There are several ways to connect class activities and projects to TUWC.
Perhaps the easiest is to include information about TUWC on the syllabus and in course materials. On our main page, you can find our hours — which, depending on staffing, can change from term to term — and other details. Please consider including these directions on how students can use WC Online to schedule one-on-one appointments.
We’re also glad to have staffers give 10 minute “meet and greet” sessions with classes, talking about our services and showing students how to create WC Online accounts for easy scheduling. Given staffer availability, meet and greets can be requested a week in advance and are great for a day in which an assignment is introduced!
Our team of TUWC staffers major in a wide variety of disciplines. Staffers are often quite excited about working with peers in their own subject areas. However, TUWC staffers are trained as generalist collaborators — asking good questions, helping with focus and shaping, and planning possible revision strategies.
As you plan and develop a course (with any type of writing task, from research based arguments to reflection assignments), consider scheduling a full-class workshop, in which students work in small groups with a staffer. These sessions are best when geared toward assignment brainstorming or early stage drafting. 90% of students who took part in a required full-class workshop in 2016-17 (48 class sessions) stated that they found their session to be productive, and that they would likely return to TUWC for a one-on-one session. Full-class workshop availability is limited at times (and, if possible, requested within the first two weeks of the term, even if the workshop is for several weeks later) due to staffer availability.
When funding is available, TUWC sponsors course-embedded peer-to-peer writing support programming. In short, a selected staffer or pair of staffers works with a faculty member to consider assignments and syllabus design for a specific course. These staffers then regularly meet with students for early-draft feedback and revision planning. With roots at Swarthmore, Brown, and the University of Iowa, course-embedded programming emphasizes process-based writing and collaborative learning. To learn more about such work, see this special issue of Praxis: A Journal for Writing Centers.
And speaking of course-design: it’s a joy to work with faculty members in designing or rethinking class assignments. In collaboration with the TU Writing Advisory Committee, TUWC hosts faculty development events on a range of topics (such as multimodal assignment design, transfer knowledge, or multilingual learning pedagogy), often with faculty workshop leaders from noted college writing programs. TUWC also collaborates with faculty, librarians, and other community members in student-focused outreach events such as our Pre-Health career personal statement workshops.
We hope to be seen as a welcoming and meaningful space for all Transylvanians.
For more information on any of TUWC’s services, contact Dr. Scott Whiddon.