UWW | Faculty Member Resources

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What can I expect my students to be able to do after taking Writing 150?
- Learn new genres and learn to write for new audiences: Students who take WRTG 150 will have experience writing in a variety of genres for specific audiences and purposes. They will be prepared to learn new genres. They will understand that people use different genres for different purposes, and they will have tools for recognizing and learning new genres. They will know how to think about their audience and have some strategies for appealing to that audience.
- Read and analyze texts: Writing 150 students will be able to read and analyze texts to understand what the text is doing or saying and how the text is doing or saying what it does. They will be able to identify and evaluate the claims a text makes and the ways it supports its claims, including evaluating the quality and trustworthiness of that evidence.
- Practice writing effective texts using a disciplined process: Writing 150 students will be developing skill in writing unified texts that have effective introductions, a clear thesis, and a cohesive organizational structure. They will understand that successful writers have a flexible and effective process for producing texts. They will have experience using a process that includes prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing.
- Experiment with style to appeal to an audience: Writing 150 students will understand that style matters, and they will be able to experiment with style—diction, tone, grammar, organization, and design—as they strive for correct and rhetorically effective writing.
- Practice information literacy: Writing 150 students will be familiar with library resources and will understand concepts of information literacy. They will know that research is a process of inquiry that depends on asking new and increasingly complex questions and that the answers to those questions open additional questions. They will know that scholarship is a conversation among researchers, professionals, and experts who have varied perspectives on and interpretations of an issue.
- Reflect on their writing choices and development: Writing 150 students will understand what reflection means and will have experience reflecting on their writing choices, their writing process, and their identity as writers.
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What should I not expect my students to be able to do after taking Writing 150?
- Write in disciplinary genres without instruction and models: In Writing 150, students learn that groups or communities construct genres to get things done. The conventions of any genre are linked to its purpose—what it is supposed to accomplish. Writing 150 teaches students that to learn a new genre, they should look at several examples of that genre (models) to discover its form and conventions AND to understand its purpose, or what the genre allows people to do. You can help your students learn the genres of your discipline by providing many models and asking students to look for formal patterns and evidence of what the genre accomplishes for members of your disciplinary or professional community.
- Understand disciplinary epistemology and research methods: Writing 150 introduces students to general concepts of information literacy, including general strategies for finding and evaluating information. They will need support as they learn how the methods for finding, evaluating, and using information in your field.
- Produce error-free texts: While Writing 150 instructors care about mechanics, we are more concerned about the global issues discussed above. Do students know how to make and support a claim? Do students know where they can go to find information to answer their research questions? Do they know how to evaluate the information they find? Do students understand the audience they are writing for? Do they know how to appeal to that audience? Can they mindfully consider the choices they make as writers? Because we prioritize these larger (and we think more important) issues, students may leave Writing 150 without knowing all the rules for comma use or the technicalities of a particular citation style.
- Write without support and feedback: Writing is a developmental and social activity, which means that no one can write independently. Students need help from others to understand their audience, purpose, and the effect of their composing choices. Students need formative feedback throughout the writing process to help them reach the goals of the assignment.
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How can University Writing help me in my teaching?
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is a University Writing program designed to help BYU faculty learn how to teach communication skills (writing, specifically) more effectively. Do you want your students to be critical thinkers, persuasive writers, and polished speakers? Do you want them to learn how to make knowledge through writing in your discipline? Do you wonder, as you look over a pile of writing assignments, how teaching writing could be more efficient, effective, rewarding? Then join us for the next WAC event!

What events?
- LUNCHES: Each Fall and Winter semester, we hold 1-2 lunch workshops on writing-related issues like grading, AI writing, clarity, information literacy, designing effective assignments, and dozens of other possible topics.
- SPRING WORKSHOPS: In May, faculty can attend a few of our hour-long spring workshops and get $50 in research money or supplemental income for completing small homework prompts that will equip you with new teaching skills (Example: Design a detailed peer review class activity to correspond with one of your writing assignments)
- SUMMER SEMINAR (for full-time faculty only): Each year we invite around 20 faculty to attend our intensive week-long Writing Matters Summer Seminar. (Testimonials are below.) Participants receive amazing free lunches, $1000 in research money, a curriculum plan for a major writing project for students, and a greater sense of the importance of communication in and across disciplines. In 2023, we spent a big chunk of our conversation about ChatGPT and other generative AI programs and how they will change the teaching of writing.
- SUMMER READING GROUP: From time to time, we purchase a few dozen books related to writing education and we read them together over the summer.
- CONSULTATIONS: The WAC coordinator can meet with individual faculty, programs, or departments and help them develop speaking and writing enhancement plans that boost student communication outcomes.
That Writing Matters seminar sounds fantastic. What do faculty have to say about their experience in it?
- "I wish this was part of the new faculty series, so that every professor entering Brigham Young University was exposed to this goodness."
- "[The Writing Matters seminar] challenged us to change the way we think, read, and write and the effects are only beginning to blossom."
- "The instruction was excellent, and the ideas stimulated great group discussions.
- "I loved hearing so many different approaches to writing in other courses. Attending the course gave me time to ponder my own writing assignments and develop 20+ ideas on how to improve this coming semester."
- "The whole program was incredible. I can't credit one thing, but [the instructors] were very well prepared, the whole group interacted extensively, the topics were very engaging, and the content relevant."
How do I get involved?

Send an email from your BYU email address to univ-writing@byu.edu and we'll add you to our email list. You'll receive no more than 5 emails per year.
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How can University Writing help the TAs who respond to my students’ writing?
The Research and Writing Center offers an online training course and resources for TAs who will coach, respond to, and evaluate student writing. In this 2-3 hour module, TAs learn how to
- Respond to student writing efficiently and effectively
- Grade transparently
- Define, analyze, discuss, and norm a grading rubric, and
- Manage their time well
TAs taking the training are also asked to complete and submit two assignments: the first is a reflection on best practices for offering formative and summative feedback; the second takes TAs through a grade-norming exercise.

If you would like your TAs to take the training, please fill out this form. If you have questions, please contact Zach Largey here.

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First-Year Students

Advanced Writing Students

Faculty Members

What events?

That Writing Matters seminar sounds fantastic. What do faculty have to say about their experience in it?

How do I get involved?

Writing Across the Curriculum Lunch, October 4

Writing Across the Curriculum Lunch, November 9

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