Support for Courses, Instructors, and Graduate Supervisors

Dr. Nadine Fladd teaching a workshop to a class of graduate students
Support for Courses, Instructors, and Graduate Supervisors

What do students tell us? Your recommendation as an instructor and graduate supervisor matters to students. When you tell students about the WCC, they’re more likely to use our services and resources.  

Most students who have used the WCC heard about us from their instructors and supervisors. Students also share that they wish they had learned about and experienced support from the WCC earlier in their academic careers, so please refer them early and often. 

Who benefits?

All students benefit from WCC feedback. We help students become more confident, agile, and self-aware communicators. Working with the WCC can be especially useful when students: 

  • Transition to university or graduate school. 

  • Encounter new kinds of assignments, disciplinary genres, and styles. 

  • Draft longer and more complex papers with expectations for increased research synthesis and integration. 

  • Need support with academic writing and speaking in English. 

  • Embark on higher-stakes projects in a less structured environment (e.g. undergrad or grad thesis work). 

You benefit!

When students work with the WCC, they start assignments and projects earlier, and they revise their work before handing it in. This ensures that you receive more well thought out and polished submissions. 

Use WCC services to support you and your students

Student Appointments

  • WCC appointments are spaces for formative feedback and reflection on writing and communication design processes.  
  • With our help, students articulate goals, engage in active learning, and strengthen their skills and strategies for the long term.  
  • We help undergraduate students understand assignment instructions and rubrics. We guide and give them feedback while they plan, draft, and revise.  
  • We help graduate students with more advanced communication tasks in their specific disciplines by providing guidance and feedback, helping them create manageable processes for long-term projects, and advising on presenting and publishing.  
  • Our advisors and tutors preserve academic integrity by ensuring that the ideas and writing/design developed through an appointment are always the student’s own work. 

Workshops

  • The WCC has over 30 online interactive workshops to help your students succeed in their assignments and other writing and communication projects. These workshops cover a variety of topics related to academic writing and communication, from planning writing projects (great for grad students working on a thesis) to drafting specific genres (like critical analyses, literature reviews, or proposals) and other tasks like revising, giving and getting peer feedback, and designing engaging presentations. You and your students can access all our workshops by self-registering for “WCC Workshops” on LEARN.  
  • Custom course-integrated workshops are built with your input and participation for a specific assignment or skill development. A WCC staff member will collaborate with you to facilitate the workshop in person or online, or work with you asynchronously to deliver the content.  

Resources

WCC online resources are tip sheets covering a range of topics on style, genre, and process across disciplines. You can include them as course content or encourage students to use them on their own.  

Graduate Student Programs

  • Encourage your graduate students to join WCC’s graduate programs for: 
  • Thesis planning and preparation 
  • Thesis drafting and revising 
  • Scholarly talks and presentations 

Additional expertise

  • We are ready to consult to support your teaching and supervision on a range of topics and help connect you to other experts on campus: 
  • Designing writing/communication assignments 
  • Advising on writing assignments and GenAI 
  • Supporting graduate student writers for theses, presentations, and publication