Our Winter School 2025 will be held at the Ashoka University Campus between 30th January and 4th February. In 2025, we are offering three schools simultaneously: (1) The Winter School for Research Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences (for PhD, Masters and ASP students at Ashoka University) (2) Professional Communication in English (for Ashoka University Staff and Students), and (3) The Art of Scientific Writing (for Ashoka University students in the Sciences). Additionally, we are offering optional workshops covering niche areas in research and critical thinking in the humanities and social sciences. For details and information on how to apply, please look at the course catalogue at the link below.
CWC’s comprehensive teaching support includes ELT initiatives, academic and course-specific workshops, and specialised research writing schools conducted throughout the year. Recognizing the importance of English Language Teaching (ELT) as the sole medium of instruction at Ashoka, CWC is committed to enhancing student proficiency in the language through comprehensive, year-long support in initiatives like the Academic Bridge Programme, two four-credit courses and personalised one-on-one sessions. Notably, the team published a faculty resource guide on identifying, teaching, and assessing ELT students, underlining strategies for modifying course material and assessment rubrics.
This year, the team conducted workshops on editing, proofreading, and punctuation during the Winter School on Research Writing. A Summer School on Professional Communication in English was also executed successfully for the third year in a row.
Additionally, the ELT team published a resource for faculty members and TFs on identifying, teaching, and assessing ELT students in their classrooms, and conducted a workshop to communicate this information. The guide included recommendations such as modifying course material, rethinking assessment rubrics, and rewording conversations with students. Additionally, the team worked on developing resource material on punctuation in academic writing. The following descriptions reflect the breadth and nature of CWC’s ELT work.
Winter and Summer Schools
CWC offers two rigorous, intensive, and research focused schools throughout the year, once at the end of the Monsoon Semester, which is called the Winter School, and the other at the end of the Spring Semester, called the Summer School. Both these schools are offered in different cohorts of Masters, and PhD level students, both in the humanities and social sciences, as well as the sciences. CWCs research schools have helped students navigate research writing as a process that can be learned, and practised. The schools are designed to invite students with their research proposals, research writing, and then work on them through various steps. For PhD students, this allows them to map out a working model to write their thesis without being daunted about originality, adequate research, chapterization, or plagiarism. Masters students also learn to turn their assignments or masters thesis into well rounded publishable papers.
Academic & Course-Specific Workshops
CWC’s core academic workshops delve into the mechanics of writing in the academy, emphasising dynamic pedagogies that focus on both the writing process and outcomes. These workshops, tailored for students across disciplines, highlight key communication moves such as informing, persuading, and analysing for varied purposes and genres.
Academic Workshop Series
During the academic year 2023-24, CWC began a new series of workshops and sessions emphasising writing within the academy. Through these workshops, CWC prioritised dynamism in writing pedagogies, focussing on the process and the outcome of writing. Accordingly, the workshops underscored three communication moves: to inform, persuade, analyse, and synthesise for varied purposes, genres, and disciplines. Parallel to developing writing and critical thinking competence, the workshops also stressed listening, reading, and speaking skills. Students within Ashoka University were the core audience for this series. The Centre conducted six such workshops this year.
Course Specific Workshops
Collaborating with diverse departments and individual professors, CWC also designs in-class sessions and workshops tailored to discipline-specific writing needs. Topics range from academic integrity to critical reading of discipline-specific texts, catering to departments like Sociology and Anthropology, Physics, Visual Arts, Environmental Studies, and the Young India Fellowship.
During the academic year, the Centre collaborates with different Departments, Centres, individual professors, and courses to design and deliver tailored in-class sessions and workshops that respond to the discipline-specific needs of academic writing. The sessions range from the tenets of academic integrity in writing essays, assignments, and dissertations to more specific workshops on critical reading of Economics texts, writing with data, visual representation of data, and approaching a research proposal. In 2023-24, CWC organised 14 workshops across the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Physics, Visual Arts, Environmental Studies, Media Studies, the Young India Fellowship, and The Centre for Studies for Gender and Sexuality (CSGS).
CWC offers two rigorous, intensive, and research focused schools throughout the year, once at the end of the Monsoon Semester, which is called the Winter School, and the other at the end of the Spring Semester, called the Summer School. Both these schools are offered in different cohorts of Masters, and PhD level students, both in the humanities and social sciences, as well as the sciences. CWCs research schools have helped students navigate research writing as a process that can be learned, and practised. The schools are designed to invite students with their research proposals, research writing, and then work on them through various steps. For PhD students, this allows them to map out a working model to write their thesis without being daunted about originality, adequate research, chapterization, or plagiarism. Masters students also learn to turn their assignments or masters thesis into well rounded publishable papers.
CWC’s core academic workshops delve into the mechanics of writing in the academy, emphasising dynamic pedagogies that focus on both the writing process and outcomes. These workshops, tailored for students across disciplines, highlight key communication moves such as informing, persuading, and analysing for varied purposes and genres.