Writing Across the Curriculum has from its origins been predicated on the value of supporting disciplinary and professional differences in writing practices and genres. In recent decades WAC has expanded to focus on the multimodal character of those practices and genres. Two more recent movements are now shaping WAC: a growing focus on different dimensions of language diversity in academic communication and on neurodiversity. Uniting these four areas is research across the fields of writing studies, linguistics, disability studies, and education that has demonstrated the benefits of recognizing, building on, and supporting students’ diverse communication practices.
In this workshop, we will briefly consider the attitudes and practices that have conceptualized diversity as a problem to be overcome and then explore the opportunities these four dimensions of communicative diversity offer in pedagogical contexts in the disciplines. We will identify key ways instructors can support and harness the complexity of students’ communicative practices and suggest a range of practical stances and tools for supporting students’ rich composing and languaging practices.