Teaching Writing in the Disciplines (WID)

Teaching of undergraduate writing at Boston University during the twenty-first century has chiefly resided with the CAS Writing Program (WP), which was fully implemented in 2001. The WP adopted a pedagogy emphasizing topic-based writing seminars. Then, and still today, seminars in literature predominate, but other disciplines are represented as well: history, art history, architectural studies, religious studies, anthropology, medical ethics, etc. While the 1999 “Proposal for a College Writing Program” envisioned advanced writing courses taught in the disciplines, these did not come into existence until the advent of the new General Education Curriculum, commonly known as the Hub (note that other academic units, including the Rhetoric Division of the College of General Studies, the CORE Curriculum, and the Kilachand Honors College, taught–and still teach–writing to undergraduate students).

The Hub, first implemented for the 2022 class, has brought a renewed focus to student writing and, especially, to writing in the disciplines. Building on the WP curriculum and pedagogy, the Hub requires all undergraduate students take two foundational writing courses and two Writing-Intensive courses (WIN). Targeting upper-level students, WIN courses are taught in all of BU’s undergraduate schools and colleges and in all departments and programs. In 2017, with the new attention to writing throughout the undergraduate experience, CAS established a new Associate Director of Writing in the Disciplines to help foster WIN course development, to help provide pedagogical resources for faculty in the disciplines, and to provide support for students working on writing in their disciplinary coursework.

• Writing-Intensive courses: resources and support for the teaching of WIN courses are available on this website.
• Tutoring Writing in the Disciplines (TWID): a program in which select academic units, working in collaboration with WID, hire advanced undergraduate peer writing tutors to provide writing support for students taking courses throughout a discipline.
• Jennifer Simpson Gift: through the generosity of Jennifer Simpson (CAS 2000), Writing in the Disciplines will implement over three years a three-pronged set of initiatives to support writing beyond the foundational courses. One feature is continued support for the Tutoring WID program; a second involves providing professional development opportunities for faculty on the teaching of writing; and a third is the WID Faculty Consultation program, a department/program level collaboration with WP faculty to develop curricular resources and recommendations for the teaching of writing within the discipline.

• Academic Integrity (Part 1): Avoiding Plagiarism
• Academic Integrity (Part 2): Quoting, Paraphrasing, Summarizing
• Accessible Approaches to the Writing Classroom
• Anatomy of an Assignment Sheet
• Equity in Writing Assessment: Alternative Grading Approaches
• Facilitating Discussions
• Finding and Using Model Abstracts
• Interview a Professor
• Leveling the Playing Field for Class Participation
• Providing Feedback
• Responding to Errors in Multilingual Students’ Writing
• Strategies for “Challenging” Conferences and Tutoring Appointments
• Strategies for Conferences and Tutoring Appointments with English Language Learners
• Teaching the Hidden Curriculum

In the College of Arts & Sciences Chemistry department, students write in all of their courses as they learn to communicate scientific findings and make evidence-based arguments. Students concentrating in chemistry or other sciences who take the two-semester sequence of Intensive General and Quantitative Analytical Chemistry (CH 111 & CH 112) earn Hub units in, among other things, Writing, Research & Inquiry. Students also earn Writing-Intensive Hub units in Inorganic Chemistry (CH 232).