Helping Your Students Use the Writing Center

The Writing Center works with student throughout campus on writing assignments that span the curriculum. We focus on teaching students the skills that enable them to improve their written communication throughout all stages and levels of the writing process. Our services are free to students, and we require students to schedule an appointment. Because we are a tutorial service dedicated to improving the written skills of students, we do not edit, proof, or "check over" papers and correct them--- instead, we teach students to master these skills.

We can help your students learn to

• Brainstorm the beginning stages of writing assignments
• Refine arguments and improve analytical skills
• Develop organizational patterns in writing
• Identify grammar, mechanics and usage problems and how to solve them
• Reference and use documentation styles

Resources Available to Students Through the Writing Center and Writing Center web site: www.shsu.edu/wctr

• One on one tutoring sessions with tutors, all of whom are trained writing tutors.
• Online tutoring services with some of these same tutors. Check out our online submission instructions.
• Links and hard copy guides to documentation style guides for MLA and APA
• Resources for personal statements for graduate school and philosophy of education for future teachers
• Copies of informative handouts covering a range of writing problems
• And, as a last incentive, candy

Ways You Can Encourage Your Students to Visit the Writing Center

• Our Writing Center Staff will visit your class to inform students about our services. These presentations reinforce your interest in your students visiting the center and usually only take up twenty minutes of class time. Please call or stop by the center to schedule a visit.
• You can also request Writing Center Bookmarks with our contact information and a description of our services to give to your students either as a class or individually. We can send bookmarks to your department or office through campus mail.
• Some instructors choose to include information about the Writing Center in their introductory course materials (such as the course syllabus or other guidelines for papers). You may want to remind students about the writing center when you discuss your expectations for the writing they will complete in the course. In addition, some instructors choose to emphasize that students can visit the writing center after returning the first written assignment or after reviewing a student's first draft.

Other Services We Offer Instructors

• We will notify you that your student has visited the center and had a tutorial session.  This notice includes a brief description of the tutoring session by the tutor.
• If you have asked your students to visit us, you can send or drop off a copy of the writing assignment so that our tutors can be familiar with it prior to a tutoring session.
• We welcome you to share any strategies that you think would help a student you have recommended visit the writing center. If you have recommended students visit us concerning a particular assignment, you may also call us or come by to discuss the parameters of your requirements for that assignment.