Writing Fellows
Our Mission
Part of our task at Jackson Community College is to help our students become better writers. The Writing Fellow program was designed to engage students in writing assignments across disciplines, equip participants with organizational and analytical skills, and encourage them to talk about their work with others. The JCC Writing Fellow Program supports the College’s goals by:
- Encouraging a community of learners (students, employees, trustees) who respect each other as full partners in the learning process and by promoting diversity among those learners.
- Honoring teaching that produces the greatest learning.
- Generating active learning and providing learners with collaborative/cooperative learning opportunities.
- Aligning the role of the faculty with the needs of the individual learners and responding to those needs by recognizing different learning styles and offering a variety of methods and options for learning, including distance learning.
- Ensuring opportunities across the curriculum for learning the critical skills of communication, computation, problem solving, working in teams, knowledge management and developing practical, analytical and creative intelligence.
- Serving as a community hub with connections to other institutions and organizations.
Our mission is to help JCC students become better writers. Faculty support, individualized tutoring, and responsive reading all help our students understand writing as a recursive process.
We adhere to the following guidelines:
- All students do their own work. The Writing Fellow does not edit nor does the Fellow rewrite any portion of the tutees work. Fellows suggest strategies for revision and editing, and they use sample papers and worksheets to help students understand individual editing processes.
- Writing Fellows begin with “high order” concerns—main ideas, understanding the assignment given, organization, development—before “lower order” concerns—spelling, punctuation, sentence level errors, etc… We believe that revision includes rethinking concepts, so the tutoring session begins where the student is and works from there.
- Writing Fellows adhere to the goal of independent learning and they use redirection as a strategy. Writing Fellows do not attempt to solve all writing errors in a single session (or a semester). Their goal is to help their peers become more confident writers and thinkers.
During the pilot year, Writing Fellows have:
- Provided a peer tutoring program and formalized a help center for the
Writing Across the Curriculum initiative. The departments served include
science and allied health, where faculty members participated in goal
setting and conversing about writing.
- WN07 Writing Fellows tutored approximately 100 students, completed a 20-page portfolio demonstrating their own strong writing abilities, and sponsored 10 courses across the curriculum.
- Created an honors course in which students produced excellent written
work.
- WN07 Writing Fellows (ENG 201) entered six research papers in the LAND Student Scholar Writing Contest. Five were finalists and the sixth was an alternate. On September 22, 2007, one Writing Fellow won first place in the literature category; his paper will be published, and he won a monetary award.
- Served as a community hub with connections to other institutions and
organizations.
- WN07 Writing Fellows interviewed veterans for the Library of Congress Veterans History Project and helped design and host a celebratory dinner. Each interview becomes part of the Library of Congress historical collection, thus connecting our students with both local community members (veterans) and other organizations/networks. Veterans Project photos
- Represented JCC, honorably, and promoted the college in a positive light
to the community.
- The W07 Writing Fellows were highlighted in local news stories (May 2007, The Jackson Citizen Patriot), and they held the spotlight in the Campus Companion and the News From Jackson Community College (twice).
