About CWAC

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CWAC pedagogy is founded upon collaboration, readerly dialogue, and service-learning.

 

We use post-outlining as our primary revision strategy, with the aim to provide writers with tools to carry with them through college and beyond.

Who are we?

At the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum (CWAC), we offer guidance and resources to enhance writing eloquence throughout Saint Mary's College of California. 

Pursuing the construction and expression of knowledge through shared inquiry, we are guided by the Burkean Parlor model of collaborative dialogue.

Inspired by the Lasallian tradition of service through education, we nurture writers in a safe and productive space.

We advise peer students through 1-1 sessions, Writing Circles, and collaborative workshops for diverse disciplines.

We award and publish excellent student writing and art. 

We offer faculty development workshops to guide the sharing of ideas among peers who are teaching Writing in the Disciplines or Collegiate Seminar courses. 

By supporting faculty and students, we help all writers enter more fully into scholarly dialogue, sharpening their skills, building their confidence, and connecting writing strategies across contexts.

We're not all English majors; in fact, we study diverse disciplines, from business to environmental science to integral and beyond. Read about us and get to know who we are:

Ingrid Alkire - Lead Writing Adviser

  • Class: 2024
  • Major: English

Frances Allen - Writing Adviser

  • Class: 2025
  • Major: Integral

Olivia Bianic - Writing Adviser 

  • Class: 2024
  • Major: Art Practice 

Angelica Erskine - Writing Adviser

  • Class: 2025
  • Program: MFA Poetry

    Molly Floberg - Writing Adviser

    • Class: 2026
    • Major: English & Creative Writing

      Grace Greer - Writing Adviser

      • Class: 2025
      • Major: Business Administration

      John Krupp - Writing Adviser

      • Class: 2025
      • Program: MFA Fiction

          Mary Kyne - Lead Writing Adviser

          • Class: 2024
          • Major: English & Computer Science

          Lillian La Salle - Writing Adviser

          • Class: 2026
          • Major: Justice, Community, and Leadership & Theology and Religious Studies

          Chloe Ourada - Writing Adviser

          • Class: 2024
          • Major: English

          Desiree Sturrock - Writing Adviser

          • Class: 2025
          • Major: Environmental Studies & Music

            Jenna Thibodaeu - Writing Adviser

            • Class: 2024
            • Major: English

            Facilitators come from a variety of backgrounds, but they have a lot in common. They're all continuously training and developing their skills as facilitators, and they love talking to students about writing. Sign up for a Circle and get to know them:
             

            • Joe Zeccardi, Adjunct Professor, CWAC Director
            • Chase Manning, Adjunct Professor
            • Jennifer Burnside, Adjunct Professor
            • Florencia Orlandoni, Adjunct Professor
            • Tauahere Muck, CWAC Fellow, PSM Biotechnology 

            In CWAC, we never tell anyone what to write, and we never correct papers. We do teach mini-lessons, guiding writers to learn how to analyze their work and how to apply particular strategies.

            Different disciplines place unique demands on writing. As Michael Pemberton argues, Writing In the Disciplines (WID) sessions should be characterized by “parity, a balance of power”: not an absence of power but rather a harmonious balance of students’ authority over disciplinary knowledge and advisers’ authority about writing. This allows writers to enter sessions as the “experts” of their texts and also prevents them from passively taking in the suggestions of the advisers.

            Readerly, collaborative response is a particularly good fit for Saint Mary’s because students are accustomed to seminar-style dialogue. Writers tend to walk in to CWAC ready to discuss. They tend to walk away with more clarity about their own ideas, more strategies for improving their writing, and more confidence in themselves as contributors to the scholarly dialogue.

            More about CWAC

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            Students writing

            Civic Engagement

            We help others while learning about their disciplines, we grow as writers alongside our peers, and we continually reflect on issues impacting our Saint Mary’s community.

            Readerly Dialogue

            Advisers ask open-ended questions, responding as readers, in order to guide writers to deeply explore what they are learning and what they are trying to communicate. 

            Collaboration

            Everyone brings knowledge to the table – the writer brings disciplinary expertise, and the adviser brings writing strategies. Advisers guide writers to read aloud and post-outline their drafts – to highlight main ideas or specific features, in order to compare what’s on the page with what the writer is trying to accomplish. Advisers also guide writers to diagnose and revise for grammar and style.