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Fall ID1 "Doing College" Workshop Series

In the fall, the Center for Speaking, Writing, and the Image (the Pomona's writing center) offers an acclaimed series of interactive workshops led by a cohort of current Pomona sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The series is practical, hands-on, informal, and designed to level the playing field by supporting first-years as they navigate the transition from high school to the varied rhetorical contexts of college, from speaking to writing to working with data and visual rhetoric. 

All students are welcome (you don't need to be a first-year or a Pomona student--visitors from the other 5Cs are invited as well!) to join us to talk about how classes are going and learn strategies for adjusting to the many new kinds of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and research that you're being asked to do in college. 

What will the workshops be about?

The topics below are planned for the Fall 2024 workshop series and have been developed based on feedback from past students about what they found most challenging in their first year of college. We are also open to requests from faculty or students for additional topics that they would find helpful. Reach out to cswim@pomona.edu or stop by to talk about your ideas and collaborate with us to develop a plan for in-class sessions or other workshops available to the broader Pomona community. This series is offered every fall, and we regularly update the topics covered to respond to student needs.

To stay up-to-date about these and other special events sponsored by the CSWIM and Pomona's Writing Program, follow @. 

ID1 Write-in! Friday, November 15 (noon to midnight). Join fellow first-years to work on those final projects in community! The CSWIM will be open from noon till midnight with pizza, snacks, coffee, and activities to help you de-stress. Workshop Cohort Partners will be on hand to talk about your writing or other projects, but you're also welcome just to stop by, hang out, and write with friends.

Follow for updates about this ID1 Workshop Series, orientation book tie-in events, and other workshops and special events this academic year. For every event you attend this fall, you can get a stamp on the Fall 2024 CSWIM Special Events map and win an entry in a raffle for prizes from 2 Disneyland tickets to local eatery gift cards to Cambodian art prints, Zip Car credits, CSWIM swag, and more! The drawing will be held at the Long Night Against Procrastination Write-in on Sunday, November 24, 2024. 

"Afterparties" Orientation Book Tie-in Events

Wednesday, September 25, 4:30 pm in the Rose Hills Theater

Panel Discussion "On the Afterlife of Genocide: A Community Conversation on Race, Sexuality, Migration, and Survival in Afterparties." 

Join us for an insightful discussion over coffee and donuts on the lived experiences of the current generation of Cambodian Americans. Featuring an array of Asian-America scholars, community organizers, and educators, this panel draws on Anthony Veasna So's groundbreaking text, Afterparties, to explore issues of race, sexuality, migration, and modern violence. The dialogue will consider how stories and narratives across Cambodian America resonate with current events facing Asian Americans, as well as other marginalized peoples. By incorporating themes of generational trauma and cultural identity, this conversation aims to deepen our understanding of the complex realities faced by not only Cambodian communities in the United States, but all of us who are reckoning with the past, present, and future of genocide. 

Wednesday, October 2, Friday, October 4, or Sunday, October 6

Reading and Writing Workshop: The Mystery of a Murderous Despot

As a part of the ID1 "Doing College" Workshop Series, Interim Director of College Writing, Jenny Thomas, will lead a 90-minute interactive session entitled "Reading Like a Writer: Noticing the Moves Scholars Make in Academic Writing." 

Workshop overview: 

Cambodia's Pol Pot led the infamous Khmer Rouge party in the 1970s and was responsible for the deaths of a staggering nearly 25% of Cambodia's population from malnutrition, disease, or politically motivated murder between 1975 and 1979. Participants in this workshop will explore the brief introductory chapter to Professor David Chandler's historical/political biography of this dictator, Brother Number One, examining the text as an example of scholarly writing within the fields of history and political science. 

Chandler asks and workshop attendees will consider together:

• "Who was Pol Pot?"
• "What did he and his colleagues have in mind?"
• "What were the sources of the revolution and its extraordinary violence?"
• and perhaps the most puzzling mystery: Why, when interviewing people who knew this man--one of the most violent dictators in human history--was it so difficult to find anyone who would speak ill of him?

Writing about his encounters with individuals who had known Pol Pot in his childhood, during his years as a student and later school teacher, and even during his deadly political career, Chandler notes:

None of the people I spoke to--including several who live thousands of miles from Cambodia and whose families were savaged by the Pol Pot regime--were prepared to associate the person they had known with the horrors of the 1970s. Victins of Pol Pot's regime, they were unwilling to alter or deny their relatively pleasant recollections of the man.

To his brother and sister-in-law, for example, Saloth Sar [Pol Pot'] was a sweet-tempered, equable child....Among his students and his colleagues in the clandestine Communist movement... a man who met him in the late 1950s, for example, said, 'I saw immediately that I could become his friend for life.' 

Similar testimony has emerged in confessions from S-21 [a Khmer Rouge torture facility].. and Red Khmer defectors.... None of the defectors, although they were free to do so (as those being tortured at S-21 were not), singled out Pol Pot's behavior or personality as a reason for...deserting the Communist movement. Instead, most of them came away with memories of a man they regarded almost as a saint.

Focusing on these unnerving and deeply thought-provoking questions, we'll explore the "moves" this text makes as a piece of scholarly writing, considering what it can teach us about reading strategies and discovering how we can use our reading in college to hone our academic writing skills and strategies.

The workshop will be offered three times, and all attendees will receive an entry in the CSWIM Fall 2024 special events raffle or prizes ranging from 2 Disneyland tickets to restaurant and movie gift cards, Zip Car rental credits, beautiful Cambodian art prints, CSWIM swag and more (drawing at the Long Night Against Procrastination write-in on Sunday, November 24.) 

• Wednesday, October 2, 5:30-7 pm in the Frank Dining Hall Blue Room (with special guest, Professor April Mayes from the History department)
• Friday, October 4, 2-3:30 pm in the CSWIM (with snacks)
• OR Sunday, October 6, 11 am in the CSWIM (brunch served: waffles, bagels, fruit, juice, coffee, and tea)

are appreciated but not required.

Friday, October 18, 1-3 pm in the CSWIM (SCC 148)

Generative Creative Writing Workshop with local author, Neelanjana Banerjee

Limited to 16 participants: ! 

In this 2-hour creative writing workshop, we'll use stories from Anthony Veasna So's Afterparties as inspiration for our own writing. Along with So's incredible characterizations of the experience of inheriting the trauma of genocide, we'll investigate his brilliant use of POV ("Three Women of Chuck Donuts" and "Superking Son Scores Again") and explore writing about ritual, superstition, and celebration ("Maly, Maly, Maly", "The Monks", and "We Would Have Been Princes!").

Facilitator: 

Neelanjana Banerjee is a writer whose work appears in journals like Prairie Schooner, Weird Sister, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She is a co-editor of Indivisible and The Coiled Serpent. With an MFA from San Francisco State and a BA from Oberlin, Banerjee has been a resident at Hedgebrook and received scholarships to attend writing workshops. Her journalism has appeared in Teen Vogue and other publications. Based in Los Angeles, she is the Managing Editor of Kaya Press and teaches writing at UCLA.

Not only limited to fiction, this workshop is designed to be generative across genres (poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction). The workshop is limited to 16 participants. .

Afterparties Tie-in Film Series

Join us for these acclaimed documentaries, films, and series.

• "" documentary and donut party: Tuesday, October 22nd, 7-9 pm in Rose Hills Theater.

  "An immigrant story with a (glazed) twist, The Donut King follows the journey of Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy, who arrived in California in the 1970s and, through a mixture of diligence and luck, built a multi-million dollar donut empire up and down the West Coast. A story of immigration, assimilation, prejudice, and who gets access to the American Dream—and what happens when you achieve it—The Donut King is also about how the American Dream gets handed down and evolves from one generation to the next: the film includes the current generation of Cambodian donut shop owners and the ways they have been inspired by and diverged from their parents and grandparents before them." ~

• "" Thai film screening--one of the most popular Asian horror films of all time! Friday, November 8th, 3-5 pm in the CSWIM. 

  "One of Thailand's most infamous ghost stories, the allegedly true story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong is a favorite among Thai people who gather from all over at a popular shrine dedicated to her near where she lived. Although film adaptations have been sparse, it still remains to be said that the most celebrated version is the 1999 masterpiece directed by celebrated Thai auteur ." ~ review

• "" an award-winning drama about the Cambodian genocide: Tuesday, November 19th, 7-9 pm in Rose Hills Theater. Two courageous journalists--one American and one Khmer--attempt to document the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge for the world to become aware.

• "" a poignant Thai miniseries and queer coming-of-age story, jointly presented by the CSWIM, Orientation Book Committee, and the Queer Resource Center. 

  Screenings will take place in the QRC early in the Spring 2025 semester. Dates and times TBA.

General Types of Support We Provide

The CSWIM helps students take their writing, oral communication, and visual projects to the next level. We provide free one-on-one consultations with Writing, Speaking, and Image Partners: fellow Pomona students who are trained to help their peers find their voice, develop ideas, unpack assignment guidelines, navigate different genres, and work on projects at any stage of development, from brainstorming to polishing a final draft. 

We offer:

• Scheduled online and in person, 7 days a week. 
• Drop-in consultations. In-person, typically Sunday-Thursday 8-10 pm. (Drop-in times are marked on our )
• Attached Writing, Speaking, and Image Partners, who collaborate with faculty to provide one-on-one support for students in a specific course. 
• Regular (weekly or twice-monthly) meetings with Writing, Speaking, or Image Partners to help you develop your communication skills and strategies over time.

Our Partners can help you:

If you have never been to the CSWIM, begin by registering an account with our .

• Make sense of an assignment
• Develop your ideas, thesis, or argument
• Reflect on or writing or preparation process and try out new strategies
• Organize and structure your writing, oral communication, or visual projects
• Refine introductions, conclusions, transitions, and body paragraphs
• Design more effective sentences, think about sentence-level language choices, and become more attuned to your own style
• Identify the places in your writing or other projects where you can clarify your message so that it communicates effectively with your intended audience

You can bring us:

• Written and oral assignments for any course, including lab reports and presentations
• Professional writing, including personal statements, fellowship, job, and grad school applications, and cover letters
• Papers in other languages, creative writing, STEM writing, senior thesis, and other projects. Look for the "Limit to" menu at the top of the scheduler to find appointments with Partners by these and other specific focus areas.

We are located in Smith Campus Center, Suite 148, across from the Living Room and next to Edmunds Ballroom on the ground floor. Contact us at CSWIM@pomona.edu.