2 Thanks for All You Do in PWR
08 December 2023
We’re feeling especially fortunate to have all of you teaching with us this year, and we’ve been holding on to that spirit of gratitude while pulling these materials together to share. This Instructor Sourcebook is intended to complement the resources available on the PWR website and in the PWR Instructor Archive, which moved to Sharepoint just in time for Autumn 2023. The whole PWR Admin Team (listed below) has helped with the various materials in this Sourcebook, but I want to particularly thank Furkan Kir, Matthew Hitchman, and Amanda Steinberg for helping this project get to the finish line.
Whether you’re new to PWR or have been teaching with us for a few years, we want to be sure you have what you need to design an ethical, meaningful writing course within the PWR’s philosophy and set of commitments. You should all already be part of the pwr_community@u.washington.edu email list, which is where we send out our weekly newsletter, a key space for program-related communications, including information about program policies as well as upcoming PWR events and opportunities, such as the Portfolio Workshops for students that we co-sponsor with CLUE Tutoring each quarter.
Many of you already know that in 2023-24 we launched a coordinated professional development initiative across PWR and PWAC. Throughout the year the Writing Programs will be showcasing a range of professional development opportunities and we will publicize a select set of PD opportunities on the WPs’ professional development page. Instructors should feel free to seek out PD opportunities relevant to their own goals and interests, and you are not limited to what is specifically listed on our PD page.
New to the Writing Programs in AY23-24 is a series of Teaching Cafes, many of which are coming in direct response to questions, wish-lists, and instructor requests. All of them include food and beverages and feature a range of informal and formal opportunities to talk and connect with others interested in similar teaching-related questions and conversations. Anyone in the department who is interested in that day’s conversation are welcome to join us for some food, informal conversation, and resource-sharing. (We can zoom you in too with our set up in A-11, although we don’t yet have a good way of beaming coffee and bagels through the ethernet!)
It’s important to note that only PWR instructors who are teaching a course they have taught in a previous year are required to participate in our WPs Professional Development. If you participated in a training or orientation at the start of Autumn Quarter, you are always welcome to join any teaching conversation of interest to you, but you are not required to.
Since 2017, PWR has been sponsoring collaborative projects aimed at developing pedagogical resources for and/or supporting research on diversity, equity, and inclusion in composition pedagogy. We would love for any of you interested in cooking up potential collaborations or resource-development to reach out about ideas or to submit proposals on a rolling basis. We’re aiming to support between one to three projects over the course of the year, and you can check out past projects on the WPs’ Awards page.
Warmly,
Stephanie Kerschbaum
PWR Director