“We meet the students where they are, to help them get to where they need to be. We are passionate about supporting our students and want to provide opportunities for them to grow and succeed.”
Ryan Shepard
Ryan Shepherd is director of first-year composition at NIU, a course taken by most students as ENGL 103 during fall semester of their first year and ENGL 203 during the spring semester. The student-centered approach to this course is reflected in many ways, including teaching students the importance of self-reflection.
“In ENGL 103, the students write narratives and do research. Then, we ask them to step back and reflect carefully on why they did the things that they did,” said Shepherd. “Reflection is about 50% of their grade. We want them to become their own best teachers, so when they leave the class, they can recognize new writing situations and make the same kind of thoughtful decisions as they respond to them.”
Lizzy Goberville is an English major at NIU – a decision that was influenced by taking this course.
“My ENGL 103 class was a very positive experience. I had originally come to NIU for biology, but I really loved writing papers,” said Goberville. “The narrative paper where you get to write about yourself and learn about creative writing made me realize, ‘I should be doing English as my major.’ So, that class actually led me switch my major.”
The first semester course also is offered as ENGL 103P, which incorporates curriculum geared toward students in the CHANCE Program and students who come in with a GPA lower than 3.0.
“We often see the biggest progress in ENGL 103P. Students who come into those classes may have been previously told they’re bad writers – and unfairly so,” said Shepherd. “Many of the students may just be inexperienced writers, and we have the opportunity in our 103P classes to really build up that confidence, which goes a long way.”
Caitlin Gamble and Ashley Palmer are co-coordinators of Writers’ Workshop at NIU, which supports ENGL 103P students. Writers’ Workshop offers individualized sessions where students can focus on the writing skills they want to learn. In addition, this student resource fosters collaboration and sharing of ideas.
“We have diverse opinions and diverse writers, and we provide students the opportunity to share their ideas together. It is fun to see them grow more confident in sharing their writing and seeing that all these different kinds of writing are valuable,” said Gamble. “We want to give them a place on campus where they can feel comfortable practicing and sharing their writing.”
ENGL 103P students often have their writing published in Contemporary Voices, a text utilized for instruction in the course. Furthermore, these students often pay it forward by helping other students, after they complete this course.
“A lot of our previous students come back to work as student writers in the Writers’ Workshop, and we enjoy seeing them grow into a part of the NIU community,” said Gamble.
Goberville has worked in the Writers’ Workshop since fall 2022, after completing ENGL 103.
“It is great to work with students who really care about their grades and want to improve themselves,” said Goberville. “I’ve been able to help students with how to start an essay or brainstorm a topic, and it has been nice to help them learn these skills.”
Moving to a zero-cost textbook format for ENGL 103, designing classrooms with laptop carts and computer access for all students, and creating an open-source repository are some of the ways the Department of English works to support students.
“We have been collecting and curating open-source materials for our faculty to use. These are materials with creative, common licensing so we can modify, edit and redistribute them,” said Eric Hoffman, assistant director of first-year composition. “The new repository we are using for open access materials essentially is the same engine that Wikipedia uses, and we hope to leverage this environment and use it to help publish student essays in natively electronic spaces.”
“First-year composition is such an important part of our department and mission,” said Scott Balcerzak, Department of English chair. “These courses support first-year students as they transition into college, respecting the students and where they came from and helping them empower themselves. This program promotes public facing scholarship and public facing writing in a university, which is so key to building students’ confidence.”
Robust instructor training, professional development and continual evaluation are important behind-the-scenes components of the success of this program.
Eric Hoffman
“Several times a week, we talk about questions and concerns, we talk about pedagogy. It is important to provide a high level of support to our instructors,” said Hoffman. “Also, we do programmatic assessment every semester. We trace our data and look to see that our students’ writing is improving.”
In addition, the department utilizes Navigate to identify students who may need additional support, as part of their ongoing efforts to best serve first-year composition students.
“Our faculty are trained to not wait until Navigate asks them if something is going on, but to use it proactively,” said Hoffman. “We try to use all available resources, including the counseling center and student advisors, to help not just students in our classes, but identify where issues might be impacting students in other areas.”
Making sure all students are represented and served is a top priority for the department and this program.
“We try to integrate linguistic justice practices into our writing classes, especially when it comes to grading policies, to make sure we aren’t docking people that may be using different varieties of English,” said Shepherd. “We try to look more mindfully at the ways people are communicating ideas, instead of trying to use specific varieties of English that might not be common to all of our students.”
“First-year composition has been a leader in diversity, equity and inclusion within the classroom. This is always something that is central, with NIU being a first-generation student serving university,” said Balcerzak. “The leadership of the department has turned to this team to help with those discussions and think about this for other classes as well.”
First-year composition students also can participate in the annual Showcase of Student Writing. Leading up to this annual event, students work in teams to identify and research issues or opportunities in local communities. During the event, students present their research findings to an audience including other students, faculty, deans and local community members.
“The mayors of DeKalb and Sycamore have attended the event, because it’s such a good kind of exploration of local issues and topics,” said Hoffman. “You cannot substitute the kind of energy you get in that environment, and it is great to see the light switch moment when the students recognize their research really matters to the community.”
