For Faculty
The Student Writing and Language Center welcomes collaboration with faculty. Faculty are encouraged to offer office hours in the Peer Learning Commons where SWLC is located. Professional staff are available to discuss collaborative teaching and to develop and host workshops. We train course attached and course aware tutors in addition to our subject-specialized tutors. If you are interested in a course attached tutor for your writing course, or you would like specific student-friendly resources to help you teach a specific writing task or topic in your course, please email us at swlc@bates.edu. In the meantime, take a few minutes to browse our curated list below of student-friendly and writing-relevant resources that you might use in your classroom.
Need a place to start? Check out the open access writing assignments and activities, grounded in current practice and scholarship and listed by topic, in Writing Spaces‘ “Activities & Assignments Archive“.
+For Understanding, Explaining, and Encouraging Students to Engage with SWLC
- The PLC Info Sheet offers a quick overview of the hours and services available in all of the Peer Learning Commons–through our center, as well as SASC.
- The SWLC Talking Points/Quick Reference Guide document highlights key information to share with your students about the Student Writing & Language Center.
- Incorporate information about the SWLC into your syllabus using these Syllabus Blurbs.
- If you would like students to reflect on a visit or show you that they visited a tutor in the SWLC, use this process memo, which also encourages metacognition (i.e. students reflect on their writing process).
- Hold your office hours in SWLC! Just email us to set that up: swlc@bates.edu.
+For Working With A Writing Course Attached Tutor (W-CAT)
All First-Year Seminars (FYSs/W1s) have a Writing Course Attached Tutor (W-CAT). Ocassionally, a W-CAT is assigned to a W2 course. Visit here to learn about our current W-CAT roster.
- Do you have–or are you planning to have–a Course Attached Tutor for Writing, or W-CAT? This overview of the W-CAT position may be helpful.
- Do you have a student who you think would make a wonderful W-CAT for your course, an FYS, or another course in your discipline? Please read more about nominating a student here.
+Readings About Writing You Might Assign to Students
+General Texts on Writing
- Bad Ideas About Writing (OER)
- How Arguments Work – A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College (OER)
- They Say, I Say (excellent for teaching the unique rhetorical moves made in academic writing)
- Norton Field Guide to Writing
- Little Seagull Handbook (usually included in the Norton Guide, though you can purchase separately as its own text)
+For Introducing Students to College Level Writing
- What is Academic Writing?
- Ten Ways To Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Student
- Why Visit Your Campus Writing Center?
- The Importance of Transfer in Your First-Year Writing Course
- “Doing Research Is Fun; Citing Sources Is Not”: Understanding the Fuzzy Definition of Plagiarism (consider the author’s recommendations and examples here alongside your discussions of AI)
+For Teaching Genre
- Navigating Genres
- Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking) – have students read OR just run this activity with them before/as you teach genre; you can also switch up the facts of the “mystery” to be related to your course content (an environmental crisis, a scientific conundrum, etc.)
- Understanding Discourse Communities
- Make Your “Move”: Writing in Genres
- Also, alongside this text, get a desk copy of They Say I Say and use parts of it with students; here is a handout to get started.
+For Teaching Voice/Considering Linguistic Identity
- Weaving Personal Experience into Academic Writings
- Constructing Scholarly Ethos in the Writing Classroom
- Should Writers Use They Own English? (a response to Fish’s NYT OpEds here)
- Mother Tongue
- How to Tame a Wild Tongue
- Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood
- The Benefits of Code Meshing in Academic Writing (Bates Student article)
- Workin’ Languages: Who We Are Matters in Our Writing
- This Ain’t Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!
- Students’ Right to Their Own Language
- The Girona Manifesto on Linguistic Rights
- Beyond Language Difference in Writing: Investigating Complex and Equitable Language Practices
- We Write Because We Care: Developing Your Writerly Identity
- What Color Is My Voice? Academic Writing and the Myth of Standard English
+Teaching Peer Review, Giving/Using Feedback on Writing, and Assessment of Writing
- How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise
- VIDEO: “No One Writes Alone: Peer Review in the Classroom, A Guide For Students”
- Responding Really Responding to Other Students’ Writing
- HANDOUT: Peer Review Types of Feedback
- What’s That Supposed to Mean? Using Feedback on Your Writing
- What Are We Being Graded On?
- “Is This for a Grade?” Understanding Assessment, Evaluation, and Low-Stakes Writing Assignments
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Peer Review
+Teaching the Writing Process: Revision, Editing, and Proofreading
- “Finding Your Way In”: Invention as Inquiry Based Learning in First-Year Writing
- Punctuation’s Rhetorical Effects
- How Writing Happens
- Enabling the Reader
- Changing Your Mindset About Revision
- SLIDESHOW: Revision, Proofreading, and Editing
- What’s the Diff? Version History and Revision Reflections
- Find the Best Tools for the Job: Experimenting with Writing Workflows
+Teaching About Using Sources and Information Literacy
- Walk, Talk, Cook, Eat: A Guide to Using Sources, follow up with how these metaphors relate to AI
- Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources
- Googlepedia: Turning Information Behaviors into Research Skills, follow up with starting a research search using ChatGPT and see how this article’s suggestions apply to that (or not).
- Assessing Source Credibility for Crafting a Well-Informed Argument
- Inclusive Citation: How Diverse Are Your References?
- Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively
+On AI & Writing (ideas for you + readings for students)
- WTF is AI?
- A Very Gentle Introduction to Large Language Models without the Hype
- There Is No Ethical Use of AI
- MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI Working Paper: Overview of the Issues, Statement of Principles, and Recommendations
- MLA & CCCC’s Student Guide to AI Literacy
- LibGuide, Macalester College
- AI & Writing Checklist (go through with your students and discuss to co-create an AI and writing policy)
- Plagiarism and AI, Carleton College (part of larger guide to Understanding Plagiarism)
- Academic Honesty and AI, FYS workshop, Fall 2023, part of learning module with pre-workshop and post-workshop components as well, Elmira College
- Transylvania University FYS LibGuide on Plagiarism and AI
- AI Prompts for Teaching: A Spellbook, Cynthia Alby
- ChatGPT Assignments to Use in Your Classroom Today, University of Central Florida
- AI/Writing Assignment Shakedown Guide, use this to work through (“test run”) your writing assignment prompt using AI
- Student Guide to Artificial Intelligence (Elon University & AACU)
- 15 open-access assignments in August 2024 edition of TextGenEd: Continuing Experiments (geared towards HS teachers, mostly, but can be adapted to work in a First-Year Writing Seminar at the college level), including:
- Can AI Read for You? Teaching Rhetorical Reading (about reading)
- They Say, I Say, Robots Play (about source citation)
- ChatGPT and Poetic Mechanics (understanding genre)
- Using AI as a Tutor for Writing Initiation (inventing and brainstorming)
- Where Worlds Entwine: The Generative AI Poetry Exercise (about drafting)
- Embodying Rhetoric: Quick Scripts and “Acts” of Persuasion (about speaking)