How the Fellowship Scheme Works

The Royal Literary Fund Fellowship scheme was conceived with the intention of placing professional writers in higher education institutions to offer writing support to all students. The principal aim of the Fellow's work is to foster good writing practice across all disciplines and media. Each post is hosted by a particular department. This may be an academic department/faculty (either in the Arts or in the Sciences) or a central 'service' department (such as the learning support centre or careers office).

Typically, a student will see the Fellow, one-to-one, for up to an hour. The student will book into an available slot in the Fellow's published timetable. S/he may return several times during the year, providing the Fellow feels progress is being made. Other types of interaction with students, such as group work, seminars, etc., may be undertaken by the Fellow during the year (though some participants in the scheme may prefer to stick to individual coaching).

Students consult with the Fellow on a purely voluntary basis, although they may initially be responding to a tutor's recommendation.

 

The Fellow's Work
How to make appropriate use of the Fellow's time is made clear to students when the Fellowship is promoted at the start of the year. Students are discouraged from asking the Fellow to edit or correct work before it is handed in or to seek the Fellow's opinion on the marks given by tutors. Ideally, the student will focus on an early draft of their writing or just a section of that draft, or notes on a title, and, during the course of the consultation, will seek the Fellow's advice on particular aspects of style or technique (not content, as Fellows are neither subject specialists nor substitute tutors). Pieces of written work may be dropped off at the Fellow's office a few days ahead of a booked session.

In the experience of RLF Fellows and partner institutions to date, students at all levels of study (freshers, finalists, as well as postgraduates) see the benefits of learning about good writing practice from a professional author.

Guiding Principles

Appointments are made on the basis of the RLF's ‘Guiding Principles' –

 

1. the aim of the RLF Fellowship is to foster good writing practice among students through one-to-one coaching;
2. while working in a collaborative arrangement alongside staff at the HEI, the Fellow remains self-employed, working outside departmental lines of reporting;
3. the work of the Fellow is designed to provide ‘added value' to whatever systems of student support exist at the HEI; the promotion and operation of the Fellowship must reflect its independence from these other systems;
4. the details of the Fellow's work with each student are confidential and will not be shared with staff at the HEI without the express permission of the student; however, at the year end, a statistical overview of the students seen by the Fellow, along with anonymous case studies, will be provided to the host department;
5. the Fellow will determine his/her own working practices (eg structure of timetable, method of taking appointments etc) although s/he shall always have due regard to the RLF's best practice guidelines and to the terms of the RLF letter of appointment;
6. while on site, the Fellow should show due regard for the HEI's equal opportunities/ diversity policies, its code of practice, regulations and its health and safety policies;
7. the Fellow will normally be expected to work with students on a one-to-one basis but may work with groups or deliver occasional seminars/ workshops/ lectures if s/he so wishes and with the consent of staff;
8. the main focus of the Fellow's work will be on the development of student writing skills/ academic literacy (rather than on creative self-expression as with the conventional writer's residency);
9. the Fellowship service may be promoted to students at all levels of ability (above ‘remedial') and across the disciplines;
10. the Fellow is not required to undertake tasks beyond the remit of the Fellowship, for example, dyslexia support, and basic skills or EFL/ESL tuition – nor, at any time, to perform duties normally carried out by staff, such as, course design or delivery, marking, invigilating;
11. the Fellow is free to negotiate paid work from the HEI (or any other party) outside the days allocated to Fellowship work;
12. the Fellow retains all intellectual property rights in materials that s/he writes for use by students/staff at the HEI, except that the RLF shall have free and unrestricted (non-commercial) use of these materials (for its own purposes) in perpetuity.