Faculty Help

HOW THE UNIVERSITY WRITING CENTER CAN HELP INSTRUCTORS

The University Writing Center (UWC) understands the challenge of motivating students to take their writing seriously. Our goal is to help by stimulating and supporting successful college-level writing across the disciplines. We provide one-on-one collaborative tutoring in our center, focusing on individual students and their rhetorical needs, as well as provide in-class writing workshops on useful topics. Prior to each semester, Barbara Hardie, the director, sends an email to faculty with an up-to-date attachment detailing UWC services and ways in which students can make use of them. We encourage instructors to cut and paste the attachment into their syllabi.

A COMMON MISCONCEPTION

Some students and instructors consider the UWC a "fix-it" shop, and frequently new clients will say, "Please check my grammar and punctuation." Only when grammar and punctuation errors distract from the overall coherence of the paper will tutors focus primarily on sentence-level issues. Tutors are trained to work from higher order concerns such as focus, organization, and development to lower order concerns such as grammar and punctuation. Students who struggle with grammar and punctuation are good candidates for follow-up sessions or weekly appointments. For these students, we encourage instructors to request weekly appointments with the same tutor.

LEARNING ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS' VISITS TO THE UWC

Instructors can learn the details of their students' visits to the UWC by following the directions for Tutor Trac at http://www.wcu.edu/writingcenter/tutortrac.asp. Click on the link for Faculty.

 

DISTANCE EDUCATION

http://www.wcu.edu/writingcenter/distanceeducation.asp

IN-CLASS WORKSHOPS BY REQUEST - FALL 2007

To request a workshop, please submit the online Workshop Request Form. Please direct all workshop request problems or questions to Barbara Hardie at bhardie@email.wcu.edu, or call 3686. She resides in the University Writing Center, Hunter 161.

Grammar Roadshow (requires two class periods)

Annotated Bibliography

Avoiding Plagiarism

A Good Blueprint for Any Paper

Peer Review Workshop

Research Documentation (MLA, APA, or Turabian)

Summarizing a Journal Article

Writing the Almighty Research Paper