We welcome calls or visits from Metro State Community and Resident Faculty. We're here to help you and your students with the writing components of your courses, no matter what you teach. Here are some of the ways we have worked with your colleagues:
- Classroom visits to explain Writing Center services: We'll bring some handouts and visit with your students about the different ways the center can be helpful to them.
- Classroom instruction on writing issues specific to your instruction: Topics have included what goes into a really good analysis, report, summary, evaluation, or argument; how to get started on a major project; and even short workshops on sentence-level basics. If their commas (or lack of commas) are vexing you, call us.
- Writing group facilitation: Many instructors employ small group projects or peer review groups to enhance individual learning. Whether the group members are working together toward one written product or working on individual papers, we can help them. We'll come and work with you and your class on writing group essentials.
- Major citation styles: Many instructors have found our in-class workshops and handouts on MLA and APA styles to be both helpful to them and informative for their students.
- Individual student referrals: As much as we try to keep students (and teachers) from thinking of the Writing Center as Siberia for Bad Writers, yes, we do take referrals. We're used to hearing, "My instructor told me to bring this in and have you take a look at it." You can call us and talk about the writing problems you want us to address; that helps us go directly to the issues most important to you. Please be specific with the student, too, about what aspects of their writing need the most work.
Online Resources for Faculty
Listed below are just a few of the many fine sites for faculty who assign writing in their classes. Most have links to other colleges and universities.
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The Faculty Pages at UT Austin provide solid information on planning and teaching courses with substantial writing components. They include tips on the differences between "learning to write" and "writing to learn," the writing process, and some helpful ideas on responding to and grading student writing. (http://www.swc.utexas.edu/) |
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"Teaching with Writing," from the University Writing Program at Virginia Tech, offers excellent sections on grading, error, process, assignments, and writing groups. (http://www.uwp.vt.edu/) |
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The University of Richmond's Writing Across the Curriculum pages offer good ideas for "writing to learn"activities. Some examples are group writing, definitions, reader-response, double-entry notebooks, and freewriting. (http://writing.richmond.edu:16080/wac/resources.html) |
Cal State's excellent articles look applicable to teaching in almost any discipline:
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"Responding to Student Writing" |
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"Writing to Learn: Assigning Ungraded Writing" |
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"What is an A" Paper?" |
Last, but certainly not least, some sites dealing frankly with plagiarism:
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Plagiarism and the Web from Western Illinois University, features tips on reducing the temptation to plagiarize, especially from on-line sources. |
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Winona State's Writing Center discusses paper mill sites and gives instructions for locating the sources of suspect papers. This site also offers suggestions for dealing with the papers. |
When you leave Metropolitan State University's web space to visit other sites, Metropolitan State will not accept any responsibility for the content of those sites.
Here are some unsolicited comments from faculty about our services:
"Thanks for your wonderful presentations to my classes. I appreciate it, and I never get applause after a class!"
" . . . my sincere appreciation . . . for coming to share with us pertinent information regarding the APA style and manuscript preparation. I am happy to convey to you that our students were highly responsive and positive in their evaluation of your presentation and asked me to convey their heartfelt gratitude."
"Thanks for all your emergency work with [Student X]. It was an entirely new paper."