How to Identify Students Who Need Help/Introduction
Often, students who could benefit from additional writing support do not actively seek it. Reaching out to these students with an invitation to office hours, to chat with a TA, or to visit a writing centre or similar campus resource can be helpful, but we suggest emphasizing to your students that they will become better writers with practice, so as to encourage them to develop a positive mindset, when giving them such a recommendation. Research shows that self-efficacy is often correlated to performance in writing1, so asking students to reflect on their attitude to -- and confidence in -- writing may push some students to seek help pro-actively.
Students who are English Language Learners (ELL) will often need additional help with their writing. In addition to the language and language structure issues that often arise, ESL students typically find it very difficult to translate source material for use in academic writing, not understanding the purpose or technique of paraphrasing2. Some extra guidance on this skill might help these students.
Remember, too, that most learning support services are intended to work with students at all stages, so the recommendation to visit a writing centre or learning commons can only benefit your students, even those who are already strong writers. To encourage students to consider these services, one useful technique involves instructors discussing the resistance they have previously had to seeking help3. A self-revealing story about overcoming such resistance can inspire students to do the same thing.
Other instructors have required their students to complete post-entrance literacy assessments, which identify the students in their classes who may be below a 'benchmark' standard in writing ability4. Such an approach might not be appropriate for all situations, but other work has shown that such below-benchmark students develop more positive attitudes to their writing, as well as showing some ability gains, after subsequently taking part in compulsory writing support classes where higher-order concerns about the structure and process of academic writing were taught5.
Although providing detailed feedback on written work requires grading time that can be at a premium for instructors, it is also important to note that students can often depend on this feedback to improve their writing. Studies show that science students are often dissatisfied with feedback when it isn't directly transferable or useful for future assignments6, and that being explicit in feedback is important as implicit feedback can often be misinterpreted as being unhelpful7. Explicit feedback includes metalinguistic explanations (which state why a writing error is an error, and how it can be rectified) whereas implicit feedback makes use of recasts (which involve reading back corrected words or sentences to a student who has made an error, but do not provide explanations for why the correction has been made). Once you have openly discussed the benefits of seeking writing help with your class, it may be effective to provide specific explicit feedback to individuals when necessary.