The Writing in the Disciplines (WID) program, through the generous support of Jennifer Simpson and the Psalm 103 Foundation, provides departments and programs the opportunity to undertake a systematic and curricular overview of the state of undergraduate writing within the discipline in collaboration with a Writing Program faculty member (or WID Faculty Consultant). This year-long process of analysis, research, and reflection aims to stimulate lasting and sustainable curricular change. The collaborative process results in the production of a Writing Plan that will identify areas of strength and need and generate recommendations for transformative curricular reforms. Writing plans are published on the website by the Writing in the Disciplines program after they are completed.
Since 2021, WID has worked with academic units in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences to help develop transformative and innovative approaches to curricula, pedagogy, and resource development regarding writing in the discipline. Our partners include the Undergraduate Program in Neuroscience, Economics department, Mathematics & Statistics department, and World Languages & Literature department.
Our partners, as a result of working on writing plans with WID, have expanded their Writing-Intensive Course offerings, enabled advanced undergraduate majors the opportunity to become Simpson Writing Fellows, provided students with department-based peer writing support, and developed course seminars that foreground writing for advanced majors in the discipline. Departments have revised their assessment practices and collaborated with WID to develop significant writing resources for their faculty that are publicly available on the Teaching Writing site.
Our work has been discussed in an arts & sciences article reporting on the Neuroscience writing plan, presented on at the International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference 2025, and a chapter discussing our adaptation of the University of Minnesota Writing-Enriched Curriculum model is forthcoming with the WAC Clearinghouse.
Each of our partner’s writing plans are available on our website, and — after successfully completing the work of writing the plan — our partners have opportunities to request additional funding to support the execution of their plans. We regularly meet with our partners to ensure that the plans remain relevant and sustainable.
For 2025-2026, the World Languages & Literature department will focus on a second writing plan aiming to improve communication between the ten different language programs and with the tenured and tenure-track faculty teaching English writing within the same language program. This plan aims to establish clear writing goals for each language and proficiency level, specifying which genres students will write in.
The applications for the next iteration of the Simpson-funded Writing Plan will be opening in January 2026 and will be considered on a rolling basis. Applications are due May 1, 2026.
Information Sessions about the Writing Plans will occur in both Fall and Spring of AY 2025-2026. More information about dates to come. A recording of the March 2024 Information Session is available here.
For more information, please contact Assoc. Director of WID, David Shawn, dshawn@bu.edu and/or see the FAQs.
Our work on writing plans has adapted materials developed by the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at the University of Minnesota and is made available through Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial, NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.