Writing Center Services for Faculty

The Writing Center works to foster a vibrant writing community as an indispensable part of intellectual life at Upper Iowa University by providing a number of services for faculty and staff.

Services for On-Campus Faculty

The Writing Center strives to maintain a varied and visible physical presence, providing outreach, service, space, and support for on-campus learning.

Presentations

The Writing Center director and peer writing consultants are happy to visit your class or organization to provide a brief presentation on any number of writing-related topics. To request a presentation, email Mary Reding, including the following in the body of your message:

Requestor’s name
Course title and code or organization title
Desired presentation topic
Potential meeting dates/times

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

A general overview of writing center information & services
Writing process planning & time management
Brainstorming
Thesis construction
Structure & organization
Avoiding plagiarism
Integration & use of evidence
Patterns of grammatical error
Citation style & formatting

Writing Workshops

The Writing Center director and peer writing consultants are happy to visit your class or organization for a designated period of time to help students as they work on a specific writing assignment. As needed, the director will provide instruction, discussion and peer response activities suitable for the project and process stage. Workshops are designed to provide additional support for and encourage a more thorough understanding of the writing process. To request a workshop, email Mary Reding, including the following in the body of your message:

Requestor’s name
Course title and code
Desired workshop focus
Potential meeting dates/times
Assignment sheet or instructions
Assignment due date(s)
Any material or source requirements
Evaluation criteria
Any instructions, direction, or areas of focus for writing center staff
Desired outcome

Assignment Assist

Does your course include an intensive writing project? The Writing Center would be happy to partner with you, providing your students additional support throughout the writing process. Taking advantage of the Assignment Assist service allows the Writing Center staff to familiarize themselves with your expectations and requirements before meeting with your students, preparing us to engage, answer questions and provide direction in a manner aligned with your desired outcomes. Since each course and project is unique, this collaborative service is designed to be completely customizable, including as much or as little interaction and involvement as you like. To make your Assignment Assist request, email Mary Reding, including the following in the body of your message:

Requestor’s name
Course title and code
Assignment sheet or instructions
Assignment due date(s)
Any material or source requirements
Evaluation criteria
Any instructions, direction, or areas of focus for writing center staff
Desired outcome

Other Ways to Involve the Writing Center

We are aware and appreciative of all the additional myriad ways that you as instructors see fit to include the Writing Center in your classes! Over time, a few strategies have been shared with us as particularly successful “Do’s,” listed for you below.

Writing Center Do’s

Encourage students to visit the Writing Center early and often! The earlier in the process a student visits, the more likely they are to incorporate feedback into their writing, taking the time to edit and revise prior to submission.
Ask students to provide a copy of the Writing Center Consultation Form as a record of their visit. These forms are completed and signed by writing consultants during each appointment, detailing any concerns discussed and suggestions made.
Offer extra credit to those who choose to utilize Writing Center services (an incentive), instead of making it a requirement or material portion of a letter grade (an obligation).
Request Writing Center information, thumbnails, or QR codes that can embedded in course materials, on assignment sheets or uiuLearn.
Consider including handouts in your course or assignment materials (available in digital or physical form) that address writing topics, such as plagiarism, styles and formatting, brainstorming, grammar, punctuation, thesis creation and many more.
Encourage students to revise and resubmit, working with a consultant to interpret and incorporate your feedback.
Confidentially request either directly, via email or through the Support Our Students (SOS) system, that a Writing Center staff member reach out to any student struggling with reading, writing or English language concerns.
Ask us about developing course or discipline-specific writing manuals, guides or handouts.
Let us know if there are any services, resources or materials we do not currently offer that interest you.

Services for Online and Center Faculty

We understand that often instructors and students working remotely may feel as though they are doing so on an island. Therefore, the Writing Center strives to act as a hub – a community for all things writing-related at Upper Iowa University – maintaining a varied and visible web presence, providing outreach, service and support for online and distance learning through online services, social media and a growing library of writing resources.

Email Tutoring Service

The Writing Center offers writing consultations for all online and center students via our Email Tutoring Service. This service is designed to give students a personal and productive e-tutoring experience: connecting them one-on-one with our trained writing consultants, who provide detailed feedback for any writing project.

Timeline

The email tutoring process is asynchronous, meaning that it does not require the student to set an appointment at a specific time. Instead, we respond to messages strictly in the order in which they are received. Typically, students can expect a response within 48 hours on business days (this timeline is approximate, and not guaranteed during busy periods such as midterm and finals weeks). For these reasons, we recommend that if you wish for your students to complete an email tutoring session you encourage them to do so as early in the process as possible, to prevent any deadline complications.

Information & Criteria

In order for us to provide the most useful and accurate feedback, we ask students to include any assignment information, criteria, or feedback they have already received, as well as a list of their top three (or more) pressing concerns about the writing sample. This information is used strictly to help consultants better understand the elements of and desired outcomes for a writing project, and gauge where in the process the writer’s work currently falls.

Feedback Form

All Writing Center email tutoring responses are provided as a Consultation Letter, in Microsoft Word document format. In the interest of encouraging students to view our feedback as a learning tool (not a proofreading or editing service) we do not include comments or track changes within the body of the student’s work.

Resources

Whenever possible, writing consultants are encouraged to connect students with additional resources. These may include digital handouts about specific writing-related topics, or links to websites and further research.

Grammar Checkers

When working with students who matriculate primarily online, we are often faced with questions about “grammar checkers” and “citation software”. Though we do not necessarily discourage students from using these programs, we do emphasize their fallibility, and the value in seeking feedback from a human instead of (or in addition to) an algorithm.