & Austin Bailey

Submissions due April 15, 2025

A primary goal of this special issue is to ask questions about the genealogy of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) programs, their current institutional limitations and affordances, and their possible futures. WAC programs have been fundamental to transforming writing pedagogy in campuses across the United States, and their institutionalization speaks to a successful interdisciplinary and/or transdisciplinary initiative. In some instances, however, this institutionalization has been in tension with the student-centered, anti-racist and/or even abolitionist approaches that WAC programs value. Recent austerity politics, moreover, have justified cuts across universities that also threaten or have the potential to threaten such programs. Given the multilayered and heterogeneous landscape of WAC programs across campuses, this special issue calls for a reflective focus on the history of WAC practices. As we articulate the function of WAC programs, especially given the recent urgency to address the needs and desires of BIPOC student populations, what might it mean to conceive the future of WAC by framing it via histories of liberation and place-based action? How might doing so push back against the forces and structures that have attempted to instrumentalize, homogenize, and depoliticize WAC?

This special issue recalls the radical history and complex origins of WAC in the United States. We are inspired by the complicated relationship that our own institution, the City University of New York (CUNY), has with the WAC programs on its various campuses. The role writing pedagogy has played in the history of CUNY, specifically as a practice of freedom, is evident in the work of foundational figures for equitable writing instruction such as Mina Shaughnessy, Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, and Adrienne Rich. Current CUNY-wide WAC practices, though, do not necessarily reference this genealogy of resistance to anti-black violence and the striving by Black and brown communities for access in public higher education explicitly.

We invite provocations that imagine what the future of WAC programs could become while reframing WAC through an anti-racist, abolitionist lens. We are particularly interested in submissions written by and for BIPOC and allied faculty, as well as in scholarship focused particularly on Minority-Serving Institutions, public universities in underserved urban and rural areas, and other institutions similar to CUNY. Ultimately, we welcome work that reconsiders what we believe is WAC’s next essential step: its re/engagement with anti-racist, decolonial, abolitionist theory, related to a long history of practices of freedom rooted in Black studies. What is the relationship between WAC programs and the institutions in which they are housed? How have WAC programs responded to institutional/local pressures? What role can WAC programs and WAC practices play in pushing back against institutional oppressions?

We are also interested in essays focused on place-based movements for writing equity, and/or essays that recover/rebuild genealogies of foundational WAC figures. How does the development of WAC unfold in particular locations? How do the geographies, local histories, and/or current practices of those places play into the development of WAC as a program? Additionally, we invite pedagogical reflections that offer examples of putting theory into practice: designing or revising syllabi, assignments, rubrics, and writing-to-learn strategies in current classrooms affiliated with or adjacent to WAC. Given one’s location or institution, for example, what is possible and/or precluded in applying WAC principles in the classroom? 

Submissions may be in English or take up a translanguaging or multilingual approach. We welcome essays and pedagogical reflections from 3,000 to 6,000 words. Submissions may explore but do not have to be limited to the following topics:

  • Foundational BIPOC figures & literature of WAC
  • Abolitionism and the origins of WAC
  • WAC programs in predominantly non-white institutions (HBCUs, Hispanic Serving, Tribal Colleges and Institutions)
  • BIPOC WAC educators teaching writing to BIPOC students
  • Emplaced pedagogies in the classroom
  • Black joy, writing, and teaching writing
  • Emancipatory/abolitionist pedagogies 
  • Alternative assessment and post-grading practices
  • Language justice and translanguaging
  • Multimodality as a decolonial practice
  • WAC and the politics of austerity

Please contact our managing editor, Allison Daniel, if you have any questions or would like the editors to review a proposal. 

Current Issue

Volume 34, 2023

Special Issue: Transforming WAC at 50: What, How, and for Whom?

Issue Editor: Cristyn L. Elder

Full VolumeOpen the entire volume

Frontmatter

Introduction, Cristyn L. Elder
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.01

Articles

Beyond WAC: Transforming Institutions, Transforming WAC through Deep Change, Caitlin Martin
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.02

A Citation Analysis of The WAC Journal, 1989-2022, Anne Ellen Geller and Neal Lerner
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.03

Toward More Sustainable Antiracist Practices, Sherri Craig, Barclay Barrios, and Jeffrey Galin
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.04

(Re)Defining WAC to Guide a Linguistic Justice Ideological Change Across Campuses, Emily Bouza
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.05

Languaging Across the Curriculum: Why WAC Needs CLA (and Vice Versa), Shawna Shapiro
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.06

Race, Writing, and Research: Leveraging WAC to Reduce Disparities in Research Funding and Publication, Joanna Johnson
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.07

“The Total Pattern of the World”: Misinformation across the Curriculum (MAC) and the Next Fifty Years of Higher Education, Paul Cook
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.08

The Future of WAC Is Multimodal and Transfer-Supporting, Crystal N. Fodrey
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.09

Potential of WAC in Graduate Writing Support: Helping Faculty Improve Systems of Graduate Writing, Mandy Olejnik
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.10

The State and Future of WAC Faculty Development Scholarship: A Citation Analysis of Publications, 2012–2022, Christopher Basgier
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.11

Mapping the Present to Shape the Future: An Interactive, Inclusive e-Map Supporting Diverse WAC Practices and Writing Sites, Kendon Kurzer, Greer Murphy, Robyn Russo, and Katherine Daily O’Meara
DOI: 10.37514/WAC-J.2023.34.1.12

Contributors

Back Issues

Note: Many of the PDF documents available in The WAC Journal were created by scanning print documents. As a result, they lack structure (headings and so on) and ALT tags for images. Screen readers will not be able to determine heading levels and other information that would ease the reading process.

Volume 33, 2022
Volume 32, 2021
Volume 31, 2020
Volume 30, 2019
Volume 29, 2018
Volume 28, Fall 2017
Volume 27, Fall 2016
Volume 26, Fall 2015
Volume 25, Fall 2014
Volume 24, Fall 2013
Volume 23, November 2012
Volume 22, November 2011
Volume 21, November 2010
Volume 20, November 2009
Volume 19, August 2008
Volume 18, September 2007
Volume 17, September 2006
Volume 16, September 2005
Volume 15, September 2004
Volume 14, August 2003
Volume 13, June 2002
Volume 12, May 2001: WAC and General Education
Volume 11, April 2000
Volume 10, April 1999: Using Writing to Enhance the First-Year Experience
Volume 9, August 1998
Volume 8, August 1997: Retrospective Issue
Volume 7, August 1996
Volume 6, August 1995
Volume 5, May 1994
Volume 4, April 1993
Volume 3, 1991-1992
Volume 2, August 1990
Volume 1, June 1989