Faculty Resources
Faculty Resources
Tips for Referring Students to the Writing Center
- Consider including a statement in your syllabus about the Writing Center and its services. Feel free to copy the statement at the top of this handout.
- Invite a Writing Center consultant to visit your class for a brief presentation on the Center: what we do, what happens in a tutoring session, and how we can help students with their writing for your class. Contact us to arrange a visit.
- Encourage or require students to visit the Writing Center with at least one assignment, preferably early in the semester. Encourage students to bring the written assignment sheet and any grading rubrics with them to the session so that the tutor may better understand your expectations.
If your course emphasizes revision, you might require students to submit, along with their completed assignment, a short reflection on the feedback they received from the Writing Center and how it influenced their revision of the paper.
Ways the Writing Center Can Support Your Class
- Refer individual students to the Writing Center, or make a Writing Center visit a part of your course requirements.
- Request Writing Center consultants to visit your class on peer review days, so that they can facilitate each of the peer groups.
- Request to have a tutor assigned to your class for the semester. This tutor will act as a liaison between your students and the Writing Center. Ideally, you would submit your writing assignments to the Writing Center so that we can be familiar with your expectations and requirements for students’ writing.
- Request a Writing Center consultant to visit your class for an in-class workshop. See below for information on workshops.
In-Class Workshops
The Writing Center hosts in-class workshops on specific habits of writing and strategies for composing academic essays. Each workshop consists of a short presentation given by a professional consultant followed by an activity designed around both the workshop topic and your course assignment. Since it is so important that students learn writing skills in the context of actual writing situations, we strongly encourage faculty to schedule a Writing Center workshop in connection with an assignment on which students are already working.
If you would like someone from the Writing Center to conduct a workshop, please contact us.