The University of Minnesota’s Writing-Enriched Curriculum (WEC) Project, launched in 2007 with generous support from the Bush Foundation, pilots a process for meaningfully infusing writing and writing instruction into all undergraduate curricula. During the four-year pilot period (2007-2011), the project will engage 22 academic units in developing and implementing customized Undergraduate Writing Plans. At the completion of the pilot period, a plan for expanding the process to remaining academic units will be determined. In this way, the project works toward the University’s ultimate goal of making all undergraduate degrees “writing-enriched.”

The WEC project is founded on the following principles, gleaned from three decades of research and experience:

1. Writing can be flexibly defined as an articulation of thinking, an act of choosing among an array of modes or forms, only some of which involve words.
   
2. Writing ability is continually developed rather than mastered.
3. Because writing is instrumental to learning, it follows that writing instruction is the shared responsibility of content experts in all academic disciplines.
   
4. The incorporation of writing into content instruction can be most meaningfully achieved when those who teach are provided multiple opportunities to articulate, interrogate, and communicate their assumptions and expectations.
   
5. Those who infuse writing instruction into their teaching require support.

“What’s happening with writing at the University of Minnesota is as exciting as anything that’s happening in the country."