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To further assist with your success in 1A, RCC and the English dept. ask that you complete 50 minutes per week of lab work in the Virtual WRC. The Writing and Reading Center is where you can get support and resources for furthering your skills from class each week. Usually it is in MLK 119 at a specific hour each week, but because of the COVID-19 closure, your weekly lab activities will all be online, at whatever times work for you in any given week.

The WRC has different resources you can use during your 50 minutes a week: English and ESL professors, trained peer tutors, instructional modules with videos and activities and DLAs (Directed Learning Activities).

Our Virtual WRC is available via Canvas, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You will also not have a designated time to attend or leave the Virtual WRC; therefore, you may break up your 50 minute weekly requirement in a way that works best with your schedule. In addition to our English 1A class, you should also be enrolled in a WRC-LAB class, Section 48769. This is where you access all lab materials and activities: by logging into the Canvas WRC-LAB section first, and then clicking in to Cranium Café.

Each week on Monday, I will post an activity in OUR Canvas class for that week. There will be different activities each week depending on what we are doing. Sometimes the whole class will have the same activity, and other weeks you might have an activity individualized for you.

Each Monday you will have a lab activity due the following Sunday by 11:59pm in our Canvas class (not WRC-LAB).

Sometimes, your assigned activity for the week will be a Directed Learning Assignment (DLA) which is a downloadable handout with reading and instruction on a skill and some practice; when you complete that activity, you should see an instructor in the online lab for any follow up questions you have.

Sometimes, your assigned activity will be to talk to an instructor or tutor about your ideas and organization for an essay or maybe even to look at a draft of your essay.

Lab Activities

Other weeks, your assigned activity will be to go through an essay I returned to you and fix the mechanical mistakes (things like grammar or punctuation, not the big idea stuff) so you can practice revising your own work. You should go over those corrections with an instructor or tutor.

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The Virtual WRC

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Tips for Successful WRC Use

As noted on the syllabus, your lab activities in the WRC are equally weighted and are the main portion of your resource use grade. This 5% of your final grade can be impacted by skipping lab activities, but more than anything, the lab is just an exceptional opportunity to get help beyond our class and my drop-in hours. You can come to my WRC hour, or any instructor’s hour that fits your schedule to get live assistance or have a question answered.

Making the Most of Your

WRC Time WRC HOURS*

Mon-Thurs: 7am - 9pm Fridays: 9am - 3pm

Saturdays: 8am-11am

WRC TUTORING: TBA – check site!

Tutors and instructors are accessed via Cranium Café

inside the Canvas shell.

• Make sure you see what is in the “Start Here” module in the WRC-LAB Canvas class. Some of

the items there will be assigned to you for the first week activity, but there is also stuff you

should know is there. Please check out Cranium Café so you know how to work with

instructors.

• Work with instructors and/or tutors as often as you can!

• The WRC is designed and funded to support students doing work for English, ESL, and

Reading classes. Please use this hour to ask questions, do practice activities, and sharpen

your skills.

• If you do something in the lab that doesn’t have you ending up with work to submit, like an

instructor help session or a tutoring session, just post a few sentences in the text entry box for

that week’s assignment and tell me who you worked with and what you worked on. (Or if the

person is okay with it, you can even take a screenshot or picture to upload if that works for

you) – just something so you remember to keep track of how you spent your time that week,

and you let me know.