From: Birks, Ariel <birksa@evergreen.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2020 10:12 AM
To: All Staff & Faculty DL <AllStaffFaculty@evergreen.edu>

What’s going on with the Writing Center?
Fall 2020

Highlights

• NEW! Self-scheduling portal. Students can schedule themselves for their own appointments through their own account via our WCOnline portal. Check out our homepage for instructions.
• Appointments with a tutor can make the digital landscape more engaging and varied for remote learners. Students can make appointments on their own, and you could encourage them to use the Writing Center for one assignment or as a weekly practice. ILC students make deep connections with their passions through weekly visits to the Writing Center. Online learners would also benefit from the accountability and social connection offered by sessions.
• We are doing remote, one-on-one sessions. What are our sessions like? Our tutors ask the writer about their goals and help writers identify goals. Writers commonly have goals to work on: getting started, drafting, revision, editing, proofreading, citations, artistic choices, rhetoric, and building confidence in making every choice that relates to being a writer. Our peer tutors support them in meeting those goals by asking questions and consulting resources together.
• When was the last time you had the attention of someone fully devoted to reading, reviewing, or listening to you written work? Powerful ideas come from taking the time to share and evaluate your work in the presence of another unique mind. So please do recommend your confident writers as well as your less confident writers to come for a session if they want to keep growing their skills for a specific project. Writing Center sessions are for writers of all levels.
• Which students do you recommend come to the Writing Center for sessions? Which students do you want to suggest become writing tutors? If you keep those questions in mind this quarter and give voice to your recommendations, we would be so grateful! We’ve attached a .pdf that you could share out to students if you wish.

A Deeper Look at Our Offerings
(also available at our For Faculty page)

We know that for fall quarter, you have likely put your plans in place. From one set of planners during these times to another, high-five. We are doing it. If you still have some room or interest in enriching your program through involvement with the Writing Center, for this quarter or next, here’s how:

What support is available for my course or program?

• One-on-one sessions up to three times a week. Students can schedule their own one-on-one appointments to work on any writing, whether it is academic, personal, or professional.
• Weekly appointments throughout the quarter. In consultation with a tutor, students can make their own recurring, weekly appointments. Recurring appointments are ideal for committed writers and students who are undertaking an Independent Learning Contract (ILC). 
• Required visits. If you intend to require students from your course or program to make an appointment, please let your students know they’ll need to show you notes they took from the session to prove that they met your requirement. Seeing their notes offers you insight into their engagement and alerts you that they met your requirement. 
• Recommended tutors. Students are always encouraged to make their own appointments, but if you want to find an ideal match for one of your students, reach out to us, and we can help pair a tutor to a writer’s needs. 
• Tutoring in your class. Tutors can come to your class meetings up to once a week to rotate through your class’ peer review groups or to support you with a specific workshop that you deliver. They can be scheduled for weeks 3-10. (Depending on tutor availability.) 
• Workshops led by tutors, the assistant director, or the director, in your class. For titles of workshops in our repertoire, see below. (Please give at least 2-weeks’ notice when requesting an in-class workshop.)  
• Our open workshops and events. Keep your eyes out for emails and updates to our website about workshops we put on that are open to Evergreen students.
• Inkwell Readings. We have thirteen volumes of  Inkwell: A Student Guide to Writing at Evergreen that feature peer tutors’ wisdom on writing and writing at Evergreen. Browse our collection or ask us for a recommendation based on a topic you are interested in!
• 15-Minute Intro Visit. Our tutors can visit your program to describe our services and encourage your students to make one-on-one appointments at the Writing Center.
• Class Visit to the Writing Center. Your whole class can visit the Writing Center! Tutors will describe our services and help people get acquainted with the Writing Center as a resource on campus. Sometimes we also pair this with a short (20-minute) workshop on the five-stage writing process and address typical struggles that writers face in academic settings.
• Conversation & collaboration. Come talk to the assistant director and/or director about your needs, ideas, successes, and failures. We want to grow our services to meet your needs and support you in your role as a writing mentor. We value communities of practice, even if the community is just the three of us—the assistant director, the director, and you—in an office at the Writing Center. Send us a note, and let’s put our minds together.

NEW! Workshops we can offer your course or program

All of our workshops are designed to bring student writers at all levels to a more confident place with their writing. The workshops below can be delivered by our peer tutors, the assistant director, or the director. The length can vary between 45 minutes and 90 minutes to suit your needs. 

If you’d like to schedule, contact birksa@evergreen.edu or yannons@evergreen.edu. For best results, we need at least 2 weeks’ notice to arrange a facilitator for your course or program. 

• Writing Community at Evergreen
• COMING SOON! Online Tools & References for Student Writers
• Reading, Note-taking, and Brainstorming
• The Writing Process 
• The Paper: How to Hold an Academic Conversation
• The Peer Review Workshop: How to Give, Get, and Use Feedback 
• Rhetoric: Choices to Craft and Communicate
• Style, Citations, and Plagiarism
• COMING SOON! Line-by-Line: Editing and Proofreading
• How to Survive your Thesis or Big Project

Original workshops for your course or program

We are open to collaborating with you to create a workshop that suits your needs. Original workshops we have delivered in the past have focused on zine-making, writing as a method for processing trauma, sonnet-writing, reader-based prose, and more. Contact birksa@evergreen.edu or yannons@evergreen.edu to start collaborating. We need at least 2 weeks’ notice to prepare an original workshop. 

Thanks!

Do you have any questions for us?

Let us know if you want to join us for one of our new, remote-working inventions: the “fancy water” party. It’s not the hallway; it’s not the water-cooler; it’s not happy hour. But maybe it approximates that. When we meet up, we might ask: What are you writing?

Best,

Ariel Birks & Sandy Yannone,
Assistant Director & Director, Writing Center
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