Council of Writing Program Administrators

The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and The New York Times invite the submission of case studies for Civic Engagement in the First Year of College, a new volume in The First-Year Experience Monograph Series. This publication will describe programs and courses that develop students’ civic literacy and engagement and will offer strategies for designing, implementing, and assessing such initiatives.

At last March's CCCC in Chicago, I attended a number of sessions on freshman writing courses that were using civic engagement deliberately and effectively. I've written to those presenters directly, and I'd like to hear from other professors whose work should be featured in the monograph. The Call is posted in the CFP Forum. Please consider submitting and/or forward it to colleagues.

Call for Submissions

Civic Engagement in the First Year of College

The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and The New York Times invite the submission of case studies for Civic Engagement in the First Year of College, a new volume in The First-Year Experience Monograph Series. This publication will describe programs and courses that develop students’ civic literacy and engagement and will offer strategies for designing, implementing, and assessing such initiatives.

Civic engagement is not learned as a discreet set of outcomes; it must be experienced and learned in an integrated context. Successful civic engagement initiatives encompass four strands: (a) civic literacy, knowledge of the principles of democracy and of the history and the Constitution of the United States; (b) democratic/citizenship skills and political involvement; (c) experiential learning; and (d) critical thinking and reflection.