Writing Skills Badges

Students who are interested in developing a strong foundation for their writing assignments and students interested in transferable communication, academic integrity, and self-editing skills.

After completing this digital badge, you’ll be able to:

• Describe how to uphold academic integrity in writing assignments.
• Utilize strategies to make your writing experiences more productive and less frustrating.
• Create plans to create effective structure for your written projects.
• Understand core concepts related to effective academic grammar and structure.

Getting started with writing

• This workshop offers students an introduction to the some of the expectations and challenges that can that affect the writing process. It explores a number of strategies that can help overcome writers’ block and ensure that the process of completing a written assignment is more productive and less frustrating. It features topics like finding sources, and key points to consider when planning to write your paper. This workshop also explores significant concepts to help you improve your writing skills.

Structuring papers and developing effective thesis statements

• Rather than struggle to create a perfect thesis statement on your own, work through this process with us. This workshop offers an overview of essay structure with a particular focus on thesis statements and their role in building arguments.

Writing academically: Ethically incorporating the ideas of others

• This session provides you with a number of strategies for using sources effectively in your writing. It also focuses on a considerations that are important to consider when you paraphrase an original text, summarize a paragraph, and quote ideas of others. This workshop helps you avoid unintentional plagiarism.

Revising for clarity and concision

• Clarity and concision focuses on how to increase the clarity of your writing and how to become a writer who gets straight to the point. Find out how to increase the clarity of your writing and other tips.

During the workshops, students will have a chance to learn foundational writing skills, discuss topics with others, and learn more about writing supports.

Attendance of Workshops: Students will register for, and attend, three out of four eligible Foundations Series writing workshops within one academic year:

Online quizzes: In addition to attending the workshops, students will be required to complete an online quiz for each workshop and score 80% or higher to demonstrate their learning.

Students interested in developing skills associated with advanced academic writing genres and students interested in developing transferable communication and effective reading skills.

After completing this digital badge, you’ll be able to:

• Describe the forms of associated with particular writing assignments
• Utilize strategies to fit your written work to the forms associated with specific genres
• Understand core concepts related to effective engagement with Academic source material
• Gain skills related to adapting your written work to different audiences

Writing for Rhetoric

• Did you know that there's more to the success of an academic argument than logic? In this workshop, you'll become familiar with the rhetorical “moves” common to most research articles so that you can employ them in your own writing. Using excerpts from research articles in a range of disciplines, we’ll learn how to distinguish clearly between your research problem, the importance of your research problem, and the background to your research problem; how to diplomatically articulate the research gap you intend to fill; how to justify your methodological choices; how to explain any differences between your results and the results of previous researchers; and how to acknowledge your study’s limitations and make suggestions for further research.

Writing the Scholarship Application

• Although not all scholarship applications are equal, there are enough commonalities in purpose, organization, language, and intended audience to consider it a distinct genre of writing. Familiarity with these generic elements are essential if you wish to write a successful application of your own. Using real-world examples of such components of a scholarship application as the statement of intent or purpose, this workshop will focus on organizational strategies and perception management, particularly issues of style and tone, which should reflect the needs and expectations of the intended audience.

Writing the Literature Review

• The literature review is a genre of writing with its own distinctive characteristics, familiarity with which is essential if you are to write a strong literature review of your own. To this end, our writing workshop will focus on the purpose, organization, language, and intended audience of the literature review, using examples from actual University of Calgary dissertations from a range of disciplines.

Writing the Research Proposal

• The research proposal is a genre of writing with its own distinctive characteristics, familiarity with which is essential if you are to write a successful research proposal of your own. To this end, our writing workshop will focus on the purpose, organization, language, and intended audience of the research proposal, using real-world examples from a range of disciplines. In the process, you will learn how to convey the object, importance, and, most importantly, the feasibility of your research project. Please note that this session does not provide information related to preparing proposals for scholarship/funding applications.

During the workshops, students will have a chance to learn specialized writing skills, discuss topics with others, and learn more about writing supports.

Attendance of Workshops: Students will register for, and attend, three out of four eligible Focused Series writing workshops within one academic year:

Online quizzes: In addition to attending the workshops, students will be required to complete an online quiz for each workshop and score 80% or higher to demonstrate their learning.

Students interested in pursuing mentoring opportunities that support student learning and students interested in developing transferable leadership, communication, and facilitation skills.

After completing this digital badge, you’ll be able to:

• Describe how to uphold academic integrity when coaching peers
• Explain the benefits of using writing resources and strategies
• Create a mentorship environment that incorporates inclusive facilitation practices and active reading
• Outline different writing genres and myths associated with the idea of “good” writing

Responding as a reader

Genres and the myth of good writing/using the assignment sheet

Strategies of writing / Introduction in writing resources

Conduct—boundaries

Prerequisite: Foundational Writing Skills Badge

For those students who do not have the Foundational Writing Skills prerequisite, this will be provided in the morning of the Peer Assisted Writing training day.

In-person training: Students will register for, and attend, the training session

During the workshops, students will have a chance to discuss topics with others, practice facilitation skills, and apply learning.

Facilitation of Peer Assisted Writing Sessions: Upon completion of training students will be required to deliver 10 -12 hours of peer support at writing drop down peer assisted writing sessions As an application of learning, students are asked to complete a reflection for each session. Students will receive regular feedback on their sessions from the session facilitator. 

• Students who have completed the Peer Assisted Writing Digital Badge program. 
• Students interested in pursuing mentoring opportunities that support student learning. 
• Students interested in developing transferable leadership, communication, and facilitation skills. 

After completing this digital badge, you will be able to: 

• Facilitate the learning of peer writing mentors 
• Contribute meaningfully to tasks associated with marketing, communications, and content creation 
• Take on leadership roles in creating an inclusive supportive facilitation environment  
• Provide feedback and recommendations to peer mentors 

• Culturally Responsive Leadership Skills 
• Session Facillitation 
• Giving Feedback 
• Marketing and Communications 
• Content Creation 

This badge consists of 2 hours in-person training in the form of workshops and practice activities, and a minimum of 13 hours of peer leadership sessions, workshop facilitation, and other program-related activities, associated reflections and feedback between sessions. The Peer Assisted Writing (PAW) Badge is a pre-requisite for this badge.