Welcome to the Archive of the Pilot Year of the Writing@UW Fellowship

The Writing@UW Fellowship pilot program ran from January to June 2024, marking an important milestone in writing instruction at the University of Washington. This initiative supports faculty members who integrate writing into their courses by providing a collaborative space to (re)imagine how writing functions in their disciplines and classrooms.

During this two-quarter program, held during Winter and Spring quarters of the 2023-2024 academic year, fellows engaged in workshops, discussions, and hands-on activities that explored innovative approaches to teaching writing in their discipline. With an emphasis on criticality, equity, inclusion, and belonging, the fellowship aimed to:

  • Equip faculty with strategies to design effective writing assignments tailored to their disciplines.
  • Foster critical reflection on the role of writing in supporting student learning.
  • Encourage the integration of antiracist and inclusive pedagogies into teaching practices.
  • Build a community of practice among faculty dedicated to enhancing writing instruction.
  • Empower fellows to act as advocates for effective and equitable writing instruction within their departments, inspiring colleagues to adopt new approaches and rethink how writing is taught in their fields.

Throughout the program, participants collaborated with peers, shared experiences, and developed materials that continue to inform the writing ecology at the University of Washington. The fellowship’s pilot year laid the groundwork for future cohorts, setting a precedent for how writing instruction can evolve to meet the diverse needs of students and faculty.

Explore this archive to learn more about the workshops, resources, and transformative work produced during the inaugural year of the Writing@UW Fellowship. Questions about this fellowship program? Please email Director of Writing Megan Callow.

The Learning Goals

  • Understand and teach the fundamental relationship between writing and learning
  • Learn about and use the UW guidelines for teaching W courses
  • Use writing as a means to leverage criticality, equity, inclusion, and belonging in their classes
  • Develop strategies and materials for effective writing instruction
  • Complete a project that enhances writing instruction in their course
  • Create a community of teachers who share the same goal: excellence in writing instruction
  • Become an advocate for writing in their department or program

The Projects

Fellows in the 2024 cohort designed and implemented an intensive alteration of or addition to their W course. Read summaries of each project below and click on the links for a full description, including downloadable teaching materials:

  • Rachel Chapman is designing and facilitating a faculty workshop on embodied knowledge as it relates to writing pedagogy.
  • Laura Chrisman is revising teaching materials to be more explicit about the culture and purpose of writing in an African Literature course.
  • Emily Levesque is scaffolding the composition of a publishable scientific paper in Astronomy with smaller weekly assignments and activities around writing.
  • Lucas Meza is overhauling a series of lab report assignments in Mechanical Engineering to enhance student choice and investment in a topic on materials engineering.
  • Anne Searcy is developing two new Music History assignments for real-world audiences: one a researched contribution to a compilation 19th-century virtuosos and one an entry in the style of the Reddit page, r/askhistorians.
  • Janine Slaker is transforming a research project in an Integrated Social Science course to expand critical thinking and inclusion in relation to social science research.
  • Yen-Chu Weng is developing more in-depth guidance to enhance engagement with a "weekly intellectual journals" assignment in an Environmental Issues in East Asia course.