Workshops

Most courses require some form of writing, but many faculty are
uncertain about how to teach their students about writing. We can help. Members of our staff can work with you to design and conduct workshops on writing-related topics tailored to the context of your course. After you submit a request for a workshop, someone from the writing center staff will contact you to further discuss your class's current writing projects and your goals for their writing. With your input, we will design a workshop customized to your students' writing needs. Faculty have requested topics such as: crafting a thesis, incorporating sources, keeping a research journal, writing particular genres (literature reviews, personal statements, research papers for particular disciplines, etc.), understanding writing assignments, considering audience, revising, and proofreading.

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.

Policies for In-Class Writing Workshop Requests

1. If you are simply requesting our brief (15-minute) introduction to Writing Center services, you may do so at any time. We can arrange these at any time in the semester, and we can often come on short notice.

2. We sometimes receive more requests for workshops than we can manage. The more lead time you give us, the more likely we will be able to accommodate your request. With the exception of the quick introductory workshop (which we can schedule with 4-5 days notice), please give us at least two weeks lead time to schedule your workshop.

3. Some staffing and scheduling restraints make it difficult for us to schedule workshops during the summer, semester breaks, and before the third week of classes during the fall and spring semesters. You are welcome to ask us, and we will do our best to manage it, but you may need to be ready with a back-up plan.

4. Excluding Intro Workshops, instructors are allowed to request ONE workshop per semester. (Please note this is one workshop per instructor, not per class.) If you have the space, you are welcome to invite students from multiple sections to get together for the workshop. We're happy to share the workshop materials with you, so that you can reproduce the workshop for other courses or sections.

5.  Teaching assistants and leaders of student organizations are welcome to request workshops. We frequently visit classes and recitation sections taught by graduate students. We encourage TAs and student leaders to invite us into their classrooms and professional development sessions.

6.  In-class writing workshops are not intended as substitute teaching, so we request that you do not schedule them on days when you will be away.

Workshop Request