The Summer Internship was a creative and stimulating experience, allowing us to directly develop Sweetland projects that we cared about. Over the course of the summer, we worked on big and small projects, including outreach to spring and summer courses and other events, tutoring session data compilation and organization, and developing writing resources.
Our two primary projects included creating a timeline of Sweetland’s history from its early days as the English Composition Board to its present life, and developing a new component of the Peer Tutor Program called Translingual Tutoring for Multilingual Writers (see related article on translingual peer tutoring).
The timeline includes visuals, images, scans of old publications and newsletter, and text to represent the history of Sweetland. It was really fun and informative to trace Sweetland’s history, learning about how it progressed to the center it is today.
The new peer tutoring initiative, Translingual Tutoring for Multilingual Writers, began as a conversation we had with a German class during a spring outreach visit about our services for students who speak languages other than English. We surveyed students and faculty, researched existing programs of this kind, and had the opportunity to speak directly with some scholars who work specifically on translingual tutorials.
We are so thankful to Naomi, Colleen, Molly, Lila, Aaron, Simone, Anne, Laura, Teri, Dave, Jing, and Lori for all their support, guidance, and feedback throughout the summer! We cannot wait to see how the programs develop over time.
Emily Caris (B.A. English Language & Literature, Minor in Urban Studies and Program in the Environment) currently lives in Seattle, Washington and is a community service site supervisor and workshop facilitator for the Seattle Community Court program.
Joshua Kim (B.A. with honors in English Language & Literature, Minor in Writing) is a MA/PhD Candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant in English at Penn State.