Written communication in its many forms is a skill students can carry forward in all of their personal and professional interactions. 

Jen Birch, Anthropology

I ask students in my classes to engage in different forms of writing as a way of deepening their advanced, discipline-specific reading skills.

Ingie Hovland, Religion and Women’s Studies

I’m delighted to work with WIP and am already so impressed by the vision and breadth of the program. In particular, I appreciate the collaborative spirit of WIP and look forward to engaging with faculty, TAs, and students and across Franklin College to explore how writing and communication can support learning, especially in STEM fields.

Laura S. McKee, Coordinator of Writing Across the Curriculum

In my WIP courses, I encourage students to develop their own sense of voice in their writing, and I hope they appreciate the valuable support and encouragement they receive from the WIP coaches.

Cecilia Herles, Women’s Studies

 I strongly believe that nurturing effective discipline-specific communication skills in students is just as important as teaching specific content. I especially like to think about this in the context of a formal geometry course, where a key goal is to live and breathe the ideal of “proof” as exemplified by Euclid’s writings from 2500 years ago.

David Gay, Mathematics

Writing is the best way to fix ideas and provide solid propositions. As my Roman ancestors were used to say: verba volant, scripta manent = spoken words fly in the wind, written words remain like solid rocks.

Mattia Pistone, Geology

Writing is an excellent way to learn science and share your ideas with others. Being able to communicate the historical context for your experiments and implications of your results is an essential part of doing science. 

Andrea Sweigart, Genetics

Writing can help students find gaps or obstacles in terms of how they pursue their thinking about the bodies of knowledge in which they are immersed.

Rebecca Gose, Dance

Even when they forget the particular arguments and distinctions in this literature, I want them to retain the skill of writing clearly and persuasively.

Sarah Wright, Philosophy

Writing is absolutely the best way to master conceptual and/or theoretical material. And, the best way to master writing and several discipline specific skills required by art history is by seeing an assignment through at least one, but ideally several drafts.

Isabelle Loring Wallace, Art

Through writing, we make ideas our own and show new connections between ideas.

Vera Lee-Schoenfeld, Linguistics

You have to write as a geologist.

Mike Roden, Geology

Statistics without writing is useless.

Nicole Lazar, Statistics

The Writing Intensive Program is a perfect fit with math education.

Sybilla Beckmann, Math Education

Rather than improve their ability to memorize facts, WIP classes encourage students to wrestle with ideas in “broad, deep, more active ways.”

Naomi Norman, Classics

Susan describes students in a WIP course as apprentices learning the craft of writing as a complement to their performance skills. More importantly, writing helps students to “know what they know.”

Susan Thomas, Music