Across the Disciplines Jan 2006 Open Access

Making It Your Own: Writing Fellows Re-evaluate Faculty "Resistance"

Judith Halasz ; Maria Brincker CUNY School of Law

Abstract

Faculty resistance to Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is an issue that has been recognized by WAC program directors and practitioners for decades, yet it remains unresolved. Perhaps the problem is not resistance per se, but how we interpret and react to it. Faculty resistance is typically viewed as an impediment to the pedagogical change WAC programs hope to achieve. Moreover, the label of "resistance" is often used without further examination of the underlying causes. Based on research and experience as doctoral Writing Fellows in the Borough of Manhattan Community College WAC Program, we argue that so-called resistances are often justified concerns in regard to implementing WAC under given institutional, disciplinary, departmental, and personal constraints. We also suggest that if we listen and respond to these concerns, they become means to facilitate faculty engagement with WAC. By working through their concerns and adapting WAC to their context, faculty can take ownership of WAC and further develop the practice. Thus, what at first appears to be an impediment to deep-rooted pedagogical change ”resistance” can be used to encourage faculty to make WAC their own.

Journal
Across the Disciplines
Published
2006-01-01
DOI
10.37514/atd-j.2006.3.1.03
CompPile
Open Access
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Citation context

Cited by in this index (1)

  1. Cripps et al. (2016)
    "A Way to Talk about the Institution as Opposed to Just my Field": WAC Fellowsh…
    Across the Disciplines

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