The English Lab at The Writing Center
The English Lab provides additional help for students who wish to develop skill in using English. The Lab targets students for whom English is a second language.
Services
- One-on-One Consultation. This looks like regular Writing Center consultation, but we’re only going to work with you on grammar, style, mechanics, punctuation, and vocabulary. You can come to us with specific problems you want to work on, or we can analyze your writing and set up a list of objectives. We have a separate schedule for this consultation. When you log in to the scheduler (http://truman.mywconline.com), use the drop-down menu and go to “WC: The English Lab.”
- Small Group Workshops. These are weekly workshops on specific language issues. Up to five students may sign up for a workshop (Scheduler: “Immersion Workshops”). Any of the following workshops may be available, among others: English idiom, effective transitions, verb phrasing, comma use, quoting and paraphrasing, suffixes, and prepositions. Each semester, we will survey to see what people want. Workshop events will be announced on the Lab’s Facebook page and in the announcement box on the main Writing Center webpage.
- Experimental Workshops. These workshops will develop as they are imagined by the consultants and by you. For example, one idea we’re working on right now is a creative writing immersion workshop. In that workshop, we would use creative writing to explore the mechanics and vocabulary of the English language. This might mean that you write part of a story or a personal narrative, or translate part of a story from your native language into English. A survey for general interest will be sent out at the beginning of each semester.