The intent of the Writing Program
is to support all faculty as you use writing in your courses at
Millsaps. With our writing intensive Core 1, IDST 1000/1050: Intoduction to Thinking and Writing course and
other Core courses, we work to develop a coherent, scholarly atmosphere
in which students develop competent and effective means of written
communication.
To this end, the Millsaps Writing
Program has adopted a Writing Across the Curriculum approach designed
to offer clear and effective writing instruction in the initial
writing intensive course-- IDST 1000/1050 --and to support
and extend that instruction through other writing intensive courses
in all disciplines on campus. While courses in our Core Curriculum
have certain writing requirements, other courses on campus, including
upper level courses in all three divisions and every major on
campus, ought also to contribute to this campus-wide emphasis
on one of the primary liberal arts abilities: written communication.
The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)
approach that the Millsaps Writing Program uses operates on the simple
philosophy that writing is a skill requisite to every academic pursuit.
It is not the domain or responsibility of single faculty members, departments,
or divisions. It is a campus-wide, holistic approach to teaching writing.
In short, from the earliest WAC theorists to contemporary post-process
theorists, the consensus in this WAC strain of writing theory and pedagogy
is this: that students can neither be injected with writing skills nor
vaccinated against poor writing habits in one single course; that the
writing process and, therefore, the teaching of writing is a recursive
process; that students learn to write most successfully in environments
in which their writing skills are measured in all courses and in which
good writing habits are reinforced in various courses and by various
instructors.
