Welcome Thais Rodrigues Cons!

The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) team is excited to announce our new WAC Graduate Associate Thais Rodrigues Cons (she/her). Thais is a third-year PhD student in the Rhetoric Composition and Teaching of English (RCTE) program in the English Department and a minor in Information. Thais will assist with the many WAC initiatives across campus, such as our Faculty Fellows, Faculty Learning Communities, and supporting individual instructors with classes.

What Excites You Most About This Role?

I have worked in multiple writing-related roles and been a writing instructor myself. Back in Brazil, my home country, I collaborated with the Writing Center to support faculty with scholarly publishing and manuscripts in English, as well as designing their syllabi and courses, so writing was woven throughout the assignments rather than tackled on at the end. More recently, at the University of Arizona,  I taught in the Writing Program and served in the Graduate Center’s Office of Fellowships and Graduate Writing Lab, supporting graduate students in fellowship applications, grants, and other genres of writing. 

What excites me most about WAC is the chance to braid all those experiences together on the student side and the faculty side. I know first-hand how transformative it is when instructors rethink an assignment prompt, add purposeful scaffolding, or align evaluation criteria with learning goals. My goal in this position is to encourage faculty to design meaningful, authentic assignment prompts so both faculty and students can have a great and rich learning experience at our institution. 

I am also really excited about collaborating with Dr. Mapes and Dr. Schwaller in the CUES Meaning Writing research project, which is bringing evidence about what makes writing meaningful at our institution. We will share preliminary insights at our summer Faculty Learning Community. 

What Advice Would You Give to Instructors New to WAC?

My advice is to be open to trying new strategies and to be willing to redesign your assignments, even if you have taught the course for years. I know from experience that we sometimes cling to familiar materials because time is scarce or change feels risky. Still, the University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology (UCATT) and our institution have specialists, materials, and support systems ready to support co-creating practices that suit different disciplines, class size, needs, and workloads. 

You do not need a complete overhaul to make a difference–-start small. Maybe changing a high-stakes “essay” for a brief reflection, or resequencing steps so research and writing unfold more intentionally within your course. Pilot one small change in a single assignment, watch how it affects student engagement, and iterate from there.  If you remain curious and flexible, I  am sure the impact both on you and your students will be huge! 

And always remember that WAC is here to brainstorm with you, provide models and resources, and celebrate the wins that come from incremental and intentional adjustments. 

What is Your Favorite WAC Resource?

My favorite sections are the Writing to Learn (WTL) resources on our website. Writing to Learn refers to low-stakes writing activities: quick reflections, free-writing exercises, concept maps, and metacognitive prompts that encourage students to grapple with ideas, test understanding, and connect new knowledge to what they already know.  As a student, I often experience my biggest “A-ha!” moments and realize big ideas about my own learning process during these informal exercises. That's because they let me explore concepts freely without the pressure of grades. 

Our WTL library offers:

• Reflection Prompts for Instructors to Implement,
• Discipline-specific examples, and
• Tips to implement those exercises in online environments. 

I highly recommend exploring those materials and adapting one activity to your context.

We are also working this summer to implement resources related to Generative-AI and writing. Stay tuned for our upcoming AI page in August! 

We look forward to welcoming Thais and continuing to learn with her this year and beyond!