Using Writing Across the Curriculum in Economics: Is Taking the Plunge Worth It?

The article refers to the American Economic Association-commissioned report "The Status and Prospects of the Economics Major," which states that in order to reach the central pedagogical goal of helping students learn to "think like economists," the instructors could integrate the writing across the curriculum approach into the teaching of economics. Traditionally, the writing process has been taught as a series of discrete linear steps: analyze the assignment, research the available information, create a central controlling argument, make an outline of the points to be included, write a draft, and then edit. Students usually presume that as each step is completed, the writer moves on to the next without ever returning to previous ones. In adhering strictly to a linear writing approach, students revise only by editing at the sentence and word level. This limited conception of revision not only produces weak papers, but more important, fails to take advantage of writing as an act of idea generation.