Faculty Development

Invite Us to Your Classroom

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We can tell your students about the Writing Center

The UCWbL offers 10-15 minute informational presentations that introduce students to the Writing Center’s services and opportunities.
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We can help your students succeed on your assignments.

The UCWbL offers 45-90 minute instructional workshops to work with students on such skills as peer review, brainstorming, and revision.
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We can help your students use Digication.

The UCWbL offers 45-90 minute instructional workshops on the use of Digication e-Portfolios.
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Put Us On Your Syllabus

In response to faculty requests, we have created two documents which faculty members can use to inform their students about the Writing Center’s services within their syllabi.  The short version of the document, available for download below as a Microsoft Word document, can be copied and pasted directly into your syllabus. This document provides a brief description of what kinds of services are offered at the Writing Center, as well as appointment sign-up information.

We’re available outside the classroom, too.

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Faculty Workshops

We offer faculty workshops at least once per quarter. The purpose of these workshops is to train and support faculty outside the classroom while encouraging reflection and collaboration.

• Our most recent workshop focused on the topic of fostering multicultural dialogue and inclusivity in the classroom
• All faculty workshops are free of charge for DePaul Faculty and generally run 2.5-3 hours, including lunch
• Faculty can <email> us to be placed on the contact list for upcoming workshops
• Workshops can also be tailored to the requests or concerns of a particular department or program with sufficient advance notice. Click <Suggest a Workshop> to suggest a topic for a workshop

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Faculty Consultations

Teaching, like writing, is a recursive process that benefits from reflection and revision. Incorporating writing into one’s teaching—or building on recent approaches—can be difficult, but it is ultimately a rewarding and enriching endeavor. To offer feedback, guidance, encouragement, and ideas on a range of topics related to teaching and writing, Assistant Director for Faculty Services Matthew Pearson is available for one-on-one consultation.
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Copy-editing Services

Has your work been accepted for publication? Congratulations! The UCWbL would love to help copy-edit your manuscript. Click here to contact us for more information.

If you are preparing work that has not yet been accepted for publication, you can always meet with a Writing Center tutor to solicit feedback and request copyediting. Click here to learn more about scheduling appointments.
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While we are happy to work with students on proofreading and editing their writing, we also offer so much more! Writing center tutors are practiced at collaborating with writers at all stages of the writing process, from brainstorming and drafting through to the final polishing. As articulated in our mission statement, “Our goal is to help develop better writers along with better writing.” Bearing this in mind, our practice in writing tutorials focuses on conversation as a powerful tool for collaborative learning and empowering student writers.

Significant scholarship supports the theory and practice of peer tutoring. Additionally, many DePaul facultyhave praised the impact that Writing Center tutorials have had on their students and their students’ writing. The information provided on this page has been selected to represent some of the many reasons that encouraging our students to visit the Writing Center can benefit their growth as students and as writers.

Collaborative Learning

• No writer works in a vacuum
  • Behm (1989) cites a number of examples of professionals and academic writing scenarios that call for and benefit from collaboration throughout the writing process
• Peer tutors support and empower “writers who are no longer novices but not yet experts” (Myhill and Jones 2007, p. 340)
  • Bruffee (1973) notes that for college students, learning to write often involves gaining a new awareness of the language they have grown accustomed to – the peer tutorial can help to relieve some of the anxiety that arises from this process of relearning
  • Myhill and Jones (2007) suggest that the non-evaluative peer tutorial engages the writer in experimentation that can help them develop confidence in their writing skills through low-stakes risk taking
• Writing helps create new knowledge (Behm 1989)
  • The tutorial engenders a responsive environment that helps both writer and tutor move together toward a deeper understanding of what’s at stake in a writing project
  • The dynamic of the peer-to-peer conversation facilitates different types of learning and thinking than does teacher-to-student conversation

Conversation and Critical Thinking

• Informal academic conversation
  • Sharpens listening skills (Bruffee 1973)
  • Creates social contexts that value the types of conversations appropriate to various academic discourses (Bruffee 1984)
• Thinking as internalized conversation (Bruffee 1984)
  • Baker (1988) notes that externalizing thoughts through a tutorial conversation helps students more clearly articulate their ideas
• Conversation improves writing
  • Bruffee (1984) notes that “writing always has its root deep in the acquired ability to carry on the social symbolic exchange we call conversation” (p. 91)

Metacognitive Awareness

• Tutorials can improve self-monitoring skills
  • Pea and Kurland (1987) found that students often have difficulty with identifying their specific struggles with writing
  • Englert (1992) identified a positive correlation between metacognitive awareness and writing performance
  • Tutorial conversations model vocabulary with which to talk about writing processes and textual possibilities

References

Baker, T. (1988). Critical thinking and the writing center: Possibilities. Writing Center Journal, 8(2), 37-43.

Behm, R. (1989). Ethical issues in peer tutoring: A defense of collaborative learning.Writing Center Journal, 10(1), 3-13.

Bruffee, K. (1973) Collaborative learning: Some practical models. College English, 34(5), 634-643.

Bruffee, K. (1984) Collaborative learning and the conversation of mankind. College English, 46(7), 635-652.

Englert, C.S., Rapheal, T., & Anderson, L.M. (1992). Socially-mediated instruction: Improving students’ talk and knowledge about writing. Elementary School Journal, 92(4), 411-449.

Myhill, D. & Jones, S. (2007). More than just error correction: Students’ perspectives on their revision processes during writing. Written Communication, 24(4), 323-343.

Pea, R., & Kurland, D. (1987). Cognitive technologies for writing. Review of Research in Education, 14, 277-326.

One of the many roles instructors play in the intellectual formation of their students is that of organizers of learning communities (Bruffee 1973). These communities exist both within and outside the classroom, and many of the learning communities fostered at DePaul extend to us at the Writing Center!

Testimonials from Faculty Members

As a convenience for faculty, we offer tutorial verification reports. A tutorial verification report certifies that the student has consulted with one of our tutors on an assignment and includes a brief summary of what the tutor and student discussed during the meeting. The report is sent to the instructor via email shortly after the appointment concludes. Tutorial verification reports are sent only at the student’s request.

If you’d like to share you thoughts and experiences of your students’ visiting the Writing Center, please click to email us.