Writing right with the fellows

The Writing Fellows Program will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this coming fall. Not all students will work with a writing fellow throughout their four years at Tufts, but in the last two decades, generations of fellows have been providing writing support to those who have come their way.

The program was established in 1999 by the late Nadia Medina, a former lecturer in the English department and founder of the Academic Resource Center (ARC). According to Kristina Aikens, program director of Writing Resources at the ARC, the program is based on a similar program at Brown University, which sought to improve the standard of writing and at the same time aided faculty members in integrating writing into their classes. While the Tufts program has evolved over the years, its core approach has not changed since its inception 20 years ago, according to Aikens.

“The basic principle has stayed pretty true, which is that the writing fellows are working one-on-one with students in specific classes and they interact with the faculty as well,” Aikens said. “It helps them to support students in answering questions that they might not feel comfortable asking the professor … and allows them to have some insight into the goals of the writing assignments.”

The writing fellows team is comprised entirely of undergraduate students, which, according to Aikens, has been a feature of the program since its founding. Throughout the semester, they meet with students enrolled in their assigned classes to discuss revising at least two graded writing assignments. Sharif Campbell, a senior and one of the head fellows, describes these sessions as being very conversational in nature.

"[We're] kind of asking them the right questions to enable them to ... fully articulate and communicate the ideas that they have in mind with us." Campbell said. “[This is] so that we can kind of point in the directions that we think might be beneficial for them to actually implement those changes on paper to express that idea that is theirs.”

This year, the Writing Fellows Program is headed by Campbell and fellow senior Tasha Statz-Geary.

While one might expect most of the fellows to major in English or in the subjects to which they are assigned, David Proctor, senior lecturer in the history department and long-time program collaborator, shared that this is not necessarily the case.

“I've had writing fellows from ... virtually every major I can think of, usually somewhere in the humanities and social sciences, but not always,” Proctor said. “That doesn't have a negative effect at all … because of the training that they receive.”

Statz-Geary, a Spanish and sociology major, recalls her time as a writing fellow for an engineering class.

“I did a [biomedical engineering] course once … I think it’s fun to do things that aren’t in your majors because [you] learn about so much that you wouldn’t normally. We learnt a lot about CRISPR … it’s really cool,” she said.

Aspiring fellows who make it through the application process attend a one-week intensive workshop series during orientation week in the fall, where they learn the concepts and philosophy behind the program. Subsequently, they enroll in a semester-long seminar on writing pedagogy and at the same time begin their work as fellows. According to Aikens, they are also paired up with more experienced fellows as part of an in-house mentorship program.

All fellows also meet every month, according to Statz-Geary.

“There’s … a check-in every month where we always talk about ‘fellow-ing’ in some way, whether it’s [a] difficult thing that someone had and how they learned from it or to share philosophies,” Statz-Geary said.

According to the ARC website, writing fellows receive a $650 stipend per semester, which may increase after their first semester on the job.

According to Aikens, in her nine years leading the fellows she has overseen some exciting developments in the program. It has supported faculty in the development of new courses, most recently with an introductory class for the environmental studies program.

“For example, we were part of the [first] Introduction to Environmental Studies class … it was really exciting to be in there from the ground level because we were there the first time it was taught by Professor [Ninian] Stein,” Aikens said.

The program has also worked towards bringing more disciplines into the fold. Shalini Tendulkar, lecturer at the community health department, teaches one of the writing fellows courses offered this semester.

“It is intriguing that we are kind of working with the writing fellows, and in many ways this course is a little bit different than some of the other courses that are being ‘fellow-ed,’” Tendulkar said. “But what we’re really trying to do in this course is teach students how to write for community and public health.”

According to Aikens, the fellows have also been involved in the six-week Bridge to Liberal Arts Success at Tufts (BLAST) Program held in the summer, providing writing support to the incoming first-years on the program.

Proctor also said that having the writing fellows involved in his Europe Since 1815 class, which was taught during the BLAST program, was extraordinarily helpful.

“It really helps the students in … what is a short amount of time, just six weeks, really sharpen their writing skills and … prepare them for what college-level writing is going to expect them to do,” Proctor said.

Leila Skinner, an undeclared first-year, took two writing fellow classes in the fall, namely Introduction to Environmental Studies and Introduction to Civic Studies, and found her sessions with her assigned fellows very helpful.

“They’d had me read [my assignments] out loud or try to explain in my own words what I was trying to say,” Skinner said. “And it would kind of get me to think about my work and critique my own work as opposed to them just doing it for me.”

Tendulkar notes the positive feedback that she has received about the writing fellows in her course.

“There will always be a handful of students that talk about how much they appreciated the support offered through the Writing Fellows Program. They felt like they were not on their own working on an assignment, that they had this other team that was helping them clarify the expectations, work on the writing,” she said.

While the program has been received rather positively by those interviewed, it is not without its limitations. For example, Skinner said that she did not know that those two classes were part of the program beforehand.

Aikens acknowledges that Skinner is not alone in her experience. Currently, the only way for students to find out if their course is a writing fellows one prior to class is through the ARC website.

“Usually [students] find out on the first day of class,” she said, adding that she is working on making that information available on Tufts’ Student Information System (SIS).

With the program being a mandatory component of some courses, having a positive experience with one’s writing fellow is crucial. When asked about whether students can seek recourse should their time with their assigned fellows be negative, Aikens said that approaching someone involved in the program would be the most helpful, be it herself, the point fellow of the class or the professors themselves.

“We address it … depending on what the situation is. If it seems like a bad match of personalities and approaches, then we can just adjust and move [the student to] a different writing fellow,” Aikens said.

For students to benefit the most from their sessions with the writing fellows, Campbell said that it is important for them to believe in themselves.

“Don’t come in timid. It’s hard to, because you’re meeting new people, but we’re really here to help … to have you in a better position than you started from,” Campbell said.

While seeking writing support in college is not a must, Aikens has this to say about the importance of collaboration in one’s development as a writer at any level.

“I think that sometimes people think that writing tutoring is for people who are struggling with writing … whether you feel like you struggle as a writer, or whether you feel like you want to improve more as a writer, all of these … are good reasons to talk to somebody about your writing,” Aikens said.

According the Aikens, the ARC Writing Center, located on level one of Tisch Library, had a soft open this semester and is slated to fully open in fall 2019.

“We’ve never had a writing center, and now we have [one] in the library … I’m excited to see what that’s going to bring when we have a physical location for students to engage in the concept of writing,” Aikens said.