News

Eleven Writing Program faculty presented at the recent annual Conference on College Composition and Communication, the profession's largest and most competitive annual meeting. In addition, a number of program faculty received recognition, both locally and nationally. Please see Faculty Accomplishments for news about David Riche, April Chapman-Ludwig, Libby Catchings, Rebekah Shultz Colby, Richard Colby, Juli Parrish, Rob Gilmor, Doug Hesse, Kara Taczak, John Tiedemann, and Keith Rhodes. 

writing institute

After WRIT: Leveling Up Student Writing
An Institute for DU Faculty
$1000 Stipend
Mornings, June 17-21
First Round Deadline: May 17. Second Round Deadline: May 31.

The University Writing Program invites faculty from departments across campus to participate in a five-morning workshop. Our purpose? To help participants design (or re-design) writing elements of their courses, making them more effective for students—and more efficient for themselves.

At the core of the Institute will be understanding what students learn in WRIT 1122 and WRIT 1133 courses, some of the theory and research underlying those courses, and how faculty can use that knowledge in the Majors or Common Curriculum courses they teach.

The Institute will cover
· The basic theoretical and practical knowledge of rhetoric and composing that WRIT students learn
· The writing strategies, concepts, and vocabularies that WRIT students develop
· What you should expect of students at DU and writing development during the college years
· Current research about writing practices in different disciplines
· Relationships between academic writing, professional writing and writing in the civic sphere
· Options for writing activities and assignments, including multimodal designs
· How to access/create materials that help students and save time
· How to respond and grade in ways that diminish time and frustration

The goal is to have participants end the week with newly-designed (or re-designed) writing assignments, materials, and practices that they can use with confidence in a course they're teaching in 2019-20.

The Institute will meet from 9:00 am to noon on five mornings, June 17-21. We'll provide refreshments and materials, with structured conversations and activities being the main mode of our sessions. There will be 2-3 hours of homework (with some reading/writing assignments) each of the first four afternoons. Participants will create camera-ready assignments and materials by the end of the week, sharing some of them with the group at our last meeting.

Funding and space are limited. We'll offer invitations to participants in two rounds: an early round of submissions by May 17 and a second round of submissions by May 31. (We'll reserve several openings for the second round.) Creating a cohort including faculty from several different departments will be an important selection criterion.

To apply for a place in the Institute, please complete the online application.

Questions? Please contact Doug Hesse at [email protected]

writ large, vol. 8

When a group of DU Writing Program faculty conceived of publishing WRIT Large in the fall of 2011, we envisioned a space to celebrate undergraduate writing and research, both from our own WRIT classes and in the writing students engage in across campus and beyond. Over the last 7 years and 7 volumes of WRIT Large, the faculty editors have worked with 63 student authors and 19 student editors in our efforts to make student writing more visible on the DU campus. In the process, we have collectively created a robust archive of outstanding student work, mostly in the form of a print journal.

This year, we want to reflect back and call attention to some of our favorite writing from the volumes we've published so far. In the coming months, we will showcase a trio of essays focusing on a theme we saw emerging from our pages. Without further ado, we present the first issue of volume 8: "Writing the Self."

2018 cccc regional conference

The University of Denver Writing Program was proud to host the 2018 CCCC Regional Summer Conference July 20-21, 2018. Over two hundred people from across the country attended the conference on the University of Denver campus. The program featured 6 workshops led by University of Denver faculty and staff, a Research and Teaching forum, 42 panels, and a keynote speech by Howard Tinberg, Professor of English at Bristol Community College. Howard's keynote can be viewed here. We're grateful for everyone who attended, as well as the planning efforts of NCTE, CCCC, and the DU Writing Program. 

Mission

The mission of the DU Writing Program is to create a robust culture of writing on campus by helping students develop the complex writing abilities needed in contemporary academic, professional and civic life, by helping faculty develop the knowledge and practices they need to support students in this development, and by providing nationally-recognized models for colleges and universities seeking exemplary practices in teaching and supporting writing.