In-Class Workshops
Most courses require some form of writing, but many faculty are uncertain about how to teach their students about writing. We can help. The Writing Center offers in-class workshops on many important aspects of writing in college.
Our goal with these workshops is to demonstrate how specific aspects of writing can be taught in a classroom setting, so that faculty can offer writing workshops for their own students in future semesters. To that end, if we come to your class to present a workshop, we will provide you with a packet containing our lesson plan and our materials for you to use with future classes.
If you simply want your students to know about us, we can come to your class to present a brief review of Writing Center services.
If you feel you would like a workshop, please read through our guidelines carefully, then submit your workshop request. Since customization takes time, it is important that we have at least two weeks notice.
Workshops & Presentations
Introduction to the Writing Center Presentation
This brief presentation offers students an overview of Writing Center services—why the writing center exists, how writing center tutors can help writes during the writing process, and what to expect from a writing center session. (15-20 minutes)
This Isn’t What We Did in High School: Expectations for Writing in College
This workshop focuses on discussing the differences between high school and college writing, and what new expectations for writing college writers face in terms of the writing process, audience, purpose, argument and research. (30-40 minutes)
How to Get the Writing Done
This workshop offers suggestions about understanding writing assignments, getting started on writing projects, and maintaining a strong, self-directed writing process. (30-40 minutes)
Writing for the Self
What are some ways students can use informal writing for personal learning and growth? This workshop offers suggestions for personal journaling, writing to support organization skills, effective note-taking & meta-writing, and other forms of writing with the Self as audience. This may be particularly useful for faculty who are teaching courses that incorporate journaling or blogging, for social/academic clubs, or for organizations offering student support services. The workshop can be adapted to focus on the kinds of writing for the self that will be used in the course. (45-60 minutes)
Behold—the Thesis
Much of the academic writing students do in college is thesis-driven. This workshop explores how to craft an effective thesis for an argument. (20-30 minutes)
Literature Reviews
This workshop covers the basics of writing literature review. It discusses the purposes and goals of literature reviews and how to organize a literature review. This workshop is geared towards presenting students the building blocks for starting to compile and critically analyze sources for research papers. (20-30 minutes)
Peer Review
Peer review can be an excellent way of supporting student writers’ writing in progress, but can take a good deal of scaffolding in order to work effectively. The writing center can help with that by discussing different peer review procedures with you (in class reading/response, take home reading/ in class response, etc.); co-designing peer review prompts or worksheets; offering your class a workshop in effective peer review practices; and helping facilitate during an in-class peer review session. (Can vary from 30 minutes to 1-2 class periods, depending on how it is customized)
Incorporating the Voices of Others: Citing Sources
This workshop discusses what it means to cite a source, as well as why and when students should cite. It also covers what appropriate sources are for academic assignments and how students can find those sources. Students learn how to effectively quote or paraphrase from the sources they have selected. (30-40 minutes)
Using Sources to Craft an Argument: Advanced Citing Sources
This workshop is more advanced than Citing Sources and is geared towards helping students take their source materials and use them to effectively support their arguments. It explores how to make decisions about what sources will help contribute to the students' arguments, and how to integrate them into those arguments. This workshop is most appropriate when students have begun drafting a research paper, or are at least in the planning/outlining stages. (30-40 minutes)
Strategies for Revision
This workshop supports students’ revision efforts by suggesting strategies and techniques for revising either at the early stages of drafting (focusing mostly on organizational issues), or the later stages (focusing mostly on sentence-level concerns). Faculty may request this workshop at either point in the writing process—just let us know how far along your students are, so we can adjust accordingly. For this workshop to work effectively, students must have with them a draft they are in the process of revising. (30-40 minutes)
Proofreading
This workshop will discuss with students the importance of proofreading in writing clear, effective papers. It will give students the chance to learn effective proofreading strategies and alert students to common sentence errors. This workshop is appropriate when students have a draft in the later stages of revision to work on. (30-40 minutes)
APA, MLA, or Chicago Citation
This workshop covers the basics of how to format papers and cite sources using your APA, MLA, or Chicago citation. It covers the proper way to refer to outside sources both in-text and on the references page. Because this kind of information is most effective when students apply it to their own drafts in progress, this workshop is appropriate when students have already begun researching or drafting an assignment in APA, MLA, or Chicago style, and bring their research notes, sources or draft to the workshop. (30-40 minutes)
