Source: Michael Carter, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 58, No. 3, pp. 385–418
Tags: writing in the disciplines, WID, WAC, disciplinary writing, ways of knowing, ways of doing, genre theory, metagenre, metadiscipline, North American genre theory, Carolyn Miller, Charles Bazerman, David Russell, activity theory, rhetoric, composition studies
Carter argues that writing in academic disciplines is best understood not as a general skill bolted on from outside, but as something inseparable from the ways each discipline does and knows. He introduces the concepts of "metagenres" (broad patterns of doing shared across disciplines) and "metadisciplines" (clusters of disciplines grouped by those shared patterns), then uses outcomes-assessment data from his own university to illustrate how the framework works in practice.
Writing in the Disciplines (WID)
The field of study and practice focused on how writing functions within specific academic disciplines, as opposed to writing taught in general composition courses. WID treats writing as integral to disciplinary knowledge-making.
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC)
The broader institutional movement to incorporate writing instruction throughout university programmes, not only in English or composition departments. WAC tends to treat writing as a transferable general skill.
Transparency of writing
David Russell's term for the phenomenon whereby faculty learn to write in their disciplines through slow acculturation rather than direct instruction. Because the process is invisible, professors often fail to recognise that disciplinary writing is specialised, and default to treating writing as a generic skill.
Declarative knowledge (conceptual knowledge)
"Knowing that" – the factual, content-based knowledge a discipline treats as its subject matter. Traditionally the focus of disciplinary instruction.
Procedural knowledge (process knowledge)
"Knowing how" – the methods, practices, and ways of reasoning that characterise work within a discipline. Carter's framework foregrounds this as the bridge between knowing and writing.
Ways of doing
The characteristic activities and practices through which a discipline generates, validates, and applies knowledge. Carter's central claim is that these ways of doing link writing to knowing.
Doing (as a metadoing)
At the most abstract level, writing itself can be understood as a "metadoing" – a particular kind of doing that gives shape to the ways of knowing and doing in a discipline.
Genre (Carolyn R. Miller's definition)
A typified response to a recurrent rhetorical situation. Miller treats genre as social action, not merely a formal text category, linking individual linguistic acts to larger social formations.
Genre set / system of genres
A collection of interrelated genres that together constitute specific networks of social action within a discipline or institution. Bazerman's concept emphasises the sequential, interconnected nature of genres.
Metagenre
Carter's term for a broad category of ways of doing that cuts across multiple disciplines. A metagenre groups together genres from different fields that respond to a similar kind of learning situation (e.g. problem solving, empirical inquiry).
Metadiscipline
A higher-order grouping of disciplines that share an emphasis on the same metagenre. Metadisciplines highlight commonalities in ways of knowing, doing, and writing among disciplines that might otherwise seem unrelated.
Outcomes-based assessment
The process of describing and measuring the skills, knowledge, and attributes students are expected to demonstrate by graduation. Carter's university used this process to surface disciplinary ways of doing and their associated writing genres.
Faculty across universities commonly see writing as a general skill that belongs outside their disciplines. This follows from a historical model in which English departments own "writing" and subject departments own "content."
Russell argues this stems from the "transparency" of writing: professors absorbed disciplinary writing conventions through apprenticeship, not explicit instruction, so the conventions seem natural and universal rather than discipline-specific.
Consequence: faculty resist the idea of becoming "writing teachers," viewing it as an unacceptable sacrifice of course content.
The roots of this division lie in the late-nineteenth-century shift from the older U.S. college system (generalist, unified curriculum) to the German-influenced research university model (Wissenschaft), with its emphasis on specialised knowledge domains, learned societies, and scholarly journals. Rhetoric was simultaneously demoted to a required freshman course for "entering students."
Carter draws a distinction between disciplines understood as repositories of static content knowledge and disciplines understood as active ways of knowing.
The repository model treats learning as acquiring conceptual (declarative) knowledge – facts, theories, taxonomies.
The WID model foregrounds procedural knowledge – the methods and reasoning patterns that define doing in a discipline.
When the repository model dominates, writing is reduced to a delivery mechanism for content and is therefore seen as external.
Carter's core move is to place "doing" at the centre of the relationship between knowing and writing.
Disciplines are better described as ways of knowing and doing.
Writing is a particular kind of doing that instantiates disciplinary knowledge.
From this perspective, writing becomes a "metadoing" – it gives concrete shape to the more abstract patterns of knowing and doing.
The challenge, then, is to find terms for describing ways of doing that faculty and students in the disciplines will find convincing and recognisable.
Carter situates his framework within North American genre theory, drawing on three scholars:
Carolyn R. Miller – defines genre as a "typified response to a recurrent rhetorical situation" and as "social action." Genre links microlevel linguistic acts to macrolevel social formations and cultural processes.
Charles Bazerman – develops the concept of "systems of genres," interconnected webs where each participant's recognisable act triggers appropriate generic responses from others. Genre systems constitute specific networks of social action.
David Russell – draws on activity theory to situate genre within activity systems (families, religious groups, disciplines, schools). Written genres operationalise recurring, shared activities; they are instruments that both stabilise and enable change in those systems.
Three common threads across these theorists:
Genre is social action – individual linguistic acts constitute social formations.
Genre sets are collections of related genres.
Related genres play a role in constituting complex social formations (the basis for metagenres and metadisciplines).
At Carter's university (NC State), an eight-year outcomes-based assessment initiative required every programme to articulate what graduates should be able to do. Faculty were asked to describe disciplinary outcomes first, then identify which data (often student writing) would demonstrate achievement.
The process worked in stages:
Brainstorming core programme values
Drafting and revising disciplinary outcomes based on those values
Getting full faculty approval of outcomes
Brainstorming assessment tools for outcomes
Drafting and revising the assessment procedure
Getting full faculty approval of the assessment procedure
The Campus Writing and Speaking Program played a central role, working with departmental committees to frame outcomes in terms of ways of doing and to link those explicitly to genres of writing.
A key insight: when faculty were asked what they expected graduates to do, the resulting outcomes pointed directly to disciplinary writing. Doing enacts knowing, and writing gives that knowing its concrete shape.
⚠️ Carter's central argument is that "doing" is the conceptual bridge between knowing and writing in the disciplines. This three-part relationship (knowing–doing–writing) is the spine of the entire article.
⚠️ The distinction between declarative/conceptual knowledge and procedural/process knowledge underpins the whole framework. Be able to explain why foregrounding procedural knowledge changes how we think about writing instruction.
⚠️ Know the three genre theorists (Miller, Bazerman, Russell) and what each contributes: Miller = genre as social action; Bazerman = systems of genres; Russell = genre within activity theory.
⚠️ The assessment process is not just an administrative detail. Carter uses it as his primary evidence that faculty themselves, when prompted, will articulate disciplinary ways of doing that connect to writing.
Q: What does Carter mean by the "transparency" of writing, and why does it matter for WID?
A: Transparency refers to the fact that professors learn disciplinary writing through slow acculturation rather than explicit instruction. Because the process is invisible to them, they tend to assume writing is a generic skill rather than something specific to their discipline, which reinforces the divide between writing instruction and disciplinary teaching.
Q: How does Carter distinguish between disciplines as "repositories" and disciplines as "active ways of knowing"?
A: The repository model treats disciplines as stores of declarative/conceptual knowledge (facts, theories). The active model treats disciplines as characterised by procedural knowledge, the methods and reasoning practices through which knowledge is generated. Carter argues the second model is essential for understanding why writing belongs inside, not outside, the disciplines.
Q: Why does Carter draw on genre theory rather than, say, rhetoric or linguistics to frame his argument?
A: Genre theory (particularly Miller's, Bazerman's, and Russell's versions) establishes a direct connection between writing and doing. It treats genres as social actions – typified responses to recurrent situations – which maps neatly onto the idea that disciplinary ways of doing are instantiated in particular kinds of writing.
Q: What role did outcomes-based assessment play in Carter's argument?
A: The assessment process required faculty to articulate what graduates should be able to do, which surfaced disciplinary ways of doing and the genres of writing associated with them. It provided the empirical evidence that faculty, when prompted, will connect writing to disciplinary practice rather than treating it as external.
WID, WAC, writing across the curriculum, writing in the disciplines, disciplinary writing, genre theory, North American genre theory, rhetorical genre studies, Carolyn Miller, Charles Bazerman, David Russell, activity theory, social action, genre as social action, genre set, genre system, system of genres, metagenre, metadiscipline, declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, conceptual knowledge, process knowledge, ways of knowing, ways of doing, outcomes-based assessment, programme outcomes, composition studies, rhetoric, disciplinary knowledge, transparency of writing, NC State, acculturation