Fall 2010 Updates

Workshop in Classrooms Across Campus

 

Writing Studio consultants spent this summer overhauling our Workshop Program. We decided that offering a menu of options to all instructors and making corresponding scripts available online has the following advantages:

• It lessens the burden on instructors, obviating the need for extensive collaboration with the Writing Studio, while enhancing instructors’ ability to participate in the workshop itself.
• It allows instructors to see and evaluate the content presented to their students when deciding what might work best in their courses.
• It streamlines the process for the consultants leading the workshops.

 

We have developed scripts for six different workshops:

• General College Writing Overview
• Invention: Getting Started
• Revision
• Thesis Statements
• Textual Evidence
• Organizing Research Papers

Each workshop runs approximately 45 minutes and includes a discussion of writing strategies, a consultant-facilitated conversation with the instructor and students about writing conventions relevant to the course, and at least one writing activity. The scripts are schematic enough that the particular content of an instructor’s course can be accommodated and the classroom discussion and activities can develop organically.

The response from instructors has been rapid and positive. We look forward to visiting more classrooms, developing new scripts to cover more content, and revising existing scripts to better meet the needs of writing instructors and their students.