Faculty support
Collaborating with the Writing & Communication Center (WaCC) is a powerful way to support student learning, improve long-term writing skills, and promote academic success.
The WaCC offers tools to help faculty integrate writing and communication into their teaching. Explore resources for designing assignments, providing feedback, and fostering student engagement to enhance learning and writing skills across disciplines.
Getting started
Start by introducing WaCC Resources to Students. When you begin talking about your writing assignments early in the quarter, introduce the WaCC to your students as well. Invite us to your classroom for short presentations about the WaCC and how to take advantage of our free services. We’ll send you quarterly reminder emails about these presentations.
Add WaCC resources into your course materials by including a short blurb about the WaCC in course syllabi and/or in Canvas:
“The Writing and Communication Center (WaCC) offers free tutoring on any project that involves reading, writing, and/or communication, including papers, presentations, creative work, and reading assignments. WaCC Peer Consultants work with students in person, via Zoom, and asynchronous feedback via email. Visit /academic-support-programs/wacc to learn more and make appointments. The WaCC is located in the Academic Learning Commons in UW2-030.”
Encourage WaCC visits
Encourage students to schedule conferences with the WaCC early and often. Especially well before the assignment is due. It is helpful to provide detailed and specific writing feedback to your students, so our tutors have a place to focus where you believe it is most needed.
Using our non-editing approach, WaCC consultants focus on global issues of the work e.g., assignment guidelines, main point or question, structure and organization, clear thinking, and overall effectiveness. We provide grammar support in the context of the students’ writing so they can identify and correct future errors.
Collaborating with the WaCC
You can collaborate with the WaCC professional staff, such as Erik Echols (eechols@uw.edu), Deborah Hathaway (djacoby@uw.edu), and/or our Rhet/Comp faculty partner, Peter Brooks (pjbrooks@uw.edu) to provide feedback on your writing assignments.
We can help you answer questions like:
- How can faculty best integrate writing and communication goals into overall course design?
- How can faculty best design assignments to meet course writing and communication goals?
- How can faculty design assignments that can be assessed efficiently?
- How can faculty use “low stakes” writing to enhance student learning?
Designing assignments with the WaCC in mind
- Be specific about what you want your students to do. Phrase the assignment specifically, “Meet with a peer tutor about revision suggestions.”
- Incentivize, don’t require: Assign extra credit with an open timeline (not a specific due date) and a small deliverable such as a reflection on the process or how they will revise their work based on WaCC feedback.
- Session confirmations: WaCC peer consultants can confirm student appointments via email or our written confirmation form. Please inform your students to ask for confirmation (we don’t automatically ask) for engaged tutoring sessions longer than 25 minutes.
Assignment review
We can share your assignments with our peer consultants for two distinct purposes:
- To have peer consultants read the assignment from a student’s perspective and provide feedback on how they understand the assignment guidelines. Faculty can then use this information to revise the assignment instructions if necessary.
- To familiarize the peer consultants with the assignment guidelines as well as how they can best support students in completing the assignment. Instructors can tailor the support students receive by sharing additional information about the assignment and how it fits into overall course goals.
To share assignments for either purpose, send an email to WaCC Assistant Director, Erik Echols at eechols@uw.edu.
Orientation
