BROOKLYN COLLEGE WRITING FELLOWS
BASIC FACTS
Writing Fellows work an average of 15 hours per week for 15 weeks each semester,
with about 5 weeks off during winter break. These hours include all meetings (those on
campus with each other or with faculty members and those at CUNY-wide WAC
professional development events). Brooklyn College is assigned six Fellows. The BC
Writing Fellows Program seeks both to serve its Fellows' professional development and
to fulfill requests by various college programs and faculty for their help. Fellows have
found it productive and fun to work on many projects in teams of two or three.
At BC the Writing Fellows and the two coordinators constitute a community of shared
inquiry, mutual support, and collaborative endeavor. The group meets weekly for two
hours to plan activities, report on ongoing work, develop group projects, and share ideas
on each other's projects. We also discuss issues related to the careers of advanced
graduate students, e.g., strategies for the job interview or writing the teaching
philosophy. The two coordinators serve as informal mentors for the Fellows.
OVERVIEW
Brooklyn College Writing Fellows are part of a Writing Across the Curriculum initiative
to encourage the use of writing as a tool for learning in every discipline. A key premise
of WAC is that writing will improve if students have the opportunity to write more
frequently and in accordance with the conventions of particular disciplines. One of the
most important concepts promoted by the WAC Program is that writing is, and should
be, a mode of learning in addition to being a mode of communication. WAC proponents
believe that students who write as a part of the learning process not only become better
writers, but are better able to absorb, analyze, remember, and think creatively about a
particular subject or study.
The primary mission for Writing Fellows at Brooklyn College, as at most senior
colleges, is to help faculty more effectively incorporate discipline-specific writing
practices in their teaching. The aim is to embed WAC institutionally and to help faculty
absorb WAC practices and culture. Fellows have worked with faculty in 29 of the 31
departments. They have been particularly active in working with writing-intensive
majors (currently, Art, Classics, Political Science, Music, English, the School of
Education, and Philosophy). However, Fellows serve the college community in many
capacities, especially in conjunction with other Coordinated Undergraduate Education
(CUE) programs, such as the freshman Learning Communities and the Core.
WORKING WITH FACULTY AND DEPARTMENTS
* Faculty – Writing Fellows assist faculty who want help to better integrate writing
into their courses. This includes: assisting with revising writing assignments, modeling
the peer revision process, working with faculty to develop low stakes writing exercises,
helping faculty devise more efficient protocols for responding to student writing, and
creating specialized workshops to help faculty learn more about using writing
effectively in the classroom. (Priority is given to faculty teaching a writing-intensive or
a Core course for the first time.) Fellows are not permitted to tutor individual students or
to grade student papers.
* Undergraduate departments – As word has spread about the excellent work done
by previous Fellows, deans, chairs, and groups of faculty are requesting help to further
embed writing in their curricula. Fellows meet with the initiating parties and plan how
they might best work with the program. In 2006-07 two Fellows worked extensively in
the School of Education, especially with faculty teaching its gateway course. In 2007-08
two Fellows and the coordinators met with most members of the Speech
Communications Department to develop a coherent strategy for enabling their students
to improve their writing as they progress through the major. In 2008-10 Two Fellows
helped an advertising class create an ad campaign designed to motivate Business
students to care about good writing. In 2010-11 two Fellows are working with the
Children’s Studies program to help faculty integrate writing into the introductory
course.
* Students – Fellows often present 20-30 minute modules on specific aspects of
writing, such as various skills needed to write the research paper. The aim is for the
Fellows to model these presentations in class so as to indirectly "teach" the faculty
members how to present these topics themselves in the future. (We fondly refer to this
practice as "stealth pedagogy.")
PUBLICATIONS
Fellows have written or edited:
The WAC Faculty Handbook, a guide to improving students’ writing and developing
WAC-related curricula.
A series of pamphlets introducing WAC practices to the faculty: "Informal Writing,"
"Responding to Student Writing," "Effective Writing Assignments," "Peer Review," and
"Writing in Stages." Next on the agenda: pamphlets on teaching the research paper and
on using technology to teach writing.
An article entitled "Assessing Assessment: A Self-Critique," written by six Fellows .
A handbook for Writing Fellows called the WAC Survival Guide.
A handbook for English composition faculty.
Resource materials for the Learning Center website regarding writing, peer editing, etc.
Telling Our Stories, an annual publication of student essays written in response to the
common freshman reading. Each fall, one of the Fellows assists the Director of
Freshman English in selecting the essays for publication and oversees the editing and
design of the anthology.
A set of rubrics known as Writing Benchmarks, whose purpose is to provide faculty
and academic departments with a set of guidelines for establishing writing goals and
expectations at different undergraduate course levels and in different academic and
professional fields.
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS
Day-long workshops: The Fellows work in pairs to develop and run four annual all-day
workshops for full-time and part-time faculty. This year’s workshop topics are “Saving
Time, Improving Writing,” “Five Writing Tools Every Teacher Can Use,” “Writing in
the Digital Age,” and “Roadmaps for Writing.”
Three-day faculty development summer seminar: Two Fellows are paid to teach a
three-day faculty seminar during the first week of June that deals with WAC principles
and pedagogy. Incoming Fellows are invited to take the seminar.
Half-day workshops for adjuncts teaching freshman composition.
Drop-in clinic (for faculty) on student writing on Faculty Day.
Ad hoc workshops: These may run from one to four hours. Fellows are invited to tailor
presentations for events such as New Faculty Orientation, a faculty seminar on
Generation 1.5 (a variation of ESL), and group meetings of faculty teaching the same
Core courses.
INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS
Projects can be tailored or created to further Fellows' interests. Our goal is to find
situations in which Fellows' interests, experience, and talents are matched to specific
programs. Some Fellows prefer to develop writing materials for their own fields; other
Fellows have found it particularly fulfilling to work in fields far removed from their
specialties. At the start of each semester the Fellows and the coordinators review shortand long-term requests from individuals, programs, and departments to determine which
projects are viable and how many we can handle; Fellows then divide up the work
among themselves. Fellows can also initiate new projects.
WRITING FELLOWS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
This aspect of the program depends on what the Fellows want to do together or
separately.
Mentoring: During the early part of the fall semester, the coordinators introduce the
new Fellows to WAC theory and practice and to some canonical WAC articles.
Fellows make use of resource materials developed by previous Writing Fellow cohorts
and archived on the WAC website. These include “scripts” and handouts for
conducting workshops and mini-lessons.
Graduate Student Concerns: We also talk about issues of concern to advanced
graduate students, such as job interviews, the dissertation defense, teaching
philosophy statements, and teaching portfolios.
Professional Skills: The coordinators and Fellows share expertise and ideas in
areas such as editing, web design, archiving, teaching with technology,
outcomes assessment, and curriculum development.
Guest Speakers: Guest speakers make presentations at Fellows’ meetings;
these have included:
* Specialists in teaching writing to ESL students.
* A nationally known specialist in Learning Communities (specifically, to
discuss how to structure peer group sessions).
* An expert on Refworks and other software that facilitates citation of sources.
The Brooklyn College Core Coordinator.
The Director of the Learning Center.
A career development specialist from the Magner Center for Career
Development and Internships.
INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Fellows attend meetings with groups of faculty, department chairs, and other
administrators to discuss WAC practices. Fellows help individual faculty members and
departments create and revise writing-intensive courses and majors. When the writingintensive requirement was redesigned, two Fellows attended meetings with the Provost,
the Undergraduate Dean, a WAC coordinator and representatives of certain faculty
governance committees. Fellows continue to meet with writing-intensive departments to
insure coherence in their curriculum.
FACILITIES
The WAC program is located in the Center for Teaching (2420 Boylan) and shares
its conference table and kitchenette. The Fellows have their own dedicated office,
which includes a copy machine and seven computers for their exclusive use.