Leadership and Hands-On Learning

Opportunities to serve as a Teaching Assistant (TA)

A number of English and Creative Writing courses make use of student TAs every semester. The instructors and titles of these course vary every semester. Most of these opportunities are open to all students who wish to apply. A call for applications goes out once a semester (e.g. for Spring courses, the call will go out the previous Fall semester) and will appear on the English department email lists for majors, minors and concentrators, so make sure you check your email regularly. Students are compensated with course credit (1-4 credits depending on the length, size and level of the course) and it often is possible to have these credits count towards the major/minor/concentration. Please ask your academic adviser if to see if you qualify. Questions? Email the chair of the Department, Dr. Rutkowski: rutkowsk@geneseo.edu

Gandy Dancer

Gandy Dancer is a literary magazine, available online and in print, that publishes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual art. Edited by a rotating staff of students at SUNY Geneseo, Gandy Dancer is published twice yearly. Read Gandy Dancer online.

Internships

Geneseo's English majors have pursued internships in publishing, journalism, advertising, libraries and archives, arts organizations, and more. These experiences give students a chance to apply their communication skills in a professional setting. Internships can provide a close-up view of an organization, practical experience for building a resume, and networking for future career opportunities. Internships can take place locally during the semester—or anywhere in January or the summer months. Students typically work with one or two "field supervisors" with the sponsoring organization and also complete academic work (such as journals, portfolios, and self-reflective essays) with a faculty advisor. An internship can provide college credit (varying according to the number of hours onsite and on academic assignments). The English Department partners with the Career Design Center to help students identify current internship opportunities.

Sigma Tau Delta

Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, has over 900 active chapters both in the United States and abroad. Sigma Tau Delta's goals are to promote and improve all aspects of the English discipline, promote literacy, and provide members a sense of community. Becoming a member of the Geneseo chapter confers the distinction of achievement in the area of English Literature and Creative Writing.

We aim to foster community through literature, language, and writing. We also want to promote literacy and service-learning by volunteering with groups whose mission we share in. Finally, we want our students to be examples of academic engagement, good character, and citizenship.

Our Commitments

Every year, we devote our efforts to initiatives that promote literacy and learning in our community. Some of these commitments we devote ourselves to for just one year, but many of them we revisit each year due to their high rate of success and engagement.

Some of these initiatives include:

• Organizing the annual Sigma Tau Delta Lecture Series
• Advertising English and English-related events and community building on campus
• Helping with English advising and orientation
• Helping members receive funding and prepare their work to present at the national Sigma Tau Delta Convention
• Designing and selling English Department merchandise
• Collecting presents during the holiday season for families in need
• Donating to and raising awareness of a variety of charities whose goals align with the values of Sigma Tau Delta
• Volunteering with the annual Rochester Children's Book Festival

How to Join

In general, we will reach out to you! Sigma Tau Delta invites students in their second year or higher. In order to be eligible for membership, a student must be registered for the current semester and have completed ENGL 203 and at least 12 further credits in English at Geneseo (which can include FMST courses), and have an overall cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 and a cumulative GPA in English of at least 3.3.

Early every spring, we email every student who is eligible to join. To accept the invitation, there is a one-time fee of $65 which grants and covers membership for every remaining undergraduate semester, so we recommend joining as soon as you become eligible to gain the most potential benefit. Our induction ceremony and welcome usually takes place in April. If you're an eligible senior who wants to submit to the convention during the fall semester but didn't join in the previous spring, you're welcome to contact our faculty sponsor, Dr. Gillian Paku, to arrange membership off-cycle. Submissions for the convention are usually due in October. 

Recent Activities

2022: In late March, six current members attended the annual convention in person, which you can read about here: Sigma Tau Delta students present their work in Atlanta. In October, we hosted the first HalloWelles, a literary Halloween celebration in collaboration with the Geneseo English faculty. This year, Sigma Tau Delta supported ArcGLOW, a not-for-profit organization that offers critical services for people in Geneseo's community with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) such as transportation, life skills classes, career opportunities, and social support. Our goal was to get as many Geneseo students as possible to register as members of The Arc to secure them the funding they need for the services they provide. We ensured free membership for all Geneseo students.

2021: This year, our E-board dedicated itself to outreach, accessibility, and promotion of diversity. First and foremost, we expanded our presence on the internet and reached out directly to new English majors. We also ran a petition campaign to address the lack of diversity in the Humanities requirement at Geneseo and presented a roundtable on the topic of diversity in the Humanities at the digital Sigma Tau Delta convention in March, which you can read about here: English department students present at Sigma Tau Delta international convention.

Social Media

We maintain the large noticeboard in the second-floor hallway of Welles. Keep up to date with all the different events and initiatives Geneseo's chapter of Sigma Tau Delta is engaged in by following us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Contact Us

If you have questions about Sigma Tau Delta at Geneseo please email us or our advisor, Dr. Gillian Paku.

Writing Learning Center

Want to write better? WLC writing tutor services are free and available to all students. Whether you're new to college-level writing or an excellent writer, it's important to have a second pair of eyes on something you've written.

The WLC is open from now through finals week – we'd love to help you finish the semester strong with your writing projects and applications!  Find us in Fraser 208, next to Fraser Hall Library.

If you have any questions, please email Dr. Gillian Paku.

Conventions of College Writing

You can access the self-enrolling version of Conventions of College Writing here if you'd like to work independently or check up on details of academic sentence structure, punctuation, usage, grammar, research strategies, or major documentation styles. This OER resource has been edited for Geneseo students and will appear on your Canvas dashboard when you enroll.

We will help you with all types of writing assignments, including:

If you've ever asked a friend or roommate, "Does this sound okay to you?", visit us today!

Spring 2024 Hours

• During the Spring 2024 semester, our default mode of operation will be in-person, meeting in Fraser Hall, Room 208. Please enter via the door just inside Fraser Hall Library. Masks are optional. The WLC is also offering the options of Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, screensharing, and shared documents. Remote writing tutoring works well! Occasionally, tutors will offer entirely remote shifts, but in general, the choice of remote or in-person meetings will be yours when you book. 
• Sunday: 2:00-7:00 p.m.
• Monday – Thursday: 2:00-10:00 p.m.
• Friday and Saturday: closed.

Schedule an appointment

Visit wlc.geneseo.edu to select a tutor and appointment time using Navigate. The usual length of an appointment is 30 minutes. Meet Our Tutors.

1. Go to Navigate and sign in
2. Click on “Get Assistance” in the upper right
3. In the drop-down menu, select “Academic Support” and the relevant type of service: “Tutoring”
4. In the next drop-down menu, select “Writing Learning Center"
5. The system should show availabilities and you can select a day and time for an appointment with one of the WLC tutors. The usual length of an appointment is 30 minutes.
6. You can leave a note letting your tutor know if you'll be attending via videoconference rather than in person in Fraser 208.

You and your tutor will receive a confirmation email in your Geneseo email account and via an event that will appear on your Google Calendar. When the time comes for your appointment, you can meet your tutor in Fraser 208 or click on the link in that email or in the Calendar event to open a videoconference. Decide together whether you want the cameras or captioning on. 

Share a copy of your writing via Google docs; the tutor needs to be able to see your writing and you both need to be able to point to and edit it. All Geneseo students can access Google docs, and if you haven't used Google docs before, your tutor will help you.

Fill out the pre-session form to let your tutor know what you want to talk about

Current tutor schedules are live at wlc.geneseo.edu

Click Here To Meet Our Tutors

What to expect

You will meet (or videoconference) one-on-one with a trained tutor for 15 or 30 minutes, or for 60 minutes if you and the tutor both have the energy: writing is work! Tutors will not write your assignments. Instead, we will help you:

• Brainstorm
• Organize your thoughts
• Write a thesis
• Find and maintain your focus 
• Develop and support your ideas
• Clarify your argument
• Decide on grammar and style choices
• Navigate your right to your own language
• Address issues particular to non-native writers of English

Getting the most out of your visit

• Share your assignment sheet or prompt. 
• Share a printout or a digital copy of your work. Notes and outlines are useful if you don't have a rough or full draft yet. Your tutor will want to comment on and/or annotate your work, so they need a copy of it.
• Take notes while you're in the session: rely on a written record of your conversation with the tutor rather than on your memory.

After your appointment, follow up by:

• Booking another appointment: we're always happy to see you again for the same assignment.
• Seeking out a tutor you work well with.
• Giving us your feedback! Fill out this form

Notes

• Our work space is quiet.
• Fraser 208 is big enough for adequate social distancing. Tutors work one-on-one, and there are never more than two tutors scheduled simultaneously to maintain a safe environment.
• Our staff respects your confidentiality as well as your health.
• When you collaborate on your written work at the WLC, you are taking advantage of a service that almost everyone uses to their benefit in their academic career.

Please contact Dr. Gillian Paku (she/hers), Director, with any questions or comments, or at any time if you are interested in applying to work as a tutor: paku@geneseo.edu. The WLC actively seeks diversity when hiring and welcomes applications from all majors. Please note that hiring takes place in the spring of the academic year for positions beginning in the fall, so applications are typically due by early March.

Writing Contest

Entries for the 2024 Writing Contest are due by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 11, 2024.

Submit your best work written in 2023 or 2024 for the annual Geneseo Writing Awards in the following categories:

• Research Paper
• Critical Essay
• First-Year Critical Writing: INTD 105
• Essay in Diversity Studies
• Essay in Black and Africana Studies
• Self-Reflective Writing
• Drama and Screenwriting
• Poetry
• Literary Fiction
• Creative Non-Fiction

Guidelines

• Submit 2024 Geneseo Writing Contest entries online at go.geneseo.edu/writingcontest by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, April 11. As submissions will be judged anonymously, entrants’ names cannot appear on the manuscripts.
• Upload your entry as a Word doc(x), PDF, or video file. Please do not share a Google doc, since it cannot be composed or reviewed anonymously. 
• You may submit separate entries to more than one contest category, but you may submit only one entry in any category. No simultaneous submissions: you cannot submit the same piece of work to more than one category in the contest.
• Judges might move your entry to a more relevant category. 
• Although the English Department organizes the Writing Contest, it is open to any current Geneseo student, and we strongly encourage you to submit excellent writing on any subject, from any academic program.
• In 2024, winners of the Writing Contest will be honored at the English Department awards ceremony on Study Day, Thursday, May 9.
• Please address any questions to Dr. Gillian Paku, Director of the Writing Learning Center: paku@geneseo.edu.

Contest Categories

Research Paper

This category recognizes student work engaging systematically and centrally with research. The research can be primary (e.g., archival or exhibit sources) and/or secondary (e.g., scholarly or argument sources). Include citations and a formatted bibliography in any standard documentation style. The maximum length of the body of the essay is ten pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font; bibliography pages are extra. If you submit an essay that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor. You can excerpt a longer essay, but do not exceed the contest page limit.

Critical Essay

Entries in this category focus upon literary texts, individual case studies, and other closely interpreted documents. Although such entries might include research elements, research is not the central focus. The maximum length of essays in this category is ten pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font. If you submit an essay that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor. You can excerpt a longer essay, but do not exceed the contest page limit.

First-Year Critical Writing: INTD 105

Essays in this category should be a version of work submitted in Spring 2023, Fall 2023, or Spring 2024 for a section of INTD 105, our first-year critical writing and thinking course. The maximum length of the body of the essay is ten pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font; any bibliography pages are extra. If you submit an essay that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor. You can excerpt a longer essay, but do not exceed the contest page limit.

Essay in Diversity Studies

Essays in this category should engage with Geneseo’s definition of diversity in our mission statement: “Diversity at Geneseo is defined in part as differences in individuals that are manifested in their race, ethnicity, national origin, language heritage, world-view, religion, gender, sexual orientation, class, physical ability, learning style, geographic background, mental health, age, and relationship status.”

The maximum length of the body of the essay is ten pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font; any bibliography pages are extra. If you submit an essay that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor. You can excerpt a longer essay, but do not exceed the contest page limit.

The Essay in Diversity Studies honors a former Geneseo faculty member and is awarded as the Jérome de Romanet de Beaune Award for an Essay in Diversity Studies.

Essay in Black and Africana Studies

It is not necessary for the paper to have been completed as part of a BLKS course and applicants need not be Black and Africana Studies minors or majors. Papers are read for clarity of argument, sophistication of analysis, quality of writing, and for applicable control of data and/or research material. Essays and other brief papers are welcome and strongly encouraged; the maximum length for a paper is 20 pages including notes. Additionally, if applicable, please give a short summary (of a few sentences to a paragraph) of the context of the assignment for which the paper was written--particularly the name of the course and the gist of the assignment prompt.

Self-Reflective Writing

The format of entries in this new category is flexible, but all submissions should connect academic coursework, broadly defined, to students' reflections on themselves as dynamic learners. Self-reflective writing often demonstrates improved metacognitive awareness of a discipline’s major “moves,” connects thoughts and feelings to an improved ability to generalize and transfer insights to a new situation, or leads to “socially responsible and globally aware citizens” (Geneseo mission statement). The maximum length of the body of the essay is ten pages (adapted from the original format where necessary), double-spaced in a 12-point font; bibliography pages are extra. If you submit an essay that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor. You can excerpt a longer essay, but do not exceed the contest page limit.

Drama and Screenwriting

Entries in this category can include a play, screenplay, or teleplay of a maximum of twenty pages. Entries should prioritize scripted speech rather than excessive improvisation,  choreography, or stage directions. If you submit a piece that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor.

Poetry

Please enter ONLY ONE POEM in this category, formatted as you please. Maximum length is ten pages.

Literary Fiction

The maximum length of entries in this category is twenty pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font. If you submit a piece that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor.

Creative Non-Fiction

The maximum length of entries in this category is twenty pages, double-spaced in a 12-point font. If you submit a piece that was already submitted for classwork, you are encouraged to edit it appropriately for readers who are not your class instructor.