The first is that we learn by doing, particularly by doing what we're trying to learn in the appropriate context. Students in astronomy learn astronomy best by doing astronomy. You don't learn to swim by watching tapes of Greg Louganis. To learn to write, students have to write, and write often. To learn to write as a philosopher or an agronomist writes, students have to write with guidance from a philosopher or an agronomist.

The other reason for the shift is that students will learn better what they learn through writing. Psychologists have shown that we learn best that which we do in many modes. Students in lecture-based classes learn by reading, by listening, and by memorizing. When we add writing, we increase the likelihood that they will learn better. And in virtually every field, writing is one of the ways of "doing" the specialist's work. So writing is a way of learning by doing.

University of MO-Columbia Writing Lab
UM-Columbia Writing Program
UM-Columbia Writing Resouces
UM-Columbia Writing Intensive Assignments and Workshops including 5 minute workshops, guide for new faculty, Grad Instructors, and TAs, and MU Sample Assignments
UM-Columbia WAC Links

UM-Columbia Online Writery

Teaching at MO-Columbia: A Guide for New Faculty, Graduate Instructors and Teaching Assistants

Teaching at MO-Columbia Guidebook Chapters

Campus Writing Program
University of Missouri –Columbia

Topics of Interest for Teachers of Writing Intensive Courses

Evaluation, Assessment, Grading, Norming

Missouri-Columbia Guide for Graduate Instructors, Teaching Assistants and New Faculty

University of Georgia Writing Intensive Programs

Hawaii
Oregon State
Rutgers
Vanderbilt
Villanova
U-Wisconsin-Madison
Temple
Colorado State--List of WAC Programs

Missouri State Writing Center—including handouts and off-campus links
MO State Writing Resources
Northwestern Writing Center —The Writing Place
Northwestern Writing Center Links
Harvard
Yale
Princeton Writing Center
Berkeley

The Penn State Writing Center Handbook

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab

Many educational institutions maintain a writing center that provides students with free assistance on their papers, projects, and reports from trained professionals, consultants, or peer tutors. A key goal of any writing center is helping writers to learn. Typical services include help with purpose, structure, and organization of writing and are geared toward writers of all levels and fields of study. In general, writing centers also offer assistance with grammar and syntax and citation of sources for research papers using one of various recognized formats, such as MLA or APA. Nevertheless, writing centers coach students rather than doing their work for them even in dealing with apparently mechanical aspects of writing.

A writing center usually offers individualized conferencing whereby the writing tutor offers his or her feedback on the piece of writing at hand; a writing tutor's main function is to discuss how the piece of writing might be revised. However, the tutor usually does not proofread nor edit the student's work. Instead, the tutor facilitates the student's attempts to revise his or her own work by conversing with the student about the topic at hand, discussing principles and processes of writing, modeling rhetorical and syntactical moves for the student to apply, and assisting the student in identifying patterns of grammatical error in their writing.

Simply put, writing-intensive courses integrate writing into the work of the course. They provide a variety of formal and informal occasions for students to write. In formal writing, students might learn the formats characteristic of a particular academic field, such as a research report, a critical essay, or a laboratory report. In informal writing, students use writing that may include logs, journals, or short in-class responses to readings and lectures in order to learn course material.

Through both formal and informal writing, students come to understand something of the goals, assumptions, and key concepts operating in their discipline.