Literacy Partners Project

Stacy Wilson and Dr. Alex Arreguin, both of whom are English faculty at Mesa Community College in Arizona, created the Literacy Partners Project out of a sense of curiosity for what their English 101 and 102 students were learning in other courses. Specifically, if their students were able to use the concepts they were teaching to complete coursework in history, science, math, and other courses. As they met with instructors from other disciplines they adapted a concept that Dr. Elizabeth Wardle from Miami University of Ohio had implemented.

By developing a series of writing across disciplines frameworks that included utilizing threshold concepts, knowledge transfer, and decoding the disciplines, they were able to not only develop student success initiatives, but also apply these frameworks to program and college departments. On the faculty development side, they used the decoding the disciplines approach to bring together colleagues from different disciplines and departments to work together to help solve the challenges each faced by offering new perspectives.