NEH Grant to Help Enrich CSUMB’s Reading and Writing Curriculum

SEASIDE, Ca., February 15, 2019 – California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB’s) Communication Across the Disciplines program has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant that will help improve reading and writing instruction across all majors at CSUMB.

The grant, totaling $99,441 and awarded under NEH’s Humanities Initiatives at Hispanic-Serving Institutions category, will help fund a three-year project entitled “Improving Learning and Achievement with Reading/Writing-Enriched Curriculum (RWEC) in the Disciplines.”

The project will initiate a sustainable program of systematic reflection and improvement of reading and writing instruction across all majors at CSUMB while extending work currently in progress within lower-division general education requirements. Furthermore, the project will expand faculty development on reading and writing instruction and include all faculty, in all disciplines, and all levels of instruction.

Communications Across the Disciplines associate professor, Nelson Graff.

“We all continue to learn to read and write as we encounter and have to produce new kinds of texts in new situations,” said Communications Across the Disciplines associate professor, Nelson Graff. “This project supports faculty in the disciplines as they reflect on what skilled reading and writing look like in their majors and professions, then scaffold instruction across their majors to help students develop those skills.”

The goal of this infusion is that students reach their senior capstone experience with the reading, writing, and critical thinking skills necessary to succeed in completing those research and writing-intensive projects.

The NEH announced a total of $14.8 million in grants in December of 2018 that will support 253 humanities projects across the nation in 44 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.