Faculty Encouragement

We greatly appreciate faculty efforts to promote the Writing Center. In fact, most students who use the Writing Center heard about it from an instructor. Your students will be more likely to take advantage of the resource if you adopt some or all of the following practices:

• Encourage all of your students to use the Writing Center and use positive language to talk about it. Explain that all writers benefit from talking about their writing projects and getting feedback on drafts. Students who get the impression that using the Writing Center is a punishment for bad writers are not likely to come.
• Include information about the Writing Center on your syllabus.
• Tell students about the Writing Center well in advance of the assignment due date. Remind students that they will need to make an appointment on the Writing Center website.
• Invite a writing consultant to visit your class. During a 10-15 minute class visit, the writing consultant will explain the basics of using the Writing Center, answer your students' questions, and provide brochures with all the information the students need to make an appointment and come prepared.

When you encourage your students to come to the Writing Center, we appreciate receiving a copy of your assignment. If a student forgets to bring a copy, we'll have one on hand.

If you are thinking about requiring students to come to the Writing Center, please consider that part of what makes writing center work so successful is that students choose to come--they make that choice when they are invested in their writing and ready to work hard on it. Students who come to the Writing Center simply to meet a requirement sometimes aren't prepared for the substantial amount of work required from them during the session; the result can be an unproductive session and an unhappy student. Also, students required to come to the Writing Center often become frustrated if they can't get an appointment. As an alternative, a few bonus points can be a good incentive, especially if you've prepared students by following the guidelines above.

 

For questions or for more information about how we can collaborate, contact:

Kathleen Vacek
(701) 777-6381