Interdepartmental Courses Taught through the Weissman Center and the SAW Program

I-212 “Peer Mentoring: Theory and Practice” (Speaking- and writing-intensive course) This course is an introduction to theories and practices of collaborative learning for students preparing to work as mentors and assistants in the SAW Program. Students draw on existing research, practice sessions, class discussion, and their own writing and speaking to craft their philosophies of peer mentoring and to develop effective practical strategies.

I-250 “Advanced Peer Mentoring: Research and Publication on Mentoring ESOL Students” (Speaking- and writing-intensive course) This course is for peer mentors to engage in more advanced scholarship on mentoring English speakers of other languages. What can we learn from existing writing center theory and what arguments stand to be reconsidered? How do we provide meaningful assistance without appropriating students' texts or becoming grammar editors? How can mentors who themselves are ESOL students draw on their experiences to enrich their sessions? To explore these and other questions, students read contemporary scholarship, engage in class conversation, and design their own research projects that culminate in writing an original article for submission to a writing center journal.

I-106 “Public Speaking for ESOL Students” (Speaking-intensive course) This course, designed for students whose first language is not English, focuses on identifying patterns and persuasive strategies in American political discourse and forming reasoned judgments about expressiveness. By situating public speeches/ texts in their cultural, political, and historical contexts, students will learn to evaluate the effects of culture on communication and communication on culture. We will ask, for example, how ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, religion, citizenship, nationality, and social status are bound to cultural patterns, and verbal/nonverbal codes. Students will also develop clarity and confidence in spoken communication through class presentations.

[Students in the January 2008 I-250 course simultaneously worked as mentors for students in I-106 to gain practical experience for course reflection. Professors Greenfield and Isgro will be presenting the positive results of this collaboration with an I-250 student at the North East Writing Centers Association (NEWCA) annual conference at the University of Vermont this spring]

I-104 “Public Speaking and Civic Discourse: Theory and Practice” (Speaking-intensive course) What makes for an effective public speech? Who are considered notable speakers? What rhetorical strategies do people use to support and/or influence one another? This course explores theories of civic discourse and the role of language in public life. We will investigate how ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and social status are bound to cultural patterns and to verbal and nonverbal codes. We will develop skills in applying the principles of effective public speaking in structured speaking situations. A number of public speeches will be analyzed to enable students to evaluate critically the effects of culture on communication and communication on culture.

I-134 “Bearing Witness: A Weissman Center for Leadership Colloquium” Held in conjunction with the Weissman Center's 2007-08 series "Bearing Witness," this course introduces students to the art of researching, reflecting on and debating controversial social topics. We will consider issues of testimony, the politics of advocacy, and acts of witnessing.