The First-Year Writing Program is one of the three arms of the Institute for Writing Studies. All St. John's University students are required to take ENG 1000C "English Composition," and the First-Year Writing program is responsible for designing and teaching the curriculum for this course. Directed by Dr. Carmen Kynard, the First-Year Writing program is comprised of full-time faculty members, adjunct professors, and a small number of teaching assistants in the St. John's College English Department's Doctor of Arts program. Beginning in 2008 our full-time faculty were given tenure-track positions; they are now housed in the Institute for Core Studies within St. John's College.  The Institute for Core Studies also contains faculty who teach two other first-year core courses, Discover New York and Scientific Inquiry.

Our First-Year Writing faculty are dedicated to the art of first-year writing instruction and bring an exciting range of expertise to the University, publishing scholarly and creative work in the areas of composition, literacy, new media, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, literary studies, and pedagogy.

All faculty design their own courses, which are connected by a shared set of learning objectives that the faculty have collaboratively designed. Students have opportunities to explore a wide range of writing projects: oral histories, neighborhood and family portraits, cultural critiques, educational biographies, inquiries into popular culture, and various research projects. Students engage in writing summaries, analyses, arguments, and various other genres (editorials, reviews, collaborative research, and even handmade books). Rather than adopt textbooks, our faculty take the extra time to personalize their courses, selecting readings and materials that best fit the needs and backgrounds of St. John's students.

All students exchange their writing with their peers every week in online and face-to-face formats, learning the art of constructive feedback along the way. Each student writes an average of forty pages in every first-year writing course, plus a number of additional peer critiques and self-evaluations. Our faculty meet with students for one-on-one consultations periodically throughout the semester. The First-Year Writing program also conducts a variety of assessment initiatives and faculty development activities every semester.

Carmen Kynard
Director, First-Year Writing
Queens (718) 990-8033
kynardc@stjohns.edu