Academics
The Writing Program at Whittier College
Charles Eastman, Director
The use of reason and critical inquiry to enable students to see the interrelatedness of knowledge and t
he connections among academic disciplines is central to the mission of Whittier College. The Writing Program is reflective of this goal.
The Writing Program curriculum is writing-intensive, designed to teach students how to communicate effectively at each successive level of their major discipline, as well as to general audiences outside their chosen fields. In our writing courses students are trained to read and listen critically, and to construct supportable written arguments, integrating knowledge from within and without their chosen disciplines, through recursive, collaborative process.
All students begin their Whittier careers with Freshman Writing Seminars; these provide the fundamental instruction to enable students to generate, revise, and present their ideas to readers across the general campus community. Students progress to more discipline-specific Writing Intensive Courses, proceed through Writing across the Curriculum, and as part of their senior year experience write a capstone Paper-in-the-Major.
Praxis
The praxis module for all components of the Writing Program is the Paper-in-the-Major. It is to this point that the entire program builds, and it is at this level that expectations for students' writing most nearly approach the standards for their professions or for graduate study in their chosen fields.
NEWS
The new student reading for Summer 2009 has been selected--it is Tropic of Orange by Karen Tei Yamashita. Ms. Yamashita teaches at UC Santa Cruz and has visited our campus previously as part of our Writers' Day Festival.
Writing Program Peer Mentors Martina Miles, Sarah Miranda, Jacqueline Ragusa, Katy Simonian, Wren Saito, Melissa Samarin, and Mary Helen Truglia will be presenting at the Annual Conference of the SoCal Writing Centers Association February 21 at Moorpark College.
Writing Program Director Charles Eastman will be facilitating a roundtable discussion at the same conference. In addition, he will be making a presentation at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in San Francisco March 12.
Resources
Sample Syllabi:
Syllabus--The Response to Genocide
Whittier’s Center for Academic Success offers peer tutoring in writing, and each Freshman Writing Seminar is assigned its own “in-class” peer tutor. Students interested in teaching careers are encouraged to take INTD 33 (Teaching Composition), the required training course, and work as a peer tutor.
Click here for help with all writing questions--format, mechanics, process, etc...
thanks to the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill
Click here for a humorous instructional video workshop on "Plagiarism"
thanks to the Writing Center at Rutgers University
