For Current Fellows

The information you need to hit the ground running.

Your Co-Fellows

Most fellows work with one, two, or even three other fellows as part of a co-fellowing team, with each of you taking a fraction of the students enrolled in your assigned class. You will all report to the course professor. To streamline communication with both the professor and the Writing Fellows administration, you should elect one fellow at the orientation meeting (probably an experienced fellow, if there’s one in your team) to serve as the contact person for your group. The contact person will be responsible for relaying communication between the fellows and the course professor or administration and will make sure that you meet periodically throughout the semester in order to make sure you are all on the same page in terms of your policies (e.g., how lenient you will usually be about late drafts) and to standardize a cover sheet.

Meeting Your Professor

You will be in frequent communication (both electronically and in-person) with the professor of the course you are fellowing, especially at the beginning and end of the semester, and throughout your students’ entire drafting process.

First Meeting
Immediately after the orientation meeting, it is your responsibility to schedule a meeting with the professor of the course in which you are fellowing. Your contact person (see above) should organize a time that is convenient for the professor and all co-fellows to attend. This is a very important meeting for everyone involved: it gives you a chance to get acquainted, exchange logistical information, and begin learning about what the professor values in writing and how you can work effectively with the course.

This initial meeting is also a great time to be sure the professor clearly understands what Fellows do. Even though someone from the program has already met at least once with each new professor, you should be ready to explain your place in the students’ writing process and to remind the professor exactly what you do and don’t do as a Fellow. Listen carefully, take good notes, and don’t be afraid to ask questions if the professor’s not being completely clear about something.

Open a PDF of the First Meeting Checklist

After this initial meeting, it’s important to remain in contact with your professor throughout the semester, in person or electronically, especially at the following times:

Before each paper is assigned
You will need to communicate with the professor about his or her expectations for each assignment. Before these discussions, be sure to spend some time reading and analyzing the assignment. Ask yourself what the purpose of the assignment is, what elements (i.e. thesis, analysis, summary) are required, and how the professor defines those elements. Look for important terms the professor uses in the assignment and consider whether those terms might have special meanings in the professor’s discipline. Think about what in the assignment might confuse you if you were a student in the class. Be sure to ask what the professor expects from written assignments: What is the goal of the paper? How does the professor define a good paper? Does the professor have copies of one or two successful student papers you can skim to get a clearer idea of what good means? Is there a particular form or structure the paper should follow? Is experimentation encouraged?

During commenting
Be sure to touch base with the professor while you are in the process of commenting on drafts. Prepare to talk about trends you are seeing in the drafts (e.g., no one seems to have a thesis; everyone’s struggling with the second half of the assignment; most people are making complex and interesting arguments, but lots of them are having a hard time getting their thoughts organized). Write comments on one or two drafts before the meeting and be prepared to share your comments with the professor and to discuss what was particularly difficult to comment on or that strikes you as very successful in those drafts. This meeting allows you and the professor to make sure you are on the same page and to adjust expectations or focus if necessary.

Tip from a Fellow:

“When meeting with the professor, it’s a good idea to mention general trends you see in student writing, especially content-related trends or the way students are responding to a prompt. My co-fellows and I once mentioned that our students were frequently referencing a particular passage from a novel in their literary analysis papers, only to find out from the professor that they had failed to address the deeper implications of the passage . . . something we never would have known, as none of us had read the novel!”

After papers are graded

Plan to exchange feedback with the professor after he or she finishes grading the papers: Did everyone come to the conferences? How did the students respond to your comments? What might you do differently on the next round of papers? What might the professor need to clarify or emphasize in class?

Introducing Yourself to the Class

The purpose of meeting the class is to introduce yourselves and the program to the students you are fellowing and to exchange important information with them. You and your co-fellows will want to accomplish this in week 1 or 2, before the first set of papers are due.

It’s important to keep in mind that many students will have never heard of the Writing Fellows program. This first interaction will set the tone of future interactions during the semester, so it’s important to be informative, concise, and enthusiastic.

Tips for a successful class visit

• Schedule your visit at the first meeting with your professor
• Plan what you want to say ahead of time and bring note cards with you for reference
• Divide the speaking duties with your co-fellows
• Practice delivering your spiel
• Arrive early to get your bearings and make last-minute adjustments
• Have the professor introduce you to the class, remind students of program goals, and emphasize “rules” governing turning in drafts, etc.
• Project your voice, your friendliness, and your authority
• Keep an eye on the time, making sure to factor in the time it will take students to fill in note cards.

What to say

• Explain the program’s benefits
• Emphasize the importance of coming to conferences
• Tell them just a little bit about yourself and/or your goals as their Writing Fellow
• If you already know which students you will be fellowing, let them know (i.e., if your last name starts with A-L, you’re with Kate; Ms-Zs, you’re with Mike)

Information to collect from your students
Fellows agree that having students write on a note card during the class visit is the most efficient way to collect important information. Note cards are simply 3×5 index cards that Emily has in great quantity in the Writing Fellows supply closet—just ask and she will give you a stack. Note cards are a great way to have your students’ details at your fingertips and begin to get to know the students as individuals. But what should you ask for?

Obvious Things

• Name
• Email
• Major (or area of interest)
• Year in school
• Any questions, comments, or concerns they have

Less obvious things (choose one or two, and make sure they’re easy to answer quickly)

• Why they’ve chosen to take the class
• A good book/movie they’ve read/seen recently
• An aspect of their writing that they’d like to explore, improve or discuss this semester
• A weird fact about themselves (or any unusual thing they know)

Tip from a Fellow:

“We asked students to name their favorite book or author. Then in introductory emails, I often referred to their choice with a question or a comment. I also enjoyed seeing what everyone said! Even without a note card, you could ask the question in a group email.”

After meeting the class
As we all know, out of sight, out of mind. You will want to remind your students that you exist, and many Fellows have found that sending a follow-up email is a good way to re-connect with students and impart useful information. In your email, you may want to include the following:

• A reiteration that you’re excited to work with them
• Your contact information: full name, phone number (if you want), email
• Instructions for turning in papers to you
  The format you’d like their drafts to be in (double-spaced, if it’s OK for them to print on both sides of the page, etc.)
• Details on where conferences will be held if you know, a little about what they can expect

Using Technology to Facilitate Peer Interaction

Ah, technology. What would we do without it? While it’s true that many aspects of the Writing Fellows Program work best in analog (i.e., reading and commenting on paper drafts, conferencing with students face-to-face, collecting and returning papers via the professor), judicious use of digital applications can streamline many of the administrative tasks you need to accomplish.

For instance, you can

Use email to

• Tell your students a little about yourself at the beginning of the semester and convey your contact information (see “After meeting the class” above)
• Remind students the day before their conferences
• Have students email you their cover sheets if they don’t have time to print a hard copy when the draft is due
• Write to all of your students, explaining trends in the drafts (common problems and challenges or things people did particularly well)

Schedule conferences using online tools, such as

• Google Docs
• Doodle Polls

Utilize Learn@UW if your professor uses it to

• Access course readings, the syllabus, etc. (your professor must give you access)
• Have your contact information stored there so students can always find your details

Use Skype, iChat, or other video/IM platforms to

• Conference with a student in an extraordinary situation (contagious illness, to make up a conference missed for an exceptional reason)
• Follow up with specific students after conferences are over
• Be “on-call” to answer last minute questions the night before the paper is due

Should I schedule conferences in class or over email/using Google Docs/with Doodle?
Traditionally, Fellows scheduled their student conferences by handing around a sign-up sheet in class, and a good many Fellows still use this time-tested approach. But with email, scheduling apps, and multi-author word processing tools like Google Docs becoming more popular and accessible, other Fellows have found e-scheduling fits the bill.

It should be said that there’s no one right way to schedule conferences, though it’s best if all co-fellows in a class agree on a single method to avoid confusion. Also, keep in mind that if you are not familiar with these applications, it’s fine to use lo-tech methods!

In the end, choose a method that works well for you and that you’re comfortable explaining to your students. If you’re torn, it never hurts to discuss this issue with Emily, your co-fellows, or the course professor, since he or she may have a preferred method.

If you start fellowing right away

In 403, you will be learning the ropes of being a Writing Fellow: how to comment on papers, respond to student writing, schedule and hold conferences. You’ll also learn tips and tricks from your classmates in every class. However, you don’t learn everything at once, and you may be one of a few fellows who must dive into fellowing very early in the semester. If that’s your situation, here’s how to be an instant fellow:

• When you get your course assignment and meet your co-fellows, immediately determine your contact point person (perhaps an experienced fellow) so s/he can get the scheduling ball rolling with the professor
• Schedule a meeting with your professor right away, and make sure that you’re clear on (and that you continue to be informed of) the professor’s goals for the first paper
• As soon as you learn who your commenting mentor is, schedule a meeting with him/her and also let your mentor know that your first round of papers is due imminently
• Use your resources! While your semester will unfold much more quickly than your fellow Fellows, there are lots of people who want to help (and who can help):
  • Emily
  • Annika & Calley
  • The Undergraduate Assistant Directors
  • Your experienced co-fellows
  • Other people in your 403 class
  • Your commenting mentor
  • Sympathetic Writing Center TAs (make an appointment at the Writing Center and bring some writing such as comments or end notes, or even writing for another class. Observe how your TA conducts the session and maybe spend a few minutes talking about holding successful conferences. While the WC is always busy, it’s less busy early in the semester, making this a good option to get feedback on your comments and prepare yourself psychologically for holding conferences.)

Emily Hall, Ph.D., the associate director, administers the Writing Fellows Program, oversees everyone involved, coordinates the selection of new Fellows, and teaches English 403, the special three-credit honors seminar for first-time Fellows. Emily received her Ph.D. in English literature at UW-Madison, where she has taught writing since 1993. She welcomes your questions, concerns, and ideas about the Fellows program.

• Email: ebhall@wisc.edu
• Phone: (608)263-3754
• Office: 6163 Helen C. White Hall

Francesca Bouza, the assistant director, coordinates the ongoing education of experienced Fellows, helps recruit and select applicants to the program, consults with faculty participants, and coaches Fellows on how to help student writers improve.

• Email: fbua@wisc.edu
• Office: 6139 Helen C. White Hall

Johs Rasmussen, the other assistant director of the Writing Fellows Program, teaches a section of English 403, mentors Writing Fellows, and assists Emily in the administration of the program.

• Email: jrasmussen@wisc.edu
• Office: 6139 Helen C. White Hall

In order to prevent confusion and save time, it’s important to establish a clear system for collecting student papers. Ideally, you (or one of your co-fellows) will collect the papers from the professor once he or she has had a chance to check and make sure they are all present. This way, the professor can contact any student who hasn’t turned the paper in. The process for collecting papers should be negotiated with your professor at your first meeting with him/her.

Logistical Advice

Cover Sheets
You should have your students fill out cover sheets to help guide your responses to their drafts. As their name implies, cover sheets are stapled to the front of the students’ drafts; they give you information about the writers and how they feel about their drafts.

Cover sheets can be very helpful as you’re reading drafts, but they require advance planning for both you and your students. You can visit the class ahead of time to distribute the sheets or drop them off and have the professor hand them out for you. Some Fellows choose to email cover sheets to students. Your students will need to fill the cover sheets out before they turn their drafts in, and will ideally take some time doing so. Cover sheets that are filled out in class two minutes before the students turn over the drafts to you tend to be hastily scrawled and lacking in useful information.

You can find a sample cover sheet in the appendix to this handbook. This template is fairly generic, so you will likely want to personalize it by asking questions that reflect the specific course and genre requirements.

Tip from a Fellow:

“In the cover sheet, I ask students to provide their favorite and least favorite parts of the paper, their thesis, what they struggled with or need help with, and other comments. To personalize, you have to be creative and pay attention to your professor’s particular quirks. Most professors have things they really care about, so emphasizing these in your questions on the cover sheet can be useful to your students.”

Care and feeding of your drafts
This advice may sound obvious, but once the drafts are in your hands, you must treat them with care. Take pains to avoid losing them, protect them from rain and mud, and keep them free from coffee or food stains.

Many fellows have found that it can be helpful, once they have finished writing marginal and end notes, to make a copy of each draft (you can accomplish this for free using the Writing Center copier whenever the Center is open; just ask the receptionist for the key). Two benefits of taking this extra step: first, you can review each student’s draft before conferencing, and second, if the student loses the original, you can come to the rescue with a copy.

What should I do about late or missing drafts?
No matter what paper exchange system you have, once in a while a student will not hand in a draft. Make sure that you know what to do in this case. Students must turn in the original draft and your comments along with the revised draft in order to receive a grade for each paper. Professors know if those things are missing, and it’s their job to decide whether missed drafts will affect the student’s grade. Discuss this policy with the professor, and be ready to explain it to students who are late or who want you to cover for them.

Keep in mind that whatever late paper policy you and the professor have established, you can exercise discretion. If a student is a day or two late with a draft and seems contrite and invested in meeting with you, you may decide to accept the draft. At the same time, you’re not required to do so, and you can certainly stipulate that you will return drafts the same number of days late that you received them. Note: if a student contacts you saying that her draft will be late because of extenuating circumstances such as illness or family crisis, you should work with Emily and the class professor to make sure that the situation is handled fairly for both the student and you. If such a situation arises, contact Emily immediately.

Writing Comments

After you collect the drafts, you’re ready to start reading them and formulating comments. Be sure to treat every student’s draft with the same patience and attention that you would want your own writing to receive if you were the one turning in a paper to a Writing Fellow. Some drafts may strike you as extremely confused or hastily written, but they may in fact represent serious effort on the part of the writer. Although talking with the writer or reading the cover sheet might give you a good idea of how much time a student put into a draft, you can’t know for sure how much work went into any piece of writing you receive. Don’t rush to judgment.

A note about confidentiality
It’s important that you maintain a high level of accountability to your students. If you discuss individual students or papers with your roommates or friends, you violate the trust that is essential to your success as a fellow. However, it’s fine to raise questions about papers in 403 or discuss a puzzling or frustrating draft with your commenting mentor, co-Fellows, or the course professor.

General Guidelines
English 403 provides a chance both to study different theories about how to comment effectively on drafts and to practice writing comments. Here are some basic commenting principles supported by writing studies research, principles that reflect the Writing Fellows program’s general commenting philosophy:

• Before you begin to comment, read all the drafts to get a sense of the representative ways of writing the paper.
• Re-read each draft carefully before you write anything at all to avoid overwhelming writers with disjointed, rambling, or contradictory responses.
• Remember to praise! Note the parts that work well in every paper you read. Often writers don’t recognize their own strengths, and if you can specifically point out some positive aspects of their writing, you will build trust, help them gain confidence and bolster their enthusiasm for the assignment. You may also be able to give them a model of, say, a well-structured paragraph that they can emulate as they revise a less-effective paragraph.
• Be specific. In particular, try to avoid scrawling single words or short phrases in the margins; writing “confusing” or “great!” next to a paragraph often leaves writers wondering exactly what was so confusing or so great. “This sentence confuses me because it doesn’t seem to fit with the paragraph’s main topic” or “I couldn’t tell which character you were talking about” helps the writer figure out what needs to be changed; “This transition helped me understand the connection between these ideas” or “This paragraph follows through exactly on what the introduction promised” tells the writer not only what’s working but why it’s working and helps the writer understand how readers read.
• Focus on endnotes rather than marginal notes. Marginal notes have their place, certainly, but they can also get you—and the writer—stuck on details instead of thinking about the big picture. Questions can be great marginal notes.
• Prioritize. If you try to point out everything in the draft that could be improved, you’ll end up writing another paper on top of the one to which you’re responding, and you will also confuse the student. Keep in mind the professor’s priorities and especially the writers’ concerns as expressed on their cover sheets.
• Keep a copy of your end comments to prepare for conferences. You can type them on a computer and print out two versions, one for you and one to return to the student with the draft. Or you can take notes on a 3 x 5 card to summarize your comments on each draft, so you will have an easily accessible short version of your comments to use during each conference.
• Never try to rewrite papers for students. Your job is to ask questions, point out the strengths and weaknesses of papers, and make a limited number of focused suggestions for revision. You should not aim to help every student write the perfect paper. Definitions of the perfect paper vary from reader to reader, anyway. But even if everyone could agree on what constitutes perfection, guiding your peers down that mythical path would not be the sole focus of your work as a tutor. The Fellows program values collaborative learning and focuses on the process of writing, not just on the product.
• Every now and then you may encounter a student who needs more (or different) help with writing than you can provide. You’ll talk more about this situation in English 403, but here’s a short list of your options: proceed with caution; wait until you conference with the writer and get a better sense of his or her writing process; solicit a second opinion on the draft from Emily, the Assistant Director, Brad, the undergraduate assistant directors, other Fellows assigned to the course, or the course professor; suggest that the student make an appointment in the Writing Center to get additional feedback; or suggest that the student set up a permanent appointment with someone in the Writing Center in order to have sustained, ongoing conversation about writing that covers assignments in multiple classes.

For sample marginal and end comments, see the Appendix.

Meeting with your Commenting Mentor

You will meet with Emily, the Assistant Director, Brad, or an experienced Writing Center instructor during your first round of commenting to talk about strategies for helping your students. To prepare for this meeting, identify a couple of drafts that seem especially challenging to comment on. With your mentor, you will talk through questions you have and brainstorm ways to respond. New fellows will meet again with their commenting mentor during the second round of papers. Remember: it is your responsibility to schedule meetings with your mentor! Be sure to schedule these meetings for the week during which you are in the process of commenting, not before you begin or after you’ve handed the drafts back.

Scheduling Conferences

Conference Sign-Up
Students sign up for conferences on the day you give back the drafts with your comments. When you visit class to return the drafts, you will also pass around a conference sign-up sheet. Some fellows have found it helpful to send the conference times to students over e-mail in advance, so they have a chance to look at their schedules.

Regardless of the scheduling method you use, you should present the following information to your students:

• Your name, phone number, and/or e-mail address
• Where you will hold your conferences and how you can be recognized (i.e., red baseball cap)
• If you use a hard-copy sign-up sheet, include a list that explains which students are assigned to which Fellow, in case they have forgotten your names
• More conference slots than students, but not too many more, since you want to avoid long periods of waiting between conferences
• A space where students who can’t make any of the offered conference times can leave their names and contact info so you can make alternate arrangements

To view and download a sample sign-up sheet, see the appendix page.

Timing
Remember to schedule your conferences leaving enough time to allow students to revise their drafts in response to your comments before handing in the final version to the professor.

You will most likely want to schedule 25-minute conferences, with 5-minute breaks in between, allowing you to complete two conferences per hour. That time frame, however, is not set in stone. You may well discover that you need more time for some students than others—one person may really need 30 minutes, while another person may be ready to depart after 20 minutes. Try to be flexible, while also respecting students’ schedules. And remember that no conference can address all the writing concerns that a writer might have; you simply don’t have time to spend an unlimited number of hours with each student. Besides, overly long conferences run the risk of overwhelming and frustrating the writer you are trying to help.

Tips from Fellows:

“Scheduling 25-minute conferences into 30-minute time blocks that allow 5 minutes after a conference to prepare for the next one has worked out quite well. I try to schedule no more than 4 conferences per day or in a row because after that it can get a bit taxing.”

“I would not schedule more than 4 or 5 conferences in a row if you want to keep your brain from turning to mush. When you get no breaks for that long, you’re not at your A game when helping your students. I like to have 10-15 minutes between every conference, but that is usually impossible. When you have a bunch in a row, make sure you give yourself time before the string of conferences to look over at least your endnotes for all of the students, so that you can show that you remember the papers and are invested in each one.”

“I recommend scheduling 45 minutes for conferences so you have adequate time to prepare in-between conferences. Bringing photocopies of the students’ drafts and your endnotes with you to meetings is also helpful, as it allows you refresh your memory of a student’s paper while you wait for him or her to arrive, and it ensures that you will be prepared if a student forgets his or her draft (it does happen!).”

Setting the Location
You can hold conferences in any easily-accessible public space that is quiet enough, feels comfortable and safe, and where you can find a table and a couple of chairs. You might have success in one of the following locations:

• The Writing Center
• One of the libraries
• A residence hall dining room (i.e. Pop’s Club or Frank’s Place)
• Memorial Union and Union South
• One of the State Street coffee shops
• The Student Services Tower in 333 E. Campus Mall

Where should you not hold conferences?

• Dorm rooms
• Apartments
• Any private living space
• Any location after 9:30pm

Note: if you choose to use the Writing Center for your conferences, you should check in with the receptionist at the front desk. You also need to make sure the Center is open at your desired meeting times.

Conducting Conferences

General Guidelines
You will receive plenty of guidance in English 403 about strategies for conferencing. There is no single right way to conduct conferences; every conference is slightly different, and every tutor has to develop his or her own personal style. However, we do have some basic suggestions.

• Try to ensure that student writers (and you) are as comfortable as possible. Students won’t know what to expect when they show up for their first conference; you may be surprised by how many are nervous about talking to you. Stand up, introduce yourself again, use the writer’s name and ask if you aren’t sure how to pronounce it or if she uses a nickname (“Do you go by Rebecca or Becky?”). You can make some small talk (the weather is an old standby; Madison’s climate lends itself to a lot of friendly commiserating), begin by asking how the writer feels about the assignment or, more generally, how the class is going. You can also use information from the draft’s cover sheet to jump-start the conference.
• Before you begin sharing your own insights, always, always ask the writer what he or she is most interested in working on. And write down what the writer says! Asking sincere questions and listening carefully to the answers helps send the message that you care about what the writer thinks. Getting this message across will make the rest of the conference much easier.
• Your goal for each conference should be to talk about two or three important issues related to a draft, and to help student writers consider options for revision. You will not have time to discuss all parts of the draft in great detail, so you have to choose the issues that seem most crucial. For example, if a draft jumps abruptly from one point to the next, you may want to use some of the time in the conference to rework some of the transitions. However, if the draft has an even more pressing problem—say it doesn’t fulfill the assignment and/or fails to answer the question the professor has posed—then you don’t want to use up time talking about transitions until after you have raised the bigger concerns.
• Your comments can be a starting point for conversation, but don’t simply reiterate your comments unless the writer asks for clarification or elaboration. Comments generally focus on what’s working and what needs revision; conferences tend to feel most productive when they focus on how to make those necessary revisions. Conferences are ideal for working interactively; they’re a great chance for writers to actually work on an element of a draft—writing a new thesis statement, reordering paragraphs, adding topic sentences—with you there to give them immediate feedback on the new work.
• Writers are more receptive to criticism when they feel that their work is valued and appreciated. As with comments, it’s a good rule to open conferences about drafts by pointing out good things, saying what you liked, what worked well, etc. Launching immediately into a laundry list of problems can be overwhelming and discouraging for the writer you are trying to help.
• Try to keep your own talking to a minimum. Ask questions. Listen carefully to the answers. Take notes. Ask more questions. Again, listen carefully. Often writers will say wonderful, articulate things that belong in their papers but haven’t made it into their writing yet. The best moments in conferences often come when students say something really insightful that’s nowhere in the paper and you get to ask, “Is that in your paper? Do you say that anywhere? Write that down!” If they smile sheepishly and say, “What did I just say?” you can repeat their own words back to them rather than worrying that you’re writing the paper for them. The goal is not to give students the perfect words, but to help them find their own.
• Bring extra pens and blank paper. Taking notes for students during conferences and then giving them the notes at the end works well for many Fellows. It’s also a good idea to urge writers to take their own notes: “Are you going to remember this? Do you want to write that down?” And don’t forget to give them time to write those things down before moving on to the next point.
• Watch your body language. Sit next to or at the next side of the table to writers, not across the table from them; this way you can both look at the paper right-side up at the same time. Keep the draft between you, so you both can see it.

Tip from a Fellow:

“My research project involved observing Writing Center instructors during conferences. From that experience and talking with them afterwards, I was surprised with how helpful they were for both my research and for improving as a peer tutor. Watching them at work conferencing and discussing the conferences with them afterwards was a tremendously helpful experience in providing me with insights and ideas about how to approach my own tutoring, so don’t overlook the value of chatting with WC instructors. Plus, they are so friendly and encouraging of Writing Fellows that talking with them really helped me to feel a part of the supportive writing tutoring community at UW-Madison.”

Missed Conferences
Occasionally, a student won’t show up for his or her conference. Don’t take it personally; it happens to everyone. As with late papers, you can exercise discretion in how you handle students who are late or who miss conferences, but be sure to have talked about this issue with the professor before you start holding conferences.

End-of-Semester Evaluations

At the end of the semester, the professors and student writers with whom you work will be asked to evaluate both the Writing Fellows program and your individual performance. During the second half of the semester, your contact person (see Getting Started) will receive, in his or her Writing Fellows mailbox (in the Writing Center), a packet of Class Evaluation Forms, which will need to be distributed to the class. Your contact person (who is free to designate this task to a co-fellow, if necessary) will ask the professor to distribute the forms to the students to complete during class time. You will have an opportunity to read your evaluations at the beginning of next semester.

What about the money?
You will receive a ~$1,000 scholarship each semester you are a Writing Fellow.

What happens in the spring semester?
You are automatically re-appointed as a Writing Fellow unless you are having serious problems fulfilling your fellowing duties. If you are having difficulties, you should talk to Emily, Cydney, or Brad, who would be happy to discuss your options and provide some extra help. Fellows who are simply not meeting their responsibilities may be asked to leave the program.

Although you will no longer meet twice weekly as you did in English 403, you will participate in ongoing education sessions (OGEs).

What if I have a potential conflict of interest with one of the student I’m assigned to tutor?
This is not a common problem, but if you discover that you are assigned to work with your roommate, your best friend, your worst enemy, or some other person with whom you have a personal history that could interfere with your ability to serve as a Writing Fellow, bring your concern to Emily or the Assistant Director immediately (see the Program Administrators page). We’ll work something out.

What if I’m having a problem with the professor I’m working with?
Most importantly, make sure that you are communicating frequently with your professor to ensure that misunderstandings do not occur. If a problem does occur, contact Emily or the Assistant Director right away (see the Program Administrators page) so we can help you figure out a solution. Also, be sure to keep your co-Fellow(s) in the loop if something’s amiss.

What if I have a family emergency or become ill?
Please contact Emily or the Assistant Director (see the Program Administrators page) and your course professor immediately so we can make sure your responsibilities are covered while you are away or out of commission.

On this page you will find some materials to help guide you along your journey as a Writing Fellow. Click the links below to open a PDF of each document.

• Sample Information Sheet
• Sample Cover Sheet
• Sample Marginal Comments
• Sample End Comments (Geography Paper)
• Sample End Comments (Philosophy Paper)
• Sample Sign-in Sheet