For Teachers

The intellectual challenge of writing center work comes from having to entertain both the student's and the teacher's understandings simultaneously in ways that allow us to compassionately explain where these understandings collide and where the gaps occur.

-Nancy Maloney Grimm

For classes: PowerPoint presentation on the Writing Center. If you'd like to spend some time in class informing students about the Writing Center, feel free to access the following: http://www.boisestate.edu/wcenter/WritingCenterPP.ppt. It provides an overview of our work, and answers several questions that writers often have about what we do.

One of the main questions we have from teachers is, "So, what do you do over there in the Writing Center?" Our role in the university is at times unknown. Some folks wonder if we edit papers, or if we co-write essays with students. Others wonder how we can possibly help with a paper in a certain discipline if most consultants are English majors. All are valid concerns.

As we tell the writers who visit us, though, our main goal is to engage them in a conversation about their papers. We are an active learning center, and our consultants are experienced in asking questions that can prompt more thinking about a paper, or about a particular matter of style or correctness. So, we do not edit papers, but we do talk with writers about correctness, and help them discover ways to proofread their own papers. We do not co-write papers, but we do engage in conversations that lead to a writer discovering what else can be said and other ways to say it. And, we do not claim to evaluate the correctness of claims made in another discipline, but we can talk about how well a paper seems to address the criteria of an assignment and about certain organizational strategies and sentence structures that are common to many disciplines.

In short, we are in the middle between teacher and student. We consult with writers. We look to prompt their thinking and to help guide them to understand and meet the criteria of a given assignment. And, our consultants can also serve as a resource for you, especially if you're drafting a writing assignment. If you're curious about how students will respond to it, stop by and have a real student read it. Our consultants are experts in reading and responding to college assignments.

So, that's what we do. But we cannot do our work without help. The best way that students know about us is through you. Time after time, students tell us that they learned about the Writing Center because a teacher mentioned it in class. We hope that all teachers at Boise State will take the time to mention us to their students. If you like, you might put a blurb like this in your syllabus, or link to us from your course page. Or, if you'd like, a consultant can come to your class and briefly talk about the Center and what we do. To schedule such a visit, please call us at 426-1298 or email michaelmattison@boisestate.edu .