If you have writing or a presentation assigned in your course, the Writing Center is here to support you and your students!
Use Us In Your Syllabus
Here is language you can plug into your syllabus directly or adjust as needed.
The Writing Center offers helpful 1:1 peer coaching on any writing you might be doing in this class or others: Cover letters, resumes, lab reports, abstracts, executive summaries, term papers, presentations, creative work, and more! If you don’t know where to start, need assistance with drafting and revision, need help being accountable and meeting deadlines, or just need a fresh set of eyes on your writing, The Writing Center can help you achieve your writing goals. The Writing Center offers in-person, virtual, and asynchronous appointments for your convenience, and you can pre-schedule appointments throughout the semester to help keep you on track. Visit the Writing Center website to book an appointment, and check out the pages on reference and citation examples as well: mtu.edu/writingcenter; or stop in to 107 Walker Arts & Humanities Center, 10am-5pm, Monday through Friday, while classes are in session. We also have Sunday hours from 4-6pm on a walk-in basis.
Give Students Credit for Coming
While we don’t recommend requiring visits to the Writing Center, it can be easily incentivized!
- You can allow students an extension if they make a peer coaching appointment at the Writing Center and send you the receipt.
- You can offer extra credit on an assignment that a student brings in for a peer coaching appointment
Have Us Visit Your Classroom
If requested, we will visit your classroom and provide a short 5-10 minute presentation given by a peer coach on who we are and what we do. If you provide information about your assignment ahead of time, we can customize this presentation to how we might help with a particular assignment. However, studies have found that early intervention is really helpful for students in general. There’s no need to use us only right before something is due–all students write here at Tech–scheduling an in-class visit reminds them of this great learning center and how it can support them.
Communication Across the Curriculum
The Writing Center administrative team collaborate regularly with communication-intensive courses and coursework. Claire Helakoski, Assistant Director, has presented and created faculty-facing content on topics such as plagiarism prevention and reflection and metacognition. M. Bartley Seigel facilitates publication of the Michigan Tech Lode, is a former U.P. Poet Laureate, and collaborates frequently on committees and service work that are communication and writing oriented.
If you have a question about effectively teaching writing and communication in your class, feel free to come chat with us! We're happy to help. We also offer drop-in coaching classroom visits or informational Writing Center overview classroom visits to put a coach in direct contact with your students.