By Melanie Doyle

During the 1970s and 1980s, American universities experienced an influx of students from populations previously excluded from higher education (Russell et al., 2009). As student populations became more diverse, faculty noticed gaps in students’ readiness for university-level writing (Horner, 2014). This prompted a reexamination of traditional writing instruction, fueled by the recognition that writing is not a fixed skill that could be taught and mastered in a single course (Thaiss & Porter, 2010). Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) emerged as a response: an approach that integrates writing instruction throughout postsecondary courses, emphasizing writing as a tool for learning and critical thinking. 

Today, higher education faces similar transformative pressures. Students’ experiences and skills are even more diverse, disciplines have increasingly specialized expectations and disruptive technologies are becoming ubiquitous in learning environments. WAC is as timely and relevant as ever. 

What is Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)? 

WAC is an educational model used to infuse writing instruction and practice across academic disciplines for the purposes of learning to write and learning through writing (Russell et al., 2009). WAC is enacted in a variety of ways, including writing center partnerships, specific writing or writing-intensive course designations, or faculty development programs (Thaiss & Porter, 2010). 

In all its forms, WAC operates on four principles:  

• Writing instruction is the responsibility of all disciplines.  

• Writing instruction should be continuous throughout students’ education. 

• Students need sustained practice and feedback to write successfully in their discipline. 

• Writing plays an essential role in developing critical thinking and learning content. 

These ideas are not new. In the United States, WAC is considered one of "the longest running educational reform movements in higher education” (INWAC, 2014, p. 1). While WAC programs exist at some Canadian universities (such as the University of Toronto Mississauga and the University of Alberta), writing instruction in Canada has historically developed along different lines. Canadian universities often integrate writing support through required literature courses, ad-hoc co-curricular programs or writing centres (Graves & Graves, 2006). This has created a disparate landscape, reflecting Canada’s “mosaic” of “alternative approaches” rather than a unified model (Graves & Graves, 2006, p. 2). 

To make the most of these approaches, Hunt (2006) encouraged writing studies practitioners in Canada to focus on supporting instruction from ‘under’ the curriculum instead of across (p. 380). While that response has been consistent (if not always effective), it may not be sufficient to see us through the current tumultuous landscape of writing instruction. 

A Changing Landscape of Writing Instruction 

In the past decade, English departments in Canada have taken on a less central role in teaching writing, a shift shaped in part by financial and structural factors (Smith, 2006). In historical budget models where student enrollment in writing courses has not been tied to departmental funding, English departments have moved away from “service teaching for other departments” (Graves & Graves, 2006, p. 8). Across the country, this shift has led to more writing instruction falling on writing centres and disciplinary hubs, but these too are under threat (Basgier, 2023). 

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has further changed the landscape of writing instruction as it affects not only how students produce text but also how they approach the purposes of writing. Fortunately, WAC philosophies and programs are particularly well-suited to respond to this challenge. Instead of positioning writing as a product to be polished, they emphasize writing as a process of disciplinary participation and discovery. In its recently published statement on AI, the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum emphasizes WAC offers (among other things) frameworks for helping students learn to use AI critically and in ways that reaffirm writing as a human-centred process of inquiry. It is these frameworks that can guide our work as we ensure students still gain the intellectual and rhetorical benefits of writing in an AI-steeped world. 

Moving Forward 

If writing is central to how students learn — and if AI is making writing more complex — then it’s time to bring writing out from ‘under’ the curriculum and make it visible in more of our courses. This doesn’t require creating a full-scale WAC program overnight. Start small: add low-stakes writing activities or discuss the role AI plays in your discipline's version of ‘good’ writing. At the program level, consider which courses already provide meaningful writing practice and where gaps remain.  

By gradually surfacing writing across the curriculum, we can create a learning environment where writing, critical thinking, and disciplinary knowledge reinforce each other. And we must. 

Melanie Doyle

Melanie Doyle is an educational developer with CITL and per-course instructor at Memorial. She facilitates the new Writing Across the Curriculum workshop series at Memorial. She is also a student in Memorial's Faculty of Education, where she is working on a PhD.

References

Association for Writing Across the Curriculum [AWAC]. (2025). AWAC Statement on AI and writing across the curriculum. https://wacassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/AWAC-Statement-on-AI-and-WAC-2025-v2.pdf

International Network of WAC Programs [INWAC]. (2014). Statement of WAC principles and practices. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/principles/statement.pdf

Graves, R., & Graves, H. (2006). Composition in Anglo-Canadian universities: Past, present, and future. In R. Graves & H. Graves (Eds.) Writing centres, writing seminars, writing culture: Writing instruction in Anglo-Canadian universities (pp. 1-22). Inkshed Publications.

Horner, B. (2014). Writing in the disciplines/writing across the curriculum. In C. Leung & B. V. Street (Eds.), The Routledge companion to English studies (pp. 405-418). Routledge.

Hunt, R. (2006). Afterword: Writing under the curriculum. In R. Graves & H. Graves (eds.), Writing centres, writing seminars, writing culture: Writing instruction in Anglo-Canadian universities (pp. 371-383). Inkshed Publications.

Thaiss, C., & Porter, T. (2010). The State of WAC/WID in 2010: Methods and Results of the U.S. Survey of the International WAC/WID Mapping Project. College Composition and Communication, 61(3), 534-570. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40593339

Russell, D. R., Lea, M., Parker, J., Street, B., & Donahue, T. (2009). Exploring notions of genre in ‘academic literacies’ and ‘writing across the curriculum’: Approaches across countries and contexts. In C. Bazerman, A. Bonini, & D. Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a changing world, (pp. 395-423). Parlor Press.