ABSTRACT
In order to make the abstract concept of “writing across the curriculum” more concrete, the Humanities Department of Michigan Tech planned, organized, and conducted a series of off-campus writing workshops to which teachers from all disciplines were invited. These workshops introduced participants to three premises which we believed crucial to developing a truly interdisciplinary writing program. We wanted teachers to understand (1) that the act of composing a piece of writing is a complex intellectual process; (2) that writing is a mode of learning as well as communicating; and (3) that people have trouble writing for a variety of reasons; no quick fixes will “solve” everybody’s writing problem. In the next few pages I’d like to explain these assumptions, as they are the core ideas around which all of our workshop activities are designed.
