The Bronx Community College writing fellows are upper-level doctoral students from the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. They are working in several departments on campus to help realize the College’s plan for integrating writing throughout the disciplines. Each of the six writing fellows is assigned to a specific division or department where they work with both students and faculty. The fellows meet weekly with the WAC coordinator, Dr. Lynne Ticke, and regularly with faculty members from the various departments to discuss writing strategies.

Role of the Writing Fellows at Bronx Community College

Bronx Community College has six writing fellows on campus to help implement the WAC program. The following is a brief summary of the duties and responsibilities of the fellows at BCC. Writing fellows are on campus for a minimum of three days per week for approximately 15 hours. They meet with faculty and students, and are engaged in other WAC-related activities. They are available to meet with instructors of writing intensive (WI) courses as well as any faculty members interested in incorporating more writing activities into their courses. To this end, fellows work with faculty to:

• create new critical thinking and problem-solving tasks that engage the course content,
• devise formal writing assignments,
• devise short low-stakes writing assignments,
• create questions that focus student readings on the course textbook,
• create or refine group work assignments,
• design essay exams, and
• lead workshops in class on topics such as note-taking, summarizing, paraphrasing, or documenting research to avoid plagiarism, etc.

A writing fellow should not be confused with a teaching assistant. A writing fellow may not, for example, grade student essays. However, a fellow may assist a student with revising a paper after the instructor has written comments on it. Additionally, fellows work one-on-one with students to assist them with their writing assignments. In cases where students require extensive work on their writing, the fellow will refer the student to the Writing Center for supplementary support.

Writing Fellows 2011-2012