The Barnard Writing Fellows Program

Purpose of the Program:

The Barnard Writing Fellows Program in designed to help students strengthen their writing in all disciplines.
It is based on the premise that when you write clearly and cogently about a subject, you make it yours.

Program Beliefs:

We believe that writing is a process; it happens in stages, in different drafts; it may be ended (on the day the paper is due), but it is never really finished. Writing is revision—re-seeing—and all writers, no matter how accomplished, can benefit from discussing their work with an intelligent reader and then revising it. Often the most fruitful dialogue about your writing occurs with your peers, and the Writing Fellows with whom you will be working in this course are just that.

Who Are the Writing Fellows?

Writing Fellows are Barnard undergraduates, nominated by faculty and their fellow students, who participate in a semester-long workshop in the teaching of writing and, having finished their training, staff the Barnard Writing Center and work in courses across the disciplines. They have been/are attached to courses in Anthropology, Architecture, Art History, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Biology, Chemistry, Comparative Literature, Economics, English, French, History, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Slavic, Sociology, Spanish, Theater, and Women’s Studies. It is their job to read and hold conferences on drafts of theses written in this course, with every student enrolled.

The Writing Fellows’ area of expertise is writing, the writing process, and the ways in which you can use it to enhance both the quality of your learning and the excellence of your thesis.
Writing Fellows are not tutors or TAs; they are educated readers.
It is not their role to comment on the accuracy of the content of your paper, nor to grade your work.
They are not enrolled in this course. You will probably know more about its specific material than they, and your papers must therefore be clearly enough written so that the non-expert can understand them.

How it Works:

Your instructor will list two due dates for each piece of writing she or he assigns (see senior seminar schedule webpage)
You will hand in your first draft to your instructor who will pass it on to your Writing Fellow.
You will write down your contact information on a sign-up sheet and your Writing Fellow will contact you to set a time and location to meet.
The Writing Fellow will read your paper, write comments on it and confer with you on possible revisions, after which you will have a week to revise the paper.

Writing Conferences:

Conferences offer you and your Writing Fellow the chance for an extended conversation about your paper. We hope that they will help you to figure out what it is you’re trying to say and how best to say it, so that you will have a superior revision to submit to your instructor (along with your first version) by the final due date.

*Please note: It is a course requirement that you meet with your Writing Fellow to discuss your papers, but you are entirely free to make your own choices about how much and what sort of revision you finally want to do.