To the Editor in Chief:
In regard to the article “Writing Fellows perfect peers’ prose” published in the March 2014 edition of In Motion, we’re pleased that there was an interest in informing readers about the Writing Fellows Program here at Daytona State College.
The Writing Fellows Program is a part of the Writing Across the Curriculum/Writing-in-the-Disciplines, also known as the WAC/WID Program, and is an initiative to place qualified and trained student writing tutors into specific classes to:
○ Assist students of that class with all of their course-related writing needs and goals
○ Act as an additional avenue of conversation between students and the professor.
A Writing Fellow is a student of Daytona State or UCF who is recommended by a faculty member who can speak to the student’s writing and leadership abilities. Writing Fellow candidates are then interviewed for any open Writing Fellow positions in the Daytona State College – University of Central Florida Writing Center.
Those students chosen as Writing Fellow candidates then attend a week-long, 11-hour training session at the beginning of the semester that:
○ Orients them to the goals of the WAC-WID and Writing Fellows Programs
○ Provides guidelines for working with the students, Faculty, and staff involved with the Programs
○ Offers recommendations and guidelines on various situations that might arise during the course of the Program.
Once candidates have satisfactorily completed the training session, they begin their duties as Writing Fellows, which include: Spending 3 hours per week attending the class they are a Writing Fellow for; offering six hours per week of one-on-one tutoring appointments in the DSC-UCF Writing Center for the class’s students; performing an hour weekly lab for the class’s students; helping students with their writing assignments; assisting with assignment design (if desired by the professor); serving as a resource for the faculty member and students; and receiving continuous training, support, and feedback from DSC-UCF Writing Center staff throughout their employment.
Currently, Writing Fellows serve courses on the Daytona and Deltona campuses of Daytona State and UCF. One of the goals of the program is to have Writing Fellow support on all campuses; this is dependent upon where WAC-WID Faculty teach.
Thus, the Writing Fellows Program is a unique opportunity for Daytona State and UCF students that offers them the opportunity to provide dedicated writing assistance for their peers in a particular course and discipline.
—Chris Gebhardt, Coordinator, DSC-UCF Writing Center