For Faculty & Staff

Writing Center Support for Faculty in Winter 2022

In Winter 2022, the Writing Center can support faculty and students in classes in the following ways. Please note that we need 2 weeks notice to set up many of these offerings. 

  • Priority will be given to requests received by December 21, 2021.  
  •  Class Visit: Peer consultants introduce the Writing Center's offerings, talk about what we do and how we work, show students how to make appointments and access resources, and answer questions. (~15 minutes) 
  • Individual Faculty Consultation with a Writing Program Faculty Member: A WP faculty member can help you to develop a writing workshop or peer review for your class, talk through assignments or commenting practices, identify relevant resources, and more. (Faculty consultants can also meet to discuss your own writing!) (~45 minutes) 
  • Required Visits / Dedicated Studio Hours on Zoom or in Anderson Academic Commons for students from a specific course, program, or department. Because we do not always have the capacity to see every student in a class individually, drop-in hours can help make space for multiple students to talk with consultants during the same hour. (2-3 hours per class) 
  • Facilitated Peer Review (FPR). All students in your class visit the Writing Center to engage in a facilitated peer review activity: each pair or small group of students works closely with a consultant, who can help them to ask meaningful questions, be more intentional about the peer review process, and help one another to identify opportunities and strategies for revision. An FPR requires both hours of a class -- half of the students come in hour 1, and the other come in hour 2 -- and is intended for writing-intensive courses. (~2 hours / whole class session) 
  •  Peer Review Workshop. Peer writing consultants will develop a peer review activity for your students. They will visit your class to frame (or reframe!) peer review as a productive process that can help students to strengthen their reading and writing; after a brief presentation, students will participate in a peer review activity with drafts, outlines, notes, or even just the prompt for a project they are writing in your class. Priority given to first-time requests (~60 minutes) 
  • Writing Process, Genre, or Concept Workshop. Advanced peer consultants and/or Writing Program faculty will visit your class, department, program, or group, to present on a specific writing process, genre, or concept, and facilitate a conversation about the topic. Workshops are interactive and focused on writing for a particular project that the class, department, program, or group is working on. Priority given to first-time requests. (~30 to 60 minutes) 

  For more information about any of our offerings, please write to Dr. Juli Parrish, Writing Center Director (wrc@du.edu).

Requiring Consultations

We hope that faculty will encourage their students to visit the Writing Center on their own. If you intend to require your students to make appointments, please let us know. We cannot promise we will have the capacity to support a large number of required visits in a short span of time. Instead, we can set up dedicated drop-in hours for your class or discuss other options. 

Please write to Dr. Juli Parrish, Writing Center Director, or Prof. Megan Kelly, Writing Center Assistant Director, to discuss options.

 

Incentivizing Consultations with Extra Credit

If you plan to offer extra credit to students for visiting the Writing Center, please keep in mind that what your students will experience is a non-evaluative and inquiry-based conversation about their work with a peer consultant. Peer consultants should not be considered experts, and they don't assess, correct, or check work. Rather, they ask questions, offer perspectives, identify relevant resources, help identify opportunities for revision, and work to support students in editing and revising their own work. 

We suggest  you frame it writing center visits for extra credit as an opportunity for students to work on their writing with a consultant, rather than as an opportunity to get feedback or guarantee quality. Writing Center consultations are aimed at promoting learning and helping writers to do the work of developing their writing skills and processes.

 

What Consultations Can and Can't Do

Writers who visit us online will participate in an interactive, collaborative discussion about their papers with peer consultants, who will help to set goals, generate strategies, and identify resources; ask questions about assignment prompts and previous feedback; and help students to learn new skills and concepts. 

Our consultants do not involve reviewing papers in advance or guaranteeing correctness. Consultants do not proofread or edit for students, mark up papers, or check citations. 

Consultants can talk about and help students to do all of these things, but please note that the Writing Center is a learning site, and individual students retain agency and responsibility for their learning and writing choices.

 

Additional Resources

Syllabus Statements for Winter 2022

The Writing Center offers individual and group writing support for all undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff at the University of Denver. Many students, even those who are confident writers or are well into their academic programs, have questions about writing. Working with peer consultants in the Writing Center can help them to develop or refresh their habits and learn new strategies that they can take with them to future classes and writing situations. 

At a Glance:  

  • All students can make appointments at du.mywconline.com for individual, 45-minute consultations online in Zoom or in person on AAC 280 from Wednesday, January 5, through the end of finals. 
  • Consultations are available six days per week, including Sundays and evenings. Specific hours and schedules will be available at  du.mywconline.com. 
  • Our 30 peer consultants are graduate or advanced undergraduate students, with graduate-level training in writing center practice, from a variety of fields of study. 
  • Consultations are collaborative, non-evaluative, and learning oriented. We work with students in live sessions and do not edit their work for them or provide comments on drafts by email. Students can expect to be active participants in all sessions. 
  • Our ePortfolio site includes a variety of writing resources; we are always updating this site and are happy to develop or find resources in response to requests. 
  • Sometimes students expect that they can email a draft for comments or that we will edit their paper for them. In fact, we avoid one-time fixes and instead approach consultations as learning situations; we work with students to help them learn to do more intentional work in their writing. That work might include editing and proofreading, but it also includes a range of the many other actions that fall under the umbrella of “writing”: understanding assignment prompts, reading, planning and outlining, developing and refining research questions, using evidence, integrating texts, analyzing and synthesizing, drafting, revising, building an argument, learning to use a citation style, making decisions about code-meshing and language use, and much more 
  • Students can bring academic, personal, professional, career-oriented, and creative writing to us at any stage in their process, from the moment they receive an assignment prompt to the moment they are putting the finishing touches on a paper. Whether they are working on an academic paper, a speech, a discussion board post, or a study abroad application, they can find support through our ePortfolio resources and our consultations. 
  • Writing Resources

    Our ePortfolio has a wide range of writing and citation resources, including: 

    • Specific writing situations, like literature reviews, abstracts, proposals, and so on 
    • Ethical language use 
    • Writing for American academic contexts 
    • Crafting effective thesis statements 
    • Citation styles and practices 
    • If you don't see the resources you need, please get in touch; we are always updating our ePortfolio and identifying relevant resources for students and faculty. 
  • Faculty and Staff Consultations

    We provide the same type of collaborative consultations for faculty and staff as we do for students. We work regularly with faculty and staff on book proposals or chapters, article revisions, career materials, and other writing projects. 

    Faculty and staff have the option to work with another faculty member or with an advanced graduate student. Please write to Juli Parrish or Megan Kelly at wrc@du.edu or call 303-871-7448 to make an appointment. 

  • Resources for the Teaching of Writing

    The Writing Program offers extensive resources for faculty teaching writing across the curriculum. Resources include strategies for scaffolding writing assignment, responding to student writing, and more. 

  • Research Poster Support

    To talk about whether the Writing Program can print research posters for a small fee in Fall 2021, please write to Joe Ponce at writing@du.edu.  

Frequently Asked Questions

  • How can I encourage my students to use the Writing Center?

    One of the best ways to inform your students about our offerings is by talking about the Writing Center with your students or by inviting us to come talk to your class. To request a class visit or other form of writing support, click the "Request Writing Support" button to the right or write to us at wrc@du.edu.  

  • How will I know if my students are using the Writing Center?

    Our consultants write a short note after each session and email that note to the writer. Your students can simply forward that email to you; alternately, if they provide your name and email address to their consultants, we can send that email directly to you. We do count on students to provide your contact information and to give us permission to contact you.   

  • Can I require my students to visit the Writing Center for help with a particular assignment?

    Maybe. At particularly busy times of the quarter, and especially during weeks 4-6 and 8-10, we may not have the capacity to support individual consultations for a whole class. 

    We can instead set aside a dedicated block of time for your students to drop in and work with consultants. 

    If you would like to arrange for your students to work with Writing Center consultants in this way, please contact us at wrc@du.edu at least two weeks in advance to discuss options.