An exceptionally thoughtful investigation of writing in the academic disciplines—one of the best I have ever read. A smart and elegant book.
—Mike Rose, author of Lives on the Boundary

Chris Thaiss and Terry Myers Zawacki sought answers to these important questions in their landmark, four-year, crossdisciplinary study of faculty and students from a wide range of majors. Their results will change your approach to teaching writing.

Thoroughly researched and incisively written, Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines shows faculty and student writers taking risks with form and ideas as they weigh the demands of writing in the academy with their own passions for learning and self-expression. Thaiss and Zawacki demonstrate that academic disciplines are dynamic spaces that accommodate a variety of alternative styles and visions, even as they respect careful, systematic research.

Engaged Writers and Dynamic Disciplines illuminates disciplinary assumptions, expectations, and writing practices. Its insights and conclusions will inform everyone who teaches writing or administers a WAC program.

1.What’s Academic? What’s "Alternative"?
What Is Academic Writing? What Are Its Standards?
What Constitutes an Alternative to Academic Writing?
Disciplines, Genres, and Research on Alternative Discourses and the Academy
Our Methods and Materials

2. Faculty Talk About Their Writing, Disciplines, and Alternative
Disciplinary Standards vs. Academic Standards
The Analytic Academy: Tension Between Reason, Emotion, and the Body
Allowed Alternatives.
Working Outside Disciplinary Boundaries

3. How Our Informants Teach Students to Write.
"How to Think Like a Scientist": Teaching the Tools of the Discipline
"Good Writing Is Good Writing": Perceiving the Universal in the Disciplinary
Neither This nor That: Alternative Exigencies, Alternative Forms
New Media, Hypermedia, Multimedia
Faculty Expectations as Seen in Department Assessment Rubrics
Conclusion: The Standards vs. the Alternative

4. Students Talk About Expectations, Confidence, and How They Learn
Our Sources of Data
Student Expectations for Writing in Their Disciplines. Passion and the Discipline
How Students Learn to Write in Their Disciplines
How Student Perceptions Relate to the "Taxonomy of Alternatives"

5. Implications for Teaching and Program Building
Conclusions
Practices for Teachers
Practices for Faculty and Program Development
Directions for Future Research