The Virtual Writing Center

Wanaque Academic Center

Passaic County Community College's Main Campus is located in downtown Paterson, New Jersey. We also have satellite campuses at the Wanaque Academic Center in Wanaque, the Public Safety Academy in Wayne, and the newest site, our Passaic Academic Center in Passaic.

The under-construction PCCC Writing Center will be physically located on the Paterson campus. Fortunately, all of the WI courses redesigned as part of the Title V program will have online technologies that are important to these groups of students.

The use of eTutoring, Blackboard, LibGuides and ePortfolios are some of additional components of WI courses that Title V can support monetarily by providing software, support and compensation for faculty who choose to participate in the Initiative.

Since WI courses will be offered eventually at all four locations and also online, we are considering more ways to make writing assistance available on the Net through a "virtual" teaching and learning center website.

We are also preparing a schedule to offer face-to-face support at Wanaque to WI courses.

WI courses are scheduled to begin being offered on the Passaic campus in fall 2010.

Of course, all students in these courses from any location will be able to use the Writing Center in Paterson at any time.

What's In A Name?

Is a writing-intensive course a WI or an IW course?

Is the CWE different from the old GWE?

The official registration designation, of necessity, is IW, but since the rest of the world refers to these courses as WI - for "writing intensive" - we will continue to use that designation in our resources.

In addition, the PCCC writing exam that is a graduation requirement for all students is getting a new name.

The Graduate Writing Exam (GWE) is now officially the College Writing Exam (CWE). 


What's in the exam name change? Our own surveys and statistics show that students perceive of the exam as something they need to do before graduation, and so tend to leave it until their final semesters at the college. A push will be made this year to encourage students to take the exam earlier, and the name change is part of that effort.

Students are eligible to take the College Writing Exam when they have successfully completed Composition II and at least half of their department’s credit requirements for graduation (30 - 35 credits).

It is strongly recommended that students take the CWE as soon as possible after completing these requirements. Students who leave the CWE until the end of their time at PCCC may find themselves unable to graduate due to failure on this exam.

For updated information on the exam, see our CWE LibGuide site at http://pccc.libguides.com/cwe