Pitt-Bradford Opens New Writing Center
to Help Students Improve Skills
The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has opened a new writing center to help students of all writing abilities strengthen and sharpen their skills.
Dr. Dani Weber is the director of the new center, which offers one-on-one tutoring from composition professors. Next semester the center will add peer tutors, who will be students majoring in English education 7-12 who have been trained as tutors.
Faculty consultants and tutors are trained to ask questions to guide students through a thought process that sharpens ideas and clarifies organization.
Weber said that tutors also look for patterns of errors to help students with mistakes that they often repeat.
“The purpose of a writing center is not to fix a student’s paper,” she explained.
Faculty consultant Catherine Kula is working 10 hours a week in the center, where about 75 percent of her appointments are filled.
She said that most of the students she is seeing are taking first-year composition courses, and that she hopes that they continue to use the Writing Center throughout their college careers.
Kula also stressed that the Writing Center is not a proofreading or editing service, although consultants do help students with grammatical problems.
Kula said she helps students create thesis statements, organize and cite work properly as well as helps them improve the style and variety of their sentences. She encourages students to come to the center early in the process of writing a paper so that they can get the most amount of help shaping the best paper possible.
Other faculty consultants are Gary Tessmer, assistant professor of composition, and composition instructors Dr. Tracy Howell and Judy Hopkins.
In addition to one-on-one tutoring, the center offers group “Power Hours” on topics like plagiarism, evaluating sources and issues that arise from English being a student’s second language.
Weber comes to Pitt-Bradford from Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande, Ore., where she served as visiting writing center director and taught Composition, Methods of Tutoring Writing, Argumentation and Technical Writing.
She lived in Germany for more than a decade teaching English as a foreign language and, for many years, was also an active member of various fiction-writing critique groups.
The Writing Center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday in Swarts Hall Room 102.
Pictured, Sherelle Willis, a freshman composition student from Philadelphia, working with Gary Tessmer, assistant professor of composition.
Dr. Dani Weber is the director of the new center, which offers one-on-one tutoring from composition professors. Next semester the center will add peer tutors, who will be students majoring in English education 7-12 who have been trained as tutors.
Faculty consultants and tutors are trained to ask questions to guide students through a thought process that sharpens ideas and clarifies organization.
Weber said that tutors also look for patterns of errors to help students with mistakes that they often repeat.
“The purpose of a writing center is not to fix a student’s paper,” she explained.
Faculty consultant Catherine Kula is working 10 hours a week in the center, where about 75 percent of her appointments are filled.She said that most of the students she is seeing are taking first-year composition courses, and that she hopes that they continue to use the Writing Center throughout their college careers.
Kula also stressed that the Writing Center is not a proofreading or editing service, although consultants do help students with grammatical problems.
Kula said she helps students create thesis statements, organize and cite work properly as well as helps them improve the style and variety of their sentences. She encourages students to come to the center early in the process of writing a paper so that they can get the most amount of help shaping the best paper possible.
Other faculty consultants are Gary Tessmer, assistant professor of composition, and composition instructors Dr. Tracy Howell and Judy Hopkins.
In addition to one-on-one tutoring, the center offers group “Power Hours” on topics like plagiarism, evaluating sources and issues that arise from English being a student’s second language.
Weber comes to Pitt-Bradford from Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande, Ore., where she served as visiting writing center director and taught Composition, Methods of Tutoring Writing, Argumentation and Technical Writing.
She lived in Germany for more than a decade teaching English as a foreign language and, for many years, was also an active member of various fiction-writing critique groups.
The Writing Center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday in Swarts Hall Room 102.
Pictured, Sherelle Willis, a freshman composition student from Philadelphia, working with Gary Tessmer, assistant professor of composition.
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