Threshold Concepts for

Writing Intensive Faculty

This faculty learning community (FLC) will focus on (1) how and why faculty write differently in their disciplines and (2) how to articulate and apply threshold concepts in writing studies and one’s own discipline. Threshold concepts are “established and widely agreed-upon knowledge/ideas/orientations” that have come to be “foundational” for successfully entering a discipline, according to the editors of (Re)Considering What We Know: Learning Thresholds in Writing, Composition, Rhetoric, and Literacy (23). Modeled after the Howe Center for Writing Excellence’s Faculty Writing Fellows Program at Miami University, this FLC will bring together WI faculty from across the university to learn from the expertise about writing in one’s discipline that everyone brings with them to their classroom and scholarship. This FLC will not only facilitate individual learning about effective writing instruction and assignment design practices but also will make visible the knowledgeable, diverse, creative culture(s) of writing at UMKC.

This Faculty Learning Community will convene ten WI faculty to discuss threshold concepts in writing studies and in their individual disciplines. These discussions will address how and why we write differently in our disciplines. Based upon these conversations, faculty will choose to revise an assignment, unit, or the syllabus of their existing WI course with the intention to teach these revised courses/assignments in the next semester or within the next academic year. Faculty will be encouraged to apply for the FLC with colleagues from their department, and preference will be given to groups of 2-3 from the same department or academic unit.