A method for a coarse write barrier control mechanism comprises maintaining a control table comprising a plurality of entries, where each entry may include an encoding of a write barrier function associated with a corresponding region of a heap. In response to a detection of a mutator write operation directed at the heap, the method includes selecting a particular entry of the control table that corresponds to a heap address specified in the write operation, and identifying a write barrier function from among a plurality of write barrier functions based on the encoding included in the selected entry.