Faculty Support
The University Writing Center aims to support writers and cultivate writing-based communities across campus. In pursuit of that aim, not only do we support students with their writing, but we also help faculty build writing assignments, use writing as a learning activity, and effectively and equitably assess student writing.
On this page are some of the ways you can help us reach writers and how we can help you with the writing in your courses.
Feel free to reach out to us at writingcenter@brandeis.edu for any additional questions.
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We can visit your classroom for a 5-minute informational visit. These visits are a very effective way to show students a friendly face from the center and have a track record for boosting the use of the Writing Center services. To request an info visit, fill out this form.
To help guide your students to our services, we encourage you to add information about the Writing Center to your syllabus and Latte course site. Feel free to copy and paste this language directly to your materials:
For the writing assignments in this class, I encourage you to make use of the Brandeis University Writing Center, which offers free writing support to all Brandeis community members in the form of in-person and Zoom consultations and document-drops. Writers of all levels in all subjects — working on anything from their first college essays to lab reports, senior theses, dissertations, and job and fellowship materials — are welcome. The Writing Center's team of experienced consultants is on hand to help you with your writing project at any stage, from brainstorming, to outlining, to revision.
The Writing Center can provide tailored classroom workshops. If you would like us to develop a specific workshop for one of your courses or come to your class, please let us know. We are always open to collaboration and look forward to your ideas. To request a tailored workshop for your students, email us at writingcenter@brandeis.edu.
Faculty workshops are also available on request on the following topics:
- Feedback and assessment: How to grade efficiently and effectively.
- Ideas for low-stakes writing: Incorporating everyday writing activities and exercises to the classroom.
- Effective assignment design: Help students write the essays you want.
- Peer review: Methods and strategies to help students get useful help from their classmates.
- Teaching and talking writing in your discipline: Alerting faculty to disciplinary differences in writing and providing strategies on how to incorporate talking about writing even when discussing readings.
- Classroom activities to facilitate writing: Easy activities to incorporate writing and writing awareness in the classroom.
The Writing Center is happy to discuss ways that you can support writing in your own department, for instance, guidance in designing and running writing groups. To request a workshop or to discuss ways to build support for writing in your own department, please contact Paige Eggebrecht, director of the Writing Center, at writingcenter@brandeis.edu.
Meet with the Writing Center corrector to discuss your writing assignment design, strategies for providing writing feedback, in-class writing activities, and other ways to support the writers in your classroom. For individualized support, please contact Paige Eggebrecht, director of the Writing Center, at writingcenter@brandeis.edu.
We are constantly trying to extend our reach and accommodate as many students as possible across the disciplines, and we appreciate your help in encouraging Writing Center use. Faculty can encourage students to make appointments by informing them about our services early in the semester and recommending us often.
You are also welcome to incentivize students to visit us. However, if you offer extra credit or make it a requirement for all of your students to make an appointment at the Writing Center, please let us know in advance, and we will do our best to ensure we have enough appointments to accommodate the extra demand. In particular, knowing the timing of your assignments and the size of your class is useful for our staffing purposes. Note that incentives such as extra points or extensions on assignments are offered only by individual instructors and not by the center itself.
For confirmation that a student has visited us, you can simply ask the student to share their appointment overview (emailed to visitors following their appointment) with you.
The University Writing Program and the Writing Center have curated a huge variety of Writing Resources available to the Brandeis community.
- Faculty Resources include tips and guides on crafting effective writing assignments, designing in-class writing activities, and how to provide feedback for and assess student writing.
- Student Resources include guides, exercises, and tips for different stages of writing (drafting, editing, revising), different genres (annotated bibliographies, literature reviews, lab reports) and writing across the disciplines. We encourage you to share these resources with your students and use them in your classroom.
If there is a resource you'd like us to add, please reach out to us at writingcenter@brandeis.edu.