Dress to Impress When It Comes To Scheduling: Writing Fellows Style

Dear Head: I’m worried about my time management skills. How can I make sure to keep track of my appointments?—Dressed to Impress in McGaw

Dear Dressed to Impress,

The 2013-2014 Academic year has had an awesome start: you’re finally settling in, you’ve leafed through the September Issue of Vogue for the latest styles or hit the local thrift stores for new outfits, and, most excitingly for new UCWbLers, you’re close to being opened up for fellowing and tutoring! Congrats!

As Writing Fellows, we eagerly design our sign-up sheets for the highly anticipated initial classroom introduction, but there’s that voice in the back of our heads that wonders how we’re going to schedule all these activities. Have no fear—the Heads are here with advice on how to manage your fabulous, fledgling UCWbL career!

You’re all fabulous and want to dress to impress when it comes to scheduling. While a cute top or a pair of lime-green slim-fit khakis never hurts, to dress to impress scheduling-wise, you need to do a little more.

Scheduling Your Face to Face Appointments
After you have visited your class and signed all your writers up for Face to Face Appointments, schedule your appointments on the “Writing Fellows AQ13” WCOnline schedule. You can use your scheduled 90-minute shift to get this work done or if necessary, you can perform said task at home, cuddling with a blanket and sipping on a pumpkin flavored anything (deelish!). Adding your scheduled appointments to WCOnline right after you make them during your class visits sends writers a reminder email and gives them a chance to use WCOnline to confirm their appointment time and location. Adding your appointments to the Writing Fellows AQ13 WCOnline schedule also gives you a method to track which writers are participating in the Writing Fellows Program. Whenever a writer doesn’t turn in a draft or misses your Face to Face Appointment without rescheduling, those appointments should be marked as “missed,” for the sake of records and feedback at the end of each quarter.

Scheduling Your Written Feedback Appointments
When creating appointments, scheduling Face to Face Appointments is simple, because you have already established the date and time for each individual writer, but how do you stay fashionable scheduling-wise when it comes to adding Written Feedback Appointments to WCOnline? Written Feedback Appointments may seem like one of those near impossible fashion situations, like finding a cute bridesmaid’s dress or trying to pull off wearing a regulation Derrick Rose jersey with no undershirt. You don’t know if all the writers will submit a draft and you’re not 100% sure when you’ll actually sit down and comment on each draft. Despite these perceived and very real challenges, you should add Written Feedback Appointments for all your writers on the Writing Fellows AQ13 schedule at the same time as you add the Face to Face Appointments. Make sure you deselect the “email client” button for all these Written Feedback Appointments, as your writers don’t need to know about these. Even if you don’t have an exact date and time yet for when you’ll work on comments, just make it up. Like fashion, a lot of successful scheduling as a Writing Fellow comes down to just going for it. And then, perhaps unlike fashion, successful scheduling as a Writing Fellow also comes down to marking your entered-Written Feedback Appointments as “missed” if a writer fails to hand in a draft.

Why It’s Fashionable and Then Some to Do Writing Fellows Scheduling Right
Scheduling all the Writing Fellows appointments you should have, given the number of writers you’re assigned, is really important and really, really stylish. Scheduling all your Writing Fellows appointments and then marking any missed Face to Face Appointments when writers stand you up or fail to show up or missed Written Feedback Appointments when writers don’t turn in a draft is the only way the Writing Fellows Program can have any sense of how well each instructor is getting their students to buy into and participate in the program. By tracking how many of your assigned writers participate, the directors and Katie B. and Amanda can do a better job of working with instructors to improve participation in the program, or, in cases where participation rates remain low, gently letting instructors know that the Writing Fellows program needs to use it’s limited resources in other courses where more writers hand in drafts and come to their Face to Face Appointments.

One Other Style Point
Nothing looks better on a Writing Fellow than finishing each draft with your Written Feedback in time to give the writer at least 2 days to make revisions on that draft before coming to your Face to Face Appointment.

In Conclusion
So, Dressed for Success, let’s be real—scheduling all the appointments you should have for each round of fellowing is just timelessly stylish. And, as we continue being real, not scheduling your appointments in advance is major faux pas, similar to walking out of your home still wearing your footie pajamas!