ABSTRACT

This chapter reports on instructor and student perceptions of the academic writing support available to second-language (L2) students at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UHM). In the course of their educational experience, all undergraduate students at UHM are required to take a freshman writing course followed by five academic courses that are designated as writing intensive (WI). Two WI courses must be at the upper division level, although not necessarily in the student’s major. This curricular requirement gives students experience writing both within particular disciplines and across the academic curriculum. The WI courses are not writing courses that are offered within a particular disciplinary area (such as technical writing for science majors), but regular academic content courses designated as WI because they require several pieces and kinds of student writing within the context of the course. The WI courses at UHM have a maximum of 20 students in each course to allow individualized attention to the students’ writing. Because of this exposure to intensive writing in a variety of disciplinary contexts, students at UHM have had the opportunity to develop as writers in the process of earning their undergraduate degree (Hilgers, Bayer, Stitt-Bergh, & Taniguchi, 1995).