Reinventing WAC (Again): The First-Year Seminar and Academic Literacy

I n "The Future of WAC," Barbara Walvoord argues persuasively that the WAC movement "cannot survive as Switzerland" (69): that is, in order to maintain its forward momentum and avoid schism, isolation, or atrophy, WAC must align itself with other educational movements that have national stature and staying power. She mentions a number of movements with which WAC has natural affinities: critical thinking, ethical thinking, assessment, and educational reform in general. Susan McLeod, Eric Miraglia, Margot Soven and Christopher Thaiss's recent edited collection WACfor the New Millennium, adds further weight to this argument with essays that detail WAC's relationship to related movements such as service-learning, learning communities, electronic communication, and writing-intensive courses.