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Writing Lab Newsletter

2024 Newsletters

January

Moving Students to a Research Topic & Guiding Them to a Thesis Claim

March

Use Peer Review to Improve Student Papers Before You Grade Them

2023 Newsletters

January

Use Formal Writing Assignments to Facilitate Students’ Entry into Your Discipline

February

Improving Formal Writing Before It Needs to be Graded

March

Use Formal Writing Assignments to Move Students from Reading Critically to Critical Analysis to the Creation of New Insights 

April

Responding to Student Writing 

September

Redesign Writing Prompts to Improve Student Writing 

October

Help Students Improve Their Writing by Using Rubrics and by Providing Annotated Example Student Papers 

November

Tools to help students improve their papers and reduce grading time: Paragraph structure, Synthesis, and Wordiness

December

Reconsider the Way We Evaluate Student Papers 

2022 Newsletters

January

Increase the Value of Your Writing Assignments: Create Research Support Teams

February

Low-Stakes Writing Helps Students Improve Writing & Thinking

March

Assessing Students’ Progress on their Major Course Paper (Without Spending Hours on Grading)

April

Deepen/ Solidify Student Learning Using Reflection

September

Engaging Students in Course Material Through Informal Writing

October

Help Students Deepen Their Learning Through Informal Writing Tasks

November

Use Informal Writing to Help Students Learn & Retain Course Material, Connect Ideas, and Create New Ideas

December

Informal Writing Can Help Students Review & Prepare for the Final Exam

2021 Newsletters

January

Avoid Grading Papers with Global Problems: Offer Feedback Throughout the Writing Task

February

Avoid Grading Papers with Global Problems: Offer Feedback Throughout the Writing Task

March

Students Need Our Help Understanding Plagiarism

April

Time to Grade Papers – Again!

September

Explicitly Teach the Genres of Your Discipline

October

Explicitly Teach Critical Reading in Your Discipline

November

Explicitly Teach Critical Thinking in Your Discipline

December

Changing the Focus for Grading Final Papers

2020 Newsletters

January

Help Students Transition from First-Year Writing to Writing in Your Discipline

February

Academic Discourse Community

March

Analysis & Synthesis

April

Preparing to Evaluate Student Papers

September

Tired of Grading Poor Papers? Improving Student Writing

October

Tired of Grading Poor Papers? Using Peer Review

November

Tired of Grading Poor Papers? Help Students Understand How to Revise

December

More Strategies for Commenting on Student Papers

2019 Newsletters

February

Understanding and Creating Academic Discourse May be Difficult for Students: How Can We Help?

March

Understanding and Creating Academic Discourse May be Difficult for Students: How Can We Help?

April

Provide Appropriate Feedback

September

Students Have Taken Several Classes That Require Writing: Why Can't They Write?

October

Teach Critical Reading Skills to Help Students Improve Writing

November

What are Your Expectations for Student Writing?

December

Do Your Comments Correlate with Your Prompt?

2018 Newsletters

January

How Can I Include Student Writing Without Being Overwhelmed? Assign Student Writing that Supports Your Purposes

February

Why Should I Teach Writing: It is NOT My Job

March

Help Students Avoid Procrastinating and Binge-Writing

September

I Do Not Have Time to Teach Students How to Write!

October

Help Move Student Writing from “Reporting” to “Contributing”

November

Use Writing to Help Students Learn

December

Understanding and Creating Academic Discourse May be Difficult for Students: How Can We Help?

Archived Newsletters (.zip files)