WA Writing Center UAM

Get to know our newest 2020/2021 Team member!

Who: Katie Idema, Tutor Supervisor

From: Michigan, USA, I have lived in Poznan for over four years

After working at an English language camp in 2015, I immediately fell in love with Poznan and began to teach English there one year later. Then in 2019, I started working at UAM, and I have certainly enjoyed my time teaching 1 BA & 2 BA students. It has been an interesting experience meeting students and teachers from various ethnic backgrounds and walks of life. When I'm not working at UAM, you can see me at my desk creating and editing videos at my media company, Tattered Suitcase.

What she likes most about teaching writing: I enjoy it most when students are curious about learning and want to take their skills to the next level. I also like advising students on their aspirations and looking for ways to make those dreams come true.

I look forward to meeting you at our virtual WA Writing Center this academic year!

Before we introduce y'all to our newest Team member, here are all of the tutors (as well as our wonderful Madame Director) that are still with us this year! Check out each photo for a description - it may help you choose a tutor when signing up for a session. ❄

One Centre to tutor them all, One Centre to help them,
One Centre to meet them all, and with writing aid them,
In the Faculty of WA where the Essays are.

A message from your Writing Center Director:

Welcome, everyone, to the 2020/21 edition of the WA Writing Center! This academic year is full of challenges, with the online learning format and the current global health crisis, but we are still here to help you with all of your writing needs. Our goal is to make the writing process, particularly this year's online writing process, as stress-free and understandable as possible. Our team of experienced and talented writing tutors will be available to help with your essay's content, structure, formatting, and anything else you may be uncertain of; all you have to do is ask!

This year, we'll be continuing the live format we used last semester, when classes moved online. You can sign up for a 30 minute slot on our Moodle page, and you can then meet with your tutor on Teams to discuss your work. But! We also have a new format in which you can get help: the asynchronous session. If you don't have 30 minutes to meet during the week, or if you're simply dealing with screen fatigue, you can sign up to have a tutor look at your work offline and send you back some helpful comments and suggestions. We'll post more about this helpful new type of tutoring session later in the week.

Please don't hesitate to contact us for help if you need it, or if you have any questions at all about writing or about how our process works. Remember: writing is a process, and the Writing Center is one of the tools that can help you reach your goals! We look forward to helping you be more confident in your writing and to achieve your writing goals this year.

-Sabrina Haenze, MA, WA Writing Center Director

The WA Writing Center 2020/2021 Edition begins in: 2 days. ❄️

The WA Writing Center 2020/2021 Edition begins in: 3 days. ⭐

The WA Writing Center 2020/2021 Edition begins in: 4 days. ⭐️

The WA Writing Center 2020/2021 Edition begins in: 5 days. ⭐️

Once again, we start the countdown - same tip as before, but with a much prettier form 💚

The WA Writing Center 2020/2021 Edition begins in: 6 days.



[Image description: a square with a green-and-blue background. The WA Writing Center logo at the bottom. The text in the center reads: "Beware of the Thesaurus Syndrome! Prodigiously elongated utterances may appear ingenious, but in fact, they will just make your essay hard to read and understand. Make sure you're clear before you try to be fancy".]

Hello and welcome back to this absolute mess of a year!

As you may have noticed, a week ago we announced that we are opening in 7 days. Unfortunately, in a typical 2020 fashion, due to unforseen difficulties we were forced to push the date - but fear not, we will be available for you next week!

As you ALSO may have noticed, some changes are occurring on our page - most of them are thanks to a friend of ours who volunteered their time and work to make sure our Center has some clean, pretty designs. You will see more of them soon!

In other news, we now have an Instagram account; find us at for potential extra content (and a generally nicer look). ⭐️

The countdown to the Writing Center 2020/2021 Edition restarts tomorrow!

An end-of-year message from your Writing Centre Director:

The 2019/20 school year has now come to an end for the WA Writing Centre. I would like to say a huge "thank you" to all the students who came to us for help, both in our office in the winter term and in our online format during the distance learning portion of the summer term. Thank you also to the teachers who recommended our services to their students, and to the people who shared our posts and spread awareness of what we do. Thank you, Writing Centre tutors, for all the work you did and the services you provided; I know the Centre was a massive help to many students during the distance learning period. And a special thanks to two particular staff members: Magdalena Habera, our fabulous administrative assistant, who kept this page running; and Dr. Brian Melton, who assisted me in running the centre for the last two years. This was Dr. Melton's last year with us, and we are thankful for everything you did, Brian!

Now, we're moving into the warunek exam period, and into the regular PNJA exam session in August. I know the past semester has been a stressful time in general for everyone with the lockdown and online classes, and you may be feeling stressed and anxious about the exam format. But you have all done amazing work this term, and you have achieved so much in such difficult circumstances. You can do this! You can succeed! Just remember to review the work you did this year, practice for the exam over the summer, take some deep breaths, and engage in self-care. We'll also post some tips, tricks, and suggestions over the summer to help you study :) You got this. Your Writing Centre Team believes in you! It's gonna be ok.

Thanks again for a great school year, and I hope to see many of y'all back next year, as tutors or as students...or both! Stay strong, and remember: you can do this. Have a great summer.

-Sabrina Haenze, MA, WA Writing Centre Director