About The Writing Resource Center (WRC)

"Embracing and empowering one writer at a time"

- Writing Resource Center motto

Mission Statement

In support of Florida A&M University's mission and educational goals, the Writing Resource Center (WRC) encourages and empowers all members of the FAMU community in all disciplines to develop into informed, critical, and effective writers at the university and beyond through a student-centered, peer-to-peer, process pedagogy approach to writing instruction.

Mission in Practice

Since opening its doors on November 1, 2004, the Florida A&M University Writing Resource Center has firmly established itself as a viable English resource that promotes the academic and professional success of FAMU students, faculty, and staff.

Through individualized, self-paced, in-person, and virtual instruction, the WRC affords students the opportunity to reinforce, review, and apply skills that are needed to advance to and succeed in upper-division courses. To this end, the Center also offers Workshops that address a particular language skill, writing strategy, or essay genre and that give students an opportunity to interact with peers who are interested in improving in the same areas.

Ever mindful of its mission to address the needs of the entire University community, the WRC provides consultations and workshops for students who are preparing research papers, scholarship applications, presentations, and other professional-type assignments. Frequently taught workshops include "Understanding Plagiarism," "MLA Documentation," "APA Documentation," "Writing Effective Personal Statements," and a variety of writing and grammar-related conventions.

Along with quality instruction, the WRC provides access to 16 internet-ready computers, which students, faculty, and staff may use to conduct research or access a range of Microsoft applications. Students may also check out textbooks that are used in various composition and literature courses.

Writing Resource Center Values

Discussing to Learn: As a center, we primarily use the Socratic Method (a form of dialogue that encourages critical thinking and elaboration by asking and answering questions) in our peer-to-peer consultations and workshops. We believe that dialogue between peers helps writers to engage more fully with their writing process, to recognize, develop, and privilege their individual voices and writing identities, and to improve their critical thinking skills.
Writing as a Process: Like most learning, writing is a process, and as a center, we help our clients understand each step of the writing process (pre-writing, writing, rewriting, revising, and editing) via dialogue about their writing. We empower each client to recognize, develop, and use his/her/their individual writing process to compose effective prose for a variety of rhetorical situations.
Academic Integrity: Honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, and trust are tantamount in the center and for productive and effective peer-to-peer and group sessions. Each writing consultant brings each of these qualities to every session and every interaction with clients in the center, and clients are always expected to operate from a space of honesty, respect, responsibility, fairness, and trust.
Intellectual Humility: To have a successful peer-to-peer session, both the writing consultant and the client are expected to be open, curious, and capable of listening to and hearing other ideas and possibly revising their own ideas. Neither the writing consultant nor the client should be intellectually servile (i.e., relying solely on the writing consultant to tell the client what to do) or intellectually arrogant (i.e., a client dismissing the writing consultant's questions and suggestions because it is not what the client wants to hear).

Accessibility and Inclusivity: We strive to maintain a center that supports diverse writing consultants and clients of varying identities, degrees of able-bodiedness, and degrees of neurodivergence through our efforts to create a safe, supportive, and accessible space both physically and virtually.
Empathy: Writing is a very personal and communal activity and to grow as a writer, which includes learning and understanding one's own writing process, recognizing and harnessing one's own voice, and editing one's own work effectively, requires the writer to be vulnerable and open. Because we understand that each client comes to the center at different stages in their writing process, we strive to create and maintain a safe environment within the center that encourages the client to embark on the journey of discovery that we hope leads the client to the power of his/her/their voice through writing.
Close Reading: As writing well requires one to also think well, writing also requires one to read well. To read well si to read closely--to read carefully and purposefully and to reread. This kind of reading is required to understand assignments and specific writng expectations, to adequately integrate primary and secondary texts into one's writing, and to revise, rewrite, and edit one's own work. Close readign is an integral part of the writing process.
Collaboration: Writing is a collaborative process, and in the center, we work from an intention of collaboration in each of our sessions. Collaboration extends beyond our work with individual clients and includes collaborating with professors, departments, units, and other centers on campus to create workshops and opportunities ot assist in meeting their writing-based goals, promote a strength-based writing culture on campus, and foster ongoing partnerships.

Contact Us

Hours: Monday - Thursday 9am - 6pm/Friday 8:30 - 4:30

515 Orr Drive
Rm.124, Tucker Hall
Tallahassee, Florida 32307

P:: (850) 599-8391
F:: (850) 412-5952
E:: wrc@famu.edu

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