Benjamin Pearson - Excelsior College
Anna Zendell - Excelsior College
Susannah Rodriguez - Excelsior College

Over the past twenty years, the scholarship of writing instruction has undergone a significant paradigm shift. As scholars rethink writing instruction to address these challenges, they have identified a variety of strategies, which we (borrowing from the language of economics) have placed into two categories: supply and demand.  On the supply side, there are strategies for reforming introductory writing classes to better equip students for the variety of writing challenges they will later encounter. On the demand side, there are strategies for activating students' pre-existing writing knowledge and skills in the disciplinary classes they will take in their major or degree field.

In this presentation, we will briefly discuss the scholarship informing course and curricular changes at our nonprofit online college. We will then examine the ways in which we have adopted best practices from both the supply and demand sides of the writing equation to re-imagine our introductory online writing courses, expand our online writing support services, and develop a new Writing in the Disciplines initiative. We will place special emphasis on the ways in which we have leveraged online teaching and learning technologies to support and implement each of these projects. Finally, we will share resources that can support attendees in implementing WID initiatives at their own institutions.

Conference Strand: eLearning

Target Audience: Post-Secondary