1. Getting to Know the Writing Resources Center
26 September 2018
Dr. Heather Blain Vorhies
University of North Carolina
at Charlotte

2. What are we? One-on-one writing instruction
Undergraduate, graduate student, faculty, and staff
All disciplines
Academic and non-academic writing (cover letters, resumes, personal statements, grant applications, etc.)
Classroom presentations and workshops
Student referrals

3. Who are we? Director and Associate Director Senior Tutor
About twenty undergraduate and graduate student peer tutors
Marketing intern
Reception staff

4. How do we do what we do? Training
All tutors take ENGL 4400/5400: Theory and Practice of Tutoring Writing
Regular professional development
Emphasis is on client learning, not necessarily on the product

5. What should your students expect in a session?
A lot…
of talking
of questions
of participation on the part of the client
A little…
address of grammar and usage

6. Why doesn’t the writing center talk about grammar?

7. Copyediting = correcting for error No learning occurs.
Ever since the creation of modern medicine the average lifespan of humans has been increasing and the infant mortality rate has gone way down. The combinations of these two factors leads to an increase in the population size in countries that have this medicine and the common question that comes up as a result is how many people is too much? . This is a scary question to have to ask as the world population reaches 7.6 billion since one knows what an overpopulated Earth would look like or maybe we are already living it.

8. What the Tutors Said

9. The writer seems knowledgeable and has several good points, but the reader needs more evidence
The writer seems to leave out several in-text citations, and it’s not clear how he’s using all of his sources
The writer seems to be most concerned about environmental stress on the planet, but this isn’t emphasized
The writer ends up making general statements instead specific ones

10. So what might a session with this client look like?
What’s the assignment? For what discipline?
What’s the argument you want to make?
What evidence do you want to use to prove these points?
Where does your reader get confused?

11. Techniques tutors might use in a session
Glossing (What is the main idea in this paragraph? What is the purpose of this paragraph?)
Post-it notes or storyboarding for organization
The thesis wheel
Transcription/WIRMI
Paragraph and sentence-level revision techniques, such as the old-new sentence pattern

12. What kinds of sessions are offered?
Face-to-face
WebEx
eTutoring

13. What kind of limitations does the WRC have?
We have sessions Sunday-Friday while Fall and Spring classes are in session
Exam weeks and early semester have more limited schedules
We tend to get busy closer to finals
We serve clients on a first-come, first-served basis

14. Some Important Notes The WRC practices confidentiality
WRC sessions are student-driven, not instructor-driven
Student referrals do provide a place for the instructor to indicate what needs to be worked on

15. Questions?