The W’s are coming
A&M’s new writing courses debut this fall.
Dr. Robert Gates and Dr. Valerie Balester at the UWC.
Texas A&M President Dr. Robert M. Gates chats with University Writing Center Executive Director Dr. Valerie M. Balester during the Center’s grand opening. Dr. Gates approved new W courses in 2003, seeking to improve students’ writing skills.
This fall’s catalog is the first to require undergraduates to complete a W course within the major for their degree.
What will a writing-intensive course entail? For a typical three-credit hour course, one third of coursework must focus on the teaching of writing. In an upper-level biology seminar, for instance, students might read and discuss model lab reports, then draft reports of their own on which they’d receive feedback before revising. In a marketing class, however, students might create a marketing plan for a new product line, submitting drafts of segments of the plan throughout the semester for review by the instructor or their peers.
Departments will have significant latitude in determining how to meet W course requirements. All W courses must be approved by the W Course Advisory Committee, comprised of representatives from each academic college as well as Evans Library and student government, and chaired by the Executive Director of the University Writing Center.
While designing a W course will undoubtedly take time and thought, the proposal process itself is simple: Faculty can download the proposal form or submit it online (along with the course syllabus) directly to the University Writing Center for review by the Advisory Committee. For more details on the proposal process and approval criteria, see http://writingcenter.tamu.edu/content/view/80/119/.
Faculty members with questions either about the proposal process or the teaching of W courses, should contact the University Writing Center, which offers faculty support services such as customized faculty workshops and training programs for faculty and teaching assistants, as well as advice on formulating W course proposals.
For further information, visit the Writing Center’s faculty website at writingcenter.tamu.edu/faculty or contact Valerie Balester, Executive Director of the University Writing Center, at v-balester@tamu.edu or Michelle Hall Kells, Associate Director of the University Writing Center, at m-kells@tamu.edu.
