Writing in the Disciplines (WID)

This is a photoo of instructors during the workshop.

The Writing-in-the-Disciplines (WID) Program at SHSU is part of a long-running international movement of Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) that helps faculty integrate professional writing practices from their field into their academic courses. WID is about engaging students to use writing as a tool to learn disciplinary content. Students need practice before becoming better writers and thinkers, and as studies have shown, professional writing is best taught in the disciplines.

Writing assignments created through the WID lens meet the goals above. The WID program helps faculty develop writing activities so that students gain familiarity and fluency with specific genres and formats. For example, an engineer does not write like a botanist, who does not write like a chemist, who does not write like a sociologist. Each field has its own ways of creating knowledge and students learn best when they are partners in the writing activities of their chosen fields.

For more information, check out the WAC Clearinghouse Repository to learn more about the WAC movement and to find teaching resources curated from leaders in the field of writing studies.

Submit a program request form here: WID Inquiry

Writing in the Disciplines (WD) – Classes in which instructors use writing assignments to enable students to practice writing conventions of a specific discipline to understand the values, genres, and formats (the thinking and writing of that discipline).

Typically, WD courses are those upper-level (perhaps capstone) courses that include writing assignments with discipline-specific concepts, genres, and conventions. In this case, it might be what writing scholar James Britton calls “transactional writing” meaning writing to accomplish something specific to inform, persuade, or instruct in a particular field.

Benefits and Goals of Writing in the Disciplines:

The most important reason for assigning writing tasks in disciplinary courses is to introduce students to the thinking and writing of that discipline. Even though students read disciplinary texts and learn course material, until they practice the language of the discipline through writing, they are less likely to learn that language thoroughly. In addition, teachers cite other specific advantages of WD tasks, large and small. Such writing helps students to:

integrate and analyze course content
provide a field-wide context to course material
practice thinking skills relevant to analyses in the discipline
practice professional communication
prepare for a range of careers in the field

WID Annual Workshop Information

The WID Annual Workshop occurs in the summer. Instructors gather for a week to focus on improving their teaching of writing and the use of writing in their courses. This workshop focuses on the Principles of the WID and WAC movement:

that writing is the responsibility of the entire academic community,
that writing must be integrated across departmental boundaries,
that writing must be continuous during all four years of undergraduate education,
that writing promotes learning, and
that only by practicing the conventions of an academic discipline will students begin to communicate effectively within that discipline.

Registration is first-come, first-served. Registration for summer 2026 will open in January. Please note there are limited spaces available.