Fall 2011 Writing Intensive Courses

Today is Convocation at PCCC, so it's the last day that classrooms will be empty before the semester begins Thursday.

There are 18 Writing Intensive course sections this semester of the WI courses that have been developed over the past three years.

Students at PCCC have a requirement to take one or two WI courses based on their degree program.

WI courses available to students this semester

AE-101-OL1	Appreciation of Art	Thoubboron
BS-102-ME1	Biology II	Greidanus
CT-101-WE1	Critical Thinking	Hillringhouse
EN-205-M02	Intro to Literature	Redman-Waldeyer
EN-205-OL1	Intro to Literature	Klopfenstein
ENS-106-M01	Public Speaking	Risher
HI-101-ME2	Western Civilization I	Brozyna
HI-101-OL2	Western Civilization I	Jenkins
HI-102-W02	Western Civilization II	Drakulich
MU-106-OL2	Appreciation of Music	Ayala
PH-101-M02	Intro to Philosophy	Fruncillo
PL-101-ME1	Intro to Political Science	Getso
PS-101-ME2	Intro to Psychology	Termanini
PS-101-OL3	Intro to Psychology	Cianci
PS-101-P02	Intro to Psychology	Page
PS-101-W03	Intro to Psychology	Murphy
SC 104-M01	Environmental Science	Baranowski
SO-202-M01	Cultural Anthropology	Burkart

High School Connections 2

Professor Della Fera presenting at the Connections seminar.

Last week, the Writing Initiative held its second two-day High School Connections seminar. One component of the Writing Initiative is to make connections with the area high schools and share with them what we are doing with the teaching of writing across disciplines.

We have held two Connections seminars this summer for a dozen high school teachers. We invited teachers in all disciplines and got registrations from teachers of English, social studies, business, Spanish.

Participating schools included Clifton HS, Passaic County Technical Institute, Wayne Valley HS, Manchester Regional HS, the Paterson Pre-Collegiate Teaching Academy and JFK High School in Paterson.

In these sessions, teachers shared best practices and lessons that they use in their classrooms.

Amongst the topics we discussed during the seminars, we asked participants to consider these:

• What are the top 5 things PCCC should know about what your school and students are doing in regards to writing?
• Does your school have: a writing center; writing across the curriculum program; portfolios; or writing magazine?
• What technology works and doesn't work in your classroom?
• What would you like to know about the expectations that PCCC has for entering students?
• What might a college (PCCC and others) offer to your school that would improve your ability to use writing in the disciplines?

Using technology to help teach writing is a popular topic but most of the high schools have limitations on their Net access, especially to things like blogs and podcasts. We asked participants to check their school's access to a list of sites linked on our website.

We hope to continue the conversation next year with some participants and their schools. Several of the teachers who attended also teach as adjuncts for PCCC in our dual enrollment program. The dual enrollment program offers area high school students to take PCCC courses and receive college credit in a number of subjects.

We continue to update our Connections online resources that were used during the seminars and added to by the participants.

During the 2010-2011 academic year, the Initiative will be making additional connections to the writing center and writing programs at the 4-year colleges that our students often transfer to after completing their Associate degree at PCCC.

Visit the Connections website

Putting the Lib Into Our LibGuides

This week I offered a LibGuides Advanced workshop for the PCCC Librarians.

Librarians have been a part of the Initiative's use of the guides since we started using them in 2008.

Starting with the PCCC Library's own LibGuide, we introduced them to the software.

Glen Bencivengo was the "early adopter" on the library staff and he created the original guide for the first Writing Intensive course we developed, Western Civilization II.

The plan has always been that every WI course would have a LibGuide that would be created as a collaboration between the faculty redesigning the course and the librarian who works with that subject area.

A number of guides have been created by the library staff and I used that group as a sounding board for developing a list of beginning and more advanced LibGuide skills for workshops that I plan to offer this fall to our college community.

In this advanced group, we focused more on design elements, formatting, HTML code and scripts.

My own guides includes a meta-guide on using LibGuides that I use for training and workshop presentations and that has also been used by other colleges as a starting place for their guides.

The LibGuides software encourages sharing guides and content. When you create a new guide, it asks if you want to use another guide in the system as a starting place and offers you a way to ask permission of the owner.

Currently, there are 104,451 guides by 22,921 librarians at 1580 libraries worldwide. Even if you don't subscribe to the service or create your own guides, they are a tremendous resource for students and faculty at the secondary and higher ed levels.

Here are some examples of LibGuides that focus on the "lib" part from our staff:

• Citing Your Sources
• Electronic Books (eBooks)
• Information Literacy Guide for EN 101 and other applications of Information Literacy
• Library of Congress Classification
• Library Research
• Ethics and Law in Radiologic Sciences - Guide to Resources

Two New Writing Intensive Courses For This Fall

Two new Writing Intensive (WI) course sections will be offered for the first time this fall. Thirteen different courses will be offered as WI this fall in eighteen course sections. Most courses are offered face to face, but there are also 5 sections offered online as noted below.

ENS 106 M01 Public Speaking will be taught by Professor Risher.

This course prepares students for effective public speaking presentations. Students research, organize, write, and deliver a variety of speeches designed to inform, persuade, motivate, and entertain in diverse public settings.

For more information, see the Public Speaking LibGuide

BS-102-ME1 Biology II will be taught by Professor Greidanus. 

It is the basic study of representative organisms of the five kingdoms, with an emphasis on classification, differential features, and reproduction. For the plant and animal kingdoms, it covers fundamentals of development, physiological control systems, organ systems, nutrition, movement, ecology, and selected biological problems of representative organisms. The laboratory sessions include dissections and experimental studies of selected representative organisms for all kingdoms.

For more information, see the Biology II Libguide


Complete list of WI courses available to students this fall

AE-101-OL1	Appreciation of Art	Thoubboron
BS-102-ME1	Biology II	Greidanus
CT-101-WE1	Critical Thinking	Hillringhouse
EN-205-M02	Intro to Literature	Redman-Waldeyer
EN-205-OL1	Intro to Literature	Klopfenstein
ENS-106-M01	Public Speaking	Risher
HI-101-ME2	Western Civilization I	Brozyna
HI-101-OL2	Western Civilization I	Jenkins
HI-102-W02	Western Civilization II	Drakulich
MU-106-OL2	Appreciation of Music	Ayala
PH-101-M02	Intro to Philosophy	Fruncillo
PL-101-ME1	Intro to Political Science	Getso
PS-101-ME2	Intro to Psychology	Termanini
PS-101-OL3	Intro to Psychology	Cianci
PS-101-P02	Intro to Psychology	Page
PS-101-W03	Intro to Psychology	Murphy
SC 104-M01	Environmental Science	Baranowski
SO-202-M01	Cultural Anthropology	Burkart

The Bookstore Has Moved

The PCCC Bookstore has moved across the street to a new, larger location. They are now located at 125 Broadway Suite 104 on the ground floor of the Broadway Parking Garage complex (across from Wendy's and next to the DMV).


The 3100 square-foot facility is about 20 per cent larger than the former location, and has more room for clothing, backpacks, electronics, printer ink cartridges, and other peripheral supplies. A larger stockroom will permit the bookstore to keep more books and other supplies in stock.


Back-to-School Hours (Starts Aug. 28)
Mon-Fri 9:00 am 7:30 pm
Sat. 9:00 am 12 noon


Visit the PCCC Bookstore Online

IWCA Summer Institute

I (Elizabeth Nesius) attended the International Writing Center Association Summer Institute last month, held in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma.

This annual, 6-day summer workshop is sponsored by the International Writing Center Association and is designed and led each year by a variety of writing center administrators from around the world. This year's institute was led by Michele Euodice of the University of Oklahoma (the host institution), Geneva Canino of the University of Oklahoma, Dan Emery of the University of Oklahoma, Kristen Garrison of Midwestern State University, Roberta Kjesrud--president of the IWCA, Dawn Mendoza of Dean College, Tara Nielsen of the University of Oklahoma, Moira Ozias of the University of Oklahoma, Ben Rafoth of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Karen Rowan of California State University-San Bernardino, Lori Salem of Temple University, and Nathalie Singh-Corcoran of West Virginia University.

It focuses on development for writing center administrators, with sessions covering all aspects of running a writing center, including writing center missions and philosophies, budgets, tutor training, diversity and writing centers, assessment, research, and writing center marketing. In addition, time is given each day for writing center personnel to come up with plans of action to implement new ideas in their own centers, for research and writing, and for special interest group discussions (SIGs).

This intense workshop is a great opportunity for new writing center administrators to learn from seasoned directors and for the more experienced to get new ideas and recharge. It also provides the ability to network and make lasting connections with other writing centers and writing programs around the world.

I left the workshop with a notebook full of ideas and plans for how to put many of them into action. Some of the sessions I found most useful were the ones on marketing a writing center, research, assessment, and tutor development. Because our Center is still somewhat new--only 2 years old--and because of the nature of our program, marketing is a little bit difficult. However, I have plans for brochures, a writing contest, and a reading on the National Day on Writing. While there, I also developed a new student survey to assess not only student satisfaction but also their understanding of the writing process, and I added some new material to our online tutor training module in Blackboard. I also came home with a long bibliography of new books to order for my Center and some great links for our website.

The International Writing Center Association is an organization that brings together and offers professional development opportunities to writing center personnel around the world. For more information about or to join the IWCA, go to www.writingcenters.org.