Program Overview

What do Writing Fellows do?

Writing fellows work with the course instructor and the students in the course in order to enhance the writing instruction and support that goes on during the semester. Fellows will: 

• meet with students individually or in small groups to help them during their idea generating, drafting, and revision processes; 

• provide support for developing aspects like organization, clarity, argument, analysis/synthesis and style; 

• attend an agreed number of class sessions, so they will know what students are learning day-to-day; 

• support class discussion and help facilitate small group work. 

If appropriate to the course, the faculty member and fellow can agree for the fellow to also: 

• Help prepare students for and help facilitate in-class peer response;

• Collaborate with the professor to develop and co-facilitate an in-class lesson or out-of-class workshop for the class on a particular writing-related topic;

• Provide the instructor (when asked to) with feedback on writing assignment design; 

• Collaborate with the faculty member on an assessment project or a pedagogy-related research project; 

• Add content or otherwise participate on Canvas.

What things may Writing Fellows NOT do? ​

Although writing fellows may offer a good deal of support, they are NOT teaching assistants. Because of this, fellows are not able to: 

• grade papers; 

• make sure students understand course content (except as appropriate when supporting students’ writing); 

• create writing assignments or quizzes; 

• provide clerical support for faculty; 

• serve as substitute teachers. 

Writing fellows are NOT available to “fix” students' papers. Their goal is to make students better writers. They do this by focusing on helping students understand higher level concerns having to do with argument and organization. Though they might identify grammatical pattern errors and may even discuss these errors with students, as well as how to avoid them, they are not proofreaders. This is the responsibility of the student.