WAC and U of A instructors highlighted in special issue of prompt
A new special issue of Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments puts University of Arizona teaching and scholarship in the spotlight, featuring writing assignments developed by instructors across environmental education, public health, natural sciences, nursing and cybersecurity.
The issue, “Writing To | With the Real World in the Southwest,” was guest edited by Dr. Aimee Mapes, director of Writing Across the Curriculum, and Dr. Emily Jo Schwaller, assistant director of Writing Across the Curriculum. Housed within the University Center for Assessment, Teaching and Technology (UCATT), Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) works with instructors across disciplines to create equitable writing opportunities for the benefit of students.
Published Aug. 17, the special issue represents both a scholarly contribution from Mapes and Schwaller and the result of years of collaboration with U of A instructors through WAC professional development. The five articles feature assignments designed by faculty who have worked with the WAC program. Together, the articles show how writing can help students connect course concepts with their own experiences, disciplinary practices and future professions.
Connecting scholarship, faculty development and teaching
In their guest editors’ introduction, Mapes and Schwaller examine what it means to teach writing at the University of Arizona specifically: a large public research university, a land-grant institution and a Hispanic-Serving Institution located in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.
Their scholarship draws on research in writing studies, culturally sustaining pedagogy, multilingual writing and the Meaningful Writing Project to make a case for writing experiences that connect academic learning with the contexts students encounter beyond a single course. WAC works with instructors to consider how students learn the ways of thinking, communicating and making knowledge that are specific to different fields–therefore, treating writing as fundamental learning process beyond the writing classroom.
“Our program thrives because of the dedicated faculty who partner with us to craft meaningful writing experiences for students,” Mapes explains. “Beyond the classroom, the cross-disciplinary connections faculty form while working toward this shared goal are invaluable. They gain insight into how students develop as writers and see how targeted assignments can support them throughout their academic journey.”
The issue’s co-editors, Kelly Kinney and Rick Fisher of the University of Wyoming, specifically recognize the U of A WAC program for bringing writing studies principles into courses across a broad range of disciplines. They also point to the collection as an example of how faculty can create assignments that connect disciplinary learning with students’ lives and communities.
For Mapes and Schwaller, the publication also makes visible an important part of educational development that can be difficult to capture: what happens after faculty from different fields come together to study teaching, redesign an assignment, try something new with students and then contribute what they learned back to a broader scholarly conversation.
Five approaches to real-world writing
The special issue includes five articles that demonstrate very different ways of using writing to support learning:
- Leona Davis invites environmental studies students to write about family, ancestral and cultural practices that connect people with the natural world.
- Laura Gronewold, with undergraduate collaborators Alyssa Norris and Sylvia Persin, explores reflective writing in public health and how students connect questions of well-being, grief, identity and professional practice.
- Theresa Crimmins and Kathleen Prudic ask students in a natural sciences course to use generative AI to create an infographic about Arizona water use, then fact-check, revise and critically reflect on the AI-generated product.
- Lateefah Collingwood and Aimee Mapes examine a redesigned nursing literature review that combines scholarly research, reflection and infographic design to connect evidence with culturally congruent patient care.
- Ryan Straight uses fictional but realistic cybersecurity artifacts, including internal memos, investigative reports and legal documents, to help students collaboratively navigate the ethical and legal ambiguity of professional cybersecurity work.
Although the assignments look very different, they share an emphasis on giving students a reason to write beyond earning a grade. Students use writing to make sense of complex ideas, communicate with audiences they may encounter in their professions, reflect on their own knowledge and experience, and practice the kinds of decisions writers make outside the classroom.
That approach is central to WAC’s work within UCATT: helping faculty design writing experiences that support learning while making disciplinary expectations more visible and meaningful to students.
A U of A story with a wider reach
The collection also shows how faculty development can extend beyond an individual workshop or course redesign. The assignments featured in Prompt grew from collaborations among instructors, students and WAC specialists across the university, and their publication now makes those approaches available to educators beyond the U of A.
For Mapes and Schwaller, that progression from teaching practice, to collaboration, to scholarship is part of what makes the special issue significant. It documents work happening across U of A classrooms while contributing new examples and perspectives to conversations about writing and teaching in higher education.
“Our hope is this collection inspires instructors to intentionally integrate real-world activities and assignments that honor and uplift students,” Schwaller says. “As an HSI in the Southwest, there are many possibilities to connect to students’ lives just waiting for you to discover.”
Explore the full special issue of Prompt: A Journal of Academic Writing Assignments and learn more about Writing Across the Curriculum at UCATT.
