Jacobson Center for Teaching, Writing & Learning
The staff of the Jacobson Center seeks to improve the teaching and learning of Smith College students. More specifically, they offer students several services aimed at enabling them to make the most of their educations. These services include individual writing counseling; introductory writing workshops which introduce our services; and workshops on time management, study skills and other academic issues.
The center also offers the faculty support of several kinds: writing and teaching colloquia, a library of materials about teaching and learning and individual consultation on classroom issues.
Individual Writing Conferences
Throughout the two summer terms, the Jacobsen Center offers individual writing conferences.
During these half-hour sessions, students work on pre-writing, writing and editing strategies. The center serves as an audience for each student's ideas about assignments and the written expression of those ideas. It's the center's goal in these conferences to address the specific writing issues evident in a particular paper and also the characteristic patterns in writing that the paper reveals. Some of these issues and patterns will be strengths; others will benefit from our attention. Among the writing issues dealt with are organization, the presentation of evidence, argument, language bias, grammar and sentence structure.
This is not a remedial service, but rather a support for all writers. Experience has shown that all writers can benefit from feedback on these writing issues, no matter what their level of expertise. The center also offers more intensive work on writing issues common to speakers and writers of English as a foreign language and people with learning disabilities.
