Tag: faculty

Supporting Faculty Writers: Book Proposal Workshop

Post author By caitlincholmes
Post date April 30, 2015

by Caitlin Holmes and Caitlin Dungan

On Friday, April 24th, Mason’s Writing Across the Curriculum invited three experts on academic publishing to present on crucial information for writing and submitting book proposals. Our panelists, Dr. John Farina, Dr. Peter Stearns, and John Warren (click here for full biographies), provided thoughtful and supportive advice to attendees before workshopping proposals. Here, we will summarize a few key points that our presenters discussed, our tweets of the event (see the full Twitter feed here), and one presenter’s handout at the end of this piece.

Tags book manuscripts, book proposals, book publication, faculty, faculty writing, faculty writing support, How to publish, Mason WAC, WAC, Writing Across the Curriculum

Undergraduate Perspectives

Professor Expectations of Writing Assignments: A Student Perspective

Post author By caitlincholmes
Post date April 9, 2015

By Mikal Cardine

Mikal is a senior studying English at George Mason. She previously worked with WAC to create disciplinary writing guides for student use. To reach her, please contact wac@gmu.edu.

In the subjective world of writing, there doesn’t seem to be any rules – just lots of different guidelines as we students move from class to class. However, effective communication is what writing is all about, and professors can best teach their students this skill by practicing it themselves, especially regarding their expectations of writing assignments. Before assuming that we know what is expected of us, professors need to consider our circumstances and differences: Some of us have not been in a focused writing class in years. Some of us have not taken 302 before taking the WI course. Some of us placed out of first year writing, or have transferred to Mason and are still adjusting to new professors and new expectations. And of course, most of us have probably received terrible writing instruction at some point.

Tags Assignment Design, College Composition, composition, education, expectations of students, faculty, faculty writing, Mason WAC, student perspective, WAC, WID, Writing, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing in the Disciplines

Faculty Writing

Supporting Faculty Writers: Mason Faculty Writing Retreats – A Comprehensive Review

Post author By caitlincholmes
Post date February 26, 2015

by: Caitlin Holmes

Caitlin Holmes is the Assistant Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at George Mason University. She blogs regularly about teaching here at thewritingcampus.com. You can reach her via email at wac@gmu.edu.

With the support of Mason’s Provost Office and Center for Teaching and Faculty Excellence, the Writing Across the Curriculum Program hosted two Faculty Writing Retreats in the past 12 months: one in May 2014 and the other in January 2015. Such retreats had occurred in the past under the supervision of the Northern Virginia Writing Project, but not for quite some time. This blog post will review the different structures of the May 2014 and January 2015 retreats, give summaries of evaluation results for both retreats, and provide a few concluding thoughts about what we may try in the future at Mason.

Tags Collaborative Teaching, digital writing, education, faculty, faculty writing, faculty writing support, higher education, Mason WAC, research, Writing, Writing in the Disciplines, writing pedagogy

Faculty Writing

Supporting Faculty Writers: The Writing Retreat—Take Two

Post author By caitlincholmes
Post date February 18, 2015

by Erica Jacobs

Erica Jacobs teaches writing at George Mason University. She has a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia University and has published numerous articles in local newspapers, newsletters, and magazines.

When I received an invitation to apply to the Faculty Writing Retreat to take place during the 2014-2015 winter break, I recognized I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. It was a similar retreat sponsored by the English Department in 1978 that permanently changed my writing and teaching. That was near the beginning of my career, and 37 years later—near the end—it was time to take the body of work I’d written over the years for local newspapers and see if it would be publishable as a collection.

Tags composition, education, faculty, faculty writing, faculty writing support, Higher Ed, higher education, Writing, Writing Across the Curriculum

Technology

Free Software and Five Minutes: Limitless Possibilities for Improving Student Writing

Post author By caitlincholmes
Post date January 29, 2015

Jessica McCaughey is an Assistant Professor at George Washington University in Washington, DC, where she teaches and writes about the intersections of academic, creative, and professional writing. You can reach her at jessmcc@gwu.edu and find her online at jessicamccaughey.com.

When it comes to communicating with students, all writing instructors face two hurdles:

Students have different learning styles, so not all students understand or retain the written word in the same way, and
Sometimes it’s just easier to speak than it is to write.

The latter is a challenge that becomes especially clear when I find myself crafting embarrassingly long emails that could have been presented orally and visually quite easily. I have—although I’m really not proud of it—taken four paragraphs to clarify a homework assignment. I have written multi-page emails detailing the wonder that is the inter-library loan system. Most writers—and writing instructors—I know love the quote, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time,” by French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal. (You may have heard a similar quote falsely attributed to Mark Twain.) Concision takes time in writing, especially writing that is intended to teach in some way. And so it was with genuine pleasure that I discovered and began implementing the use of Jing, a program that supplements and improves the way I teach writing in so many ways.

Tags College Composition, digital media, digital writing, faculty, Feedback, jing, Online writing, pedagogy, Peer Review, Teaching, Teaching Strategies, verbal feedback, WAC, WID, writing feedback, writing pedagogy, Writing-Intensive