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The Writing Center continues on to another year in helping students by improving their writing for their classes.
?The Writing Center is a thriving intellectual community because everyone here loves to write, share their writing with one another and they genuinely enjoy talking about students? writing projects with them,? writing professor Joanna Castner-Post said.
She added that the greatest goal of the Writing Center is to help students through the writing and speaking process, providing special help for international students.
Castner-Post has been the director of the Writing Center since 2007.
?We have seen students from just about every discipline from across the campus from chemistry to biology, music appreciation, composition and literature courses,? Castner-Post said. ?People will be surprised about how much writing goes on around campus.?
Senior Robert Downing said that the students he tutors always help him in a way.
?Eventually, I want to be a teacher. Every chance that you get to teach something, you learn ?that? a little bit better,? Downing said. ?Also, you learn more about yourself, because you figure out, ?Why did I actually suggest this?? or ?Why did I ask the question and what does that mean?? If you get the chance to think about it, you start realizing a lot about what makes you a good student, teacher and who you are as a person.?
Downing specializes in expository essays and he has been working with the Writing Center since 2009. He also said that the Writing Center has been beneficial to him before he started working there.
?I?ve come here a couple of times for a research project for a literature class,? Downing said. ?In high school and starting in college, I didn?t know what revising was. I was one of those students that did the one draft style of writing. I wrote it, got it done, submitted it and got my grade. ?
The Writing Center offers face-to-face tutoring so students can talk about writing and the process, from the brainstorming phases to the to the sentence level issue.
?When a student comes in, we talk about how the Writing Center works and that is from global to local,? Castner-Post said. ?So we?ll start with the bigger things first because a project doesn?t have a clear focus. We start with the big issues first like the focus, the organization, the development, the research, the documentation and then finally the sentence level.
She said they try to hire tutors from across the discipline. They have chemistry majors, history majors and commonly, English and writing majors.
The Writing Center also has an email tutoring service. In case a student cannot make it to the Writing Center, they can submit their work to the tutors via email. They usually respond within 24 hours. Tutoring through Skype is available as well. A student can be tutored from home and at the same time see the tutor?s face.
Writing Center bookmarks can be found all over campus for a step-by-step process on how to schedule an appointment, along with the available hours.
Students can also be assisted with speeches in the Writing Center. The speeches are recorded visually and auditory. The tape is emailed to them so that they can watch and listen to themselves. The staff also helps with the speeches? text of the speech to offer extra assistance with context and style before they start working on delivery.
?We had a budget cut in 2009 along with every other service at the university and we recently got our funding back and so our student utilization has grown already,? Downing said.
The Writing Center?s fee is now $2.50 per credit hour.
?We all really appreciate the funding increase,? Downing said. ?We hope that students will take advantage of the opportunity to come to the writing center, because we got the money to help students. Writing is one of the hardest things to do going out of high school into college, especially if you?re doing it alone.?
There are many tip sheets online to assist with documentation and different genres. Students can pull off examples from the Writing Center?s website.
The Writing Center tutors try to help improve students? writing and encourage students to come back. Castner-Post compared writing to sports in the fact that the more you practice, the better you will get. They are in the process of buying a software package for those students featuring grammatical and instructional components of the test so they can hone their skills to the sentence level.
?We keep growing in the number of students who are using the Writing Center, so that?s exciting to us,? Castner-Post said.
The Writing Center has a YouTube channel with entertainment videos on different writing issues like how to use the Writing Center, what it does to help students with their writing and credible vs. non-credible sources.
The Writing Center also has a Facebook page and a Twitter account, all titled ?UCA Writing Center,? along with its YouTube channel. The Facebook page has many of the same features, plus daily sentence-level and global writing help.
?One of the fun things we do is on our YouTube channel,? Downing said. ?We do videos that are kind of funny, tackling ideas about writing in a funny way because we a put through a long time of work and we realize the teacher lectures and sometimes even the sit-down sessions isn?t enough to really help energize people to think about their own writing process.?
The tutors are certified by the International College Reading and Learning Association. To get certified, they are first recognized by a UCA professor as an excellent writer and empathetic person. The group of people goes through interviews. The students who have sparked interest are required to submit a writing portfolio.
After examinations, the students of interest are invited to register for a three-hour, four-credit course titled ?Teaching and Tutoring Writing.?
In this course, students learn the theory and practice of teaching writing. They also work in the Writing Center under tutors, shadowing them for a semester within the class. The students who excel are hired in the Writing Center.
?All writers benefit from a fresh pair of eyes because writing is a social process,? Castner-Post said. ?It?s not something we do effectively alone, writers at all levels. When working on a writing project, everything is typically figured out. It?s a challenge to get what?s in your head on the page. The more you practice and feedback you get, the more you improve.?
The Writing Center is typically busier during midterms and finals.
Instead of planning a day ahead, the students should get set up about a week in advanced.
In helping international students, Castner-Post said they have special need because they?re also learning the language.
The Writing Center?s focus is to help the international students, not only with the same kind of issues that help our native English speakers have, but the center also helps them with sayings that English-speakers use that do not translate very easily in other languages.
Source: http://ucaecho.net/campus-life/writing-center-offers-help-to-struggling-students/
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