Title: INTERNSHIP IN TECHNICAL WRITING OR EDITING

PRQ: Consent of department internship coordinator.

Course Description: This version of ENGL 628 will introduce students to techniques in tutoring writers from different disciplines. Students will also gain a comprehensive overview of writing center theory, research, and administration.

Objectives: Become familiar with writing center theory and research. Identify best practices in tutoring writers. Recognize formats and conventions of writing in different academic disciplines.

Understand challenges of effectively representing writing center work to students and faculty.

Examine protocols of establishing, maintaining, and administrating a writing center.

Note: 628 (either P1 or P2) may be counted as an applied rhetoric course toward the doctoral requirement for “at least two courses required for the Ph.D. with a pedagogical or applied component from two of the fields of language, literature, and rhetoric” (Graduate Student Handbook 19).

Requirements:

• Analysis of a writing center’s layout and design

• Analysis of the website for the International Writing Centers Association http://writingcenters.org/

• Two interviews with professors on teaching writing in their respective disciplines

• Commentaries that analyze two different samples of student writing in disciplines other than English

• A written observation of tutoring session in the NIU Writing Center, combined with an evaluation of the tutor's oral comments, critiquing what went on in the session

• A written reflection on a tutoring session that the st do myself, supplemented with a summary of oral comments from a supervising Writing Center tutor

• Photocopies of five pages of sample notes from a reading log on weekly readings from the course texts

• An informal commentary analyzing a threaded discussion on WCENTER-L, the national writing center listserv at http://writingcenters.org/resources/starting-a-writing-cente/#Mail

• A 7-8 page conference paper addressing some issue in writing center practice and theory that I find compelling, OR a feasibility study, examining what resources and support would be necessary for establishing a Writing Center at a local school/ college

Selected readings on history, theory, research, tutor training, WAC, administration, ESL writers, cultural difference and diversity, dialogue, conferences, technology, etc. from Writing Center Journal http://casebuilder.rhet.ualr.edu/wcrp/wcjournal/bibliography.cfm and Writing Lab Newsletter https://writinglabnewsletter.org/archives.php

The Allyn and Bacon Guide to Peer Tutoring, Paula Gillespie and Neal Lerner, ISBN: 0-321-18283-9

Good Intentions: Writing Center Work for Postmodern Times, Nancy Grimm, ISBN: 0-86709-487-7