-- To inform audience members about the Writing Fellows Program at New Paltz;

---To brainstorm, along with audience members, ways in which writing instruction can address the individual needs of students;

SUNY is committed to individualized education and “figuring out ways to help students with different backgrounds and resources to succeed." SUNY campuses of the 21st century will have to find inventive ways to provide opportunities for the type of individualized instruction/mentoring, which the chancellor envisions.

In 2018, the English Department at SUNY New Paltz implemented a Writing Fellows program, which matched undergraduate students with veteran instructors seeking tutors for their Composition sections. In our presentation, we will contextualize the program’s design. Initially developed in response to the loss of a TRIO grant, the Writing Fellows program actually wound up serving the needs of a variety of students, many of whom did not fit the low-SES student profile of the original federal grant.

We will also describe the 300-level pre-requisite course—Theories of Writing--required of all Fellows before placing them in the classroom.

Instructors who took part in the program will comment on their experiences of working with the Fellows.