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Services for Faculty Teaching Writing |
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The University Writing Center's mission charges us to provide faculty with resources and support for teaching writing.
- The Pedagogy section of this website provides information about teaching writing from the university professor's perspective and helps with everything from classroom management to creating and responding to assignments and methods for teaching writing.
- We link you and your students to writing help. Turnitin.com is an aid to preventing plagiarism. Calibrated Peer Review helps you grade and teaches students to critique their own and their peers’ work. Our webliography provides annotated links to websites we have reviewed for quality. Topics cover a wide range of writing issues, such as documentation style and punctuation. Our handouts are custom-designed for TAMU students and provide quick reference information on relevant writing topics such as how to get started on an assignment or how to write a critical analysis. Online writing services include Interactive Messaging and on-line consultations through our help system. Or students may prefer to call the Write-Line at (979) 845-216 for quick advice. To encouage your stduents to visit the UWC for a personal consultation, we provide tips on the best ways to inform them of our services and a blurb for your syllabus. You can request a writing center visit in which we will explain our services to your students and encourage them to visit us. Most visits take about 10 minutes. We show a PowerPoint and bring something to help students remember us.
- If writing instruction is a worry, you might want to hire an Undergraduate Writing Assistant, or UWA. UWAs are certified by the College Reading and Learning Association as writing tutors, and they have received instruction in the UWC on issues like responding to student papers, conferencing with students, and holding peer response workshops. They cannot grade, but they can help you reduce time spent in instruction and improve the quality of instruction.
- Writing instruction can be arranged at no cost through our classroom workshops program. We will send an experienced writing consultant to your class to teach a specific topic such as avoiding plagiarism or correct documentation, or to conduct a writing workshop. So that we can meet your needs for length and topic, we ask for a minimum of 5 working days notice.
- Every year the University Writing Center collaborates with other campus units to host events related to writing instruction. For example, with the Center for Teaching Excellence we sponsor an annual summer workshop and Faculty Learning Communities throughout the year. For a list of past and current events, and the resources associated with them, go to our news page.
- The faculty newsletter is produced twice a year, fall and spring. It contains profiles of faculty teaching W courses, tips on teaching, and other useful information.
- The University Writing Center has teamed with the Center for Teaching Excellence to offer an annual University Writing Center Teaching Award of $3,000 to encourage excellence and innovation in the development of writing-intensive courses.
- We can custom-design presentations and workshops for faculty, graduate students, and staff to present to a small or large group, adjusting the topic, time, and place to your needs. We need a minimum of one week's notice. Suggested topics include Creating Effective Writing Assignments, Effective Grading in Less Time, Using Models in to Spur Students to Excellence, Using Writing to Teach Course Content, or Teaching Grammar, Style, and Punctuation. To request a presentation, contact Dr. Valerie Balester.
- If you prefer, we can arrange a one-on-one consultation for any faculty member using writing in a course. For an initial consultation with Dr. Valerie Balester (English), UWC Director, call 458-1455 or email v-balester@tamu.edu.
- We link to a number of useful sites for writing-in-the disciplines and writing-across-the curriculum, both at TAMU and other universities. See Writing-in-the-Disciplines Resources for Faculty.
Click here to read a copy of the "Texas A&M University - Web survey of faculty," conducted by the UWC in 2003. |
Resources for Faculty and Advisors 
