English Department
Academic Writing Program
Welcome to the Academic Writing Program, where undergraduate students are introduced to the challenges of university level writing, reading, and critical thinking; where graduate students receive training and teaching experience in writing instruction, and where collaborations with faculty and university initiatives on matters of literacy development take center stage.
Serving First-Year Students
The Academic Writing Program serves over 2500 students each academic year with about 100 sections of English 130. English 130, “Academic Writing,” is a core course in the GE curriculum, and the central place where first-year students learn the strategies for successful research writing in the university. This course uses writing to develop students’ scholarly curiosity. Instructors focus on deepening research skills, developing students’ abilities to read and respond to difficult texts, and helping them through the writing process in a social, collaborative, revision-focused environment.
Serving Graduate Students
The Academic Writing Program is the central place for graduate students to receive training and teaching experience in writing and literacy studies. At any given time in the program, close to ten graduate students are teaching sections of English 130, meeting weekly with each other and their Advisor to assess classroom experiences in light of recent research in the teaching of writing. Our program produces informed, competent teachers, many of whom have gone on to doctoral programs in composition after their experience here at Chico State.
Serving the University
Through our dedicated faculty, and through partnerships with our award-winning University Writing Center, the First Year Experience Program, the Northern California Writing Project, and the Office of Civic Engagement, the Academic Writing Program extends its work in literacy research and instruction across the university and into the community. We consult with faculty on the writing pedagogy of their courses, link sections of 130 to service learning relationships on campus and in the community, and address the whole learner in our efforts to integrate curriculum across the first year.
The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.