CUNY Academic Commons

August 2015 WAC Fellows Professional Development Schedule

WRITING FELLOWS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM August 25 Hostos Community College Cafeteria Time Session Topic and Leader(s) 8:45-9:15 Registration, coffee, and pastry 9:15 Welcome Lucinda Zoe, University Dean for Undergraduate Studies 9:30-11:00 Writing to Learn & WAC Principles Jonathan Hall, York College Topics to be covered: A brief history of WAC, defining WAC/WID, WAC at CUNY, informal writing, and the writing process. Through the discussion of readings, Fellows will come to understand basic WAC Principles, such as “low-stakes writing,” its applications, and the meaning of “writing to learn.” Readings: McLeod and Miralgia "Writing Across the Curriculum in a Time of Change" Young, "Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum" Monroe, "Writing and the Disciplines" Questions for Writing in the Disciplines 11:00-11:15 Break 11:15-12:45 Reading Across the Curriculum Rifat Salam, Borough of Manhattan Community College Topics to be covered: reading challenges, using writing strategies to improve student reading skills Fellows will discuss connections between reading and writing and practice strategies for teaching “difficult” reading assignments. Readings: 12:45-1:45 Lunch Video: “What Does It Mean to Be a Writing Fellow?” (Aneta Kostrzewa, York, 2012) Discussion 1:45-3:15 Developing and Scaffolding Assignments Craig Levinsky, City College of New York Dennis Paoli, Hunter College Topics to be covered: Elements to consider when developing an assignment, what makes a prompt “achievable,” how to design an effective, scaffolded an assignment Part I: Developing Assignments : The first half of the session will focus on using common WAC principles to develop assignments. Fellows will analyze and create effective, formal writing assignments across the disciplines. Part II: Scaffolding: Working with the assignments crafted in Part I, Fellows will develop assignment “scaffolds,” creating smaller, low-stakes writing activities designed to progressively build toward the completion of formal, written work. 3:15-3:30 Break 3:30-5:00 Responding to Student Writing Rebecca Devers, City Tech Topics to be covered: Identifying “good writing,” higher-order and lower-order concerns in student writing, and commenting to promote revision Fellows will develop an understanding of WAC perspectives on the writing process and gain knowledge of commenting strategies aimed at promoting revision. Readings: