By Andrew Kay. Andrew Kay is a Ph.D. candidate in Literary Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is at work on a dissertation about Romantic and Victorian poetry. He has worked at the Writing Center since Fall 2009. Toward the end of his life, Robert Frost wrote a wonderfully mysterious poem called “Directive.” […]
By Kim Moreland Kim Moreland is currently the Assistant Director of the Writing Fellows Program. She is a Ph.D candidate in Composition and Rhetoric, writing her dissertation on authorship and networks. Undergraduate research is on my mind. Undergraduate writing center tutor research was the focus of Lauren Fitzgerald’s keynote address at the International Writing Centers […]
By Kristiane Stapleton Kristiane Stapleton is the 2012-2013 TA Coordinator of Writing Center Outreach. She is also writing her dissertation in Literary Studies, working on early modern women writers and the visual rhetorics for authorship they construct. Before I really get going, I’d like to offer a little bit of background on the Outreach program […]
By John Bradley. John Bradley is Assistant Director of the Writing Studio and Senior Lecturer in English at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Before joining Vanderbilt’s faculty this fall, John was the 2011-2012 Interim Associate Director of the UW-Madison Writing Center, having also worked as a tutor there for many years as he finished his […]
By Jessie Reeder. Jessie is the TA Assistant Director of the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also a dissertator in literary studies, focusing on 19th century British Literature and Latin American revolution. Every instructor in our Writing Center knows the blue record sheets we stock. They provide a simple grid for […]
By Kevin Mullen. Kevin Mullen is a dissertator in Literary Studies, with a minor in Composition and Rhetoric, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is his third year working at the Writing Center. There is a particular kind of shame that forms when you come face-to-face with the fact that you are not practicing what […]
By Mike A. Shapiro This is Mike’s sixth year at the Writing Center. He is the 2012–13 TA coordinator of our Online Writing Center. Since 2010, he has worked as a tutor for the Pearson Tutor Services Online Writing Lab. Writing centers use the phrase asynchronous online writing instruction to describe this sequence: A student sends […]
By Nmachika Nwakaego Nwokeabia.When I found out that the UW-Madison’s Writing Center was offering a dissertation writing camp (or, as I fondly call it, a dissertation boot camp) during this past summer, I knew I had to apply for it. I was obsessed with my dissertation, and this was yet another way for me to […]
By John Duffy—Most people who have taught in a writing center, or who have given the work any serious thought, are usually skilled in explaining what a writing center is not. That is, those of us charged with helping students, faculty, or the occasional inquiring dean understand writing center teaching often begin with negative definitions, listing the various things that a writing center isn’t and specifying those actions that writing center tutors don’t undertake. And so, we may say […]
By Christopher J. Syrnyk, Assistant Professor of Communication, and Faculty Liaison, Advance Credit Program for Communication Courses, Oregon Tech At Oregon Tech, where I became an Assistant Professor this fall in the Communication Department, I volunteered during a recent Communication department meeting to take on the role of the department’s Web Content Manager. Volunteering for […]
