WOLF: Written and Oral Literacy Facilitation

Is your department interested in creating, implementing, and assessing writing and speaking in your curriculum? 

Do your faculty want to explore the GEP Communication in the Major goal and how it impacts your students?

Starting in the Fall each year, NC State’s Campus Writing and Speaking Program engages undergraduate units in the process of creating, implementing, and assessing Writing and Speaking Curriculum Plans (WSCP) through the WOLF (Written and Oral Literacy Facilitation) certificate program. In forming cohorts of incoming units, we consider multiple dimensions including size of undergraduate majors, collegiate affiliation, availability of a faculty member who can serve as Liaison, and genres of writing and speaking assigned. Also, because the program invests significantly in new units, we also look at the baseline level of faculty buy-in to the program and process. 

In this WSEC (Writing and Speaking Enriched Curriculum) certificate program departments work with CWSP Directors to develop an undergraduate Writing and Speaking Curriculum Plan (WSCP). Capped at 5 departments per year, this program engages participating departments in a comprehensive curriculum and assessment plan to build student success in writing and speaking. Department participants meet with the Directors and department committees once a month for an academic year. Participating department faculty (CWSP Liaisons) will receive a mini-grant of $1000 at the conclusion of the program based on course and assessment plan deliverables, and a poster session at the annual OFE conference.

This work supports the NC State GEP Communication in the Majors learning outcome. At NC State we understand writing and speaking as “fundamental to all disciplinary and scholarly work, [and] serving as powerful ways of learning and evaluating learning in the disciplines” (GEP Requirements).

An enrolled department remains active for a period of 7–10 years, during which its faculty creates, implements, and assesses three editions of an Writing and Speaking Curriculum Plan. In each unit, interested faculty are appointed as CWSP Liaison. Liaisons serve as on-site coordinators of WSCP activity (drafting, revision, implementation, and assessment) and work in partnership with CWSP. Embedded in this work is NC State GEP Communication in the Majors. At NC State we understand writing and speaking as “fundamental to all disciplinary and scholarly work, [and] serving as powerful ways of learning and evaluating learning in the disciplines” (GEP Requirements).

The objectives of this GEP category are:

• Learn more deeply and effectively through the use of writing and speaking activities, and
• Master the kinds of writing and speaking that are appropriate to their academic or professional majors, and
• Use information technologies and search strategies appropriate to their academic or professional majors to identify and access information and then to evaluate, synthesize, and incorporate that information effectively in their writing and speaking.

The WSEC model offers a faculty-driven approach to supporting effective and relevant written and oral communication, and writing and speaking instruction within an undergraduate curriculum. The model is founded on the following principles, gleaned from three decades of research and experience:

• Written and oral communication can be flexibly defined as an articulation of thinking, an act of choosing among an array of modes or forms, only some of which involve words.
• Written and oral communication ability is continually developed rather than mastered.
• Because writing and speaking are instrumental to learning, it follows that writing and speaking instruction is the shared responsibility of content experts in all academic disciplines.
• The incorporation of writing and speaking into content instruction can be most meaningfully achieved when those who teach are provided multiple opportunities to articulate, interrogate, and communicate their assumptions and expectations.
• Those who infuse writing and speaking instruction into their teaching require support.

The primary goal of the WOLF certificate is to create, implement, and build an assessment model for each participating department or unit WSCP.

CWSP appreciates your interest in supporting writing and speaking on campus. Please contact the Directors, Dr. Kirsti Cole and Dr. Roy Schwartzman, with any questions.