Author: Dottie Mayne

Vulnerability and Mutual Disclosure through the Use of Personal Pronouns in the WC Space

Social Justice, Tutor Publications, Undergraduate Students, Writing Center Tutors

By Julianna Peres, University of North Carolina at Charlotte—Recently, there has been a surge of conversations about intersectionality and inclusivity in Writing Centers (WC) within university classrooms and WC settings. WC Directors and tutors have been facilitating conversations about accessibility for neurodivergent tutees and have been discussing the nuances of racial awareness and social justice work in the WC space. More and more centers are changing the physical, electronic, and intellectual aspects of tutoring sessions so as to create a more accessible atmosphere for both tutors and tutees. […]

May 17, 2022

Honoring the Writing Center’s Instructors: 2022 Awards for Excellence in Teaching

Awards and Honors, Writing Center Tutors

Each spring, the Writing Center honors the amazing work of our instructors through our teaching excellence awards. We award one instructor an Award for Early Excellence, which is for instructors in their first two years with the center, and we award one instructor an Award for Advanced Excellence, which is for instructors who have been teaching with the center for more than two years. These awards specifically recognize our instructors’ one-to-one work with students. […]

May 10, 2022

Course-Embedded Programming and the Need for Clear Expectations

Collaborative Learning, Higher Education, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Ava Hutt, Kailie Settles, and Caroline Shutt,Transylvania University Writing Center—University writing centers offer a myriad of benefits for students. But like many useful academic resources outside of actual courses, it can be difficult to sell Transylvania University students on the idea of peer tutoring, especially given conflicts with time: clubs, athletics, off-campus jobs, and more. In an effort to combat this reluctance, and as a way to help assist students transition into college writing, Transylvania University Writing Center began implementing a Course-Embedded Peer Consultant initiative in 2014. Course-embedded consultants (known as “CECs”), like Writing Fellows or Writing Associates at other colleges, work […]

April 26, 2022
Vast collection of multicolored puzzle pieces

Showcasing Our Writing Fellows’ Research

Peer Tutoring, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Fellows

Each year in the spring semester at UW-Madison’s Writing Center, Writing Fellows and Writing Center instructors hold a joint staff meeting where Fellows share original research about one-on-one writing tutoring. The Writing Fellows Program is a course-embedded peer tutoring program. Writing Fellows take a peer tutor education class course […]

March 29, 2022
Two hands holding onto paper cut out people

Writing in Community: Writing Groups in a Hybrid Time

Collaborative Learning, Writing Groups

By Dorothy Mayne—Writing groups have many benefits and purposes, but the community they bring to the culture of writing on campus is one of their most praised features. In fact, it’s the first purpose that we mention on our writing group website: “At the Writing Center, we believe that community and accountability, along with setting achievable goals, play a significant role in completing major writing projects.” Meeting regularly with the same people to set goals, discuss weekly themes related to wellness, writing strategies, and more allows us to develop camaraderie with others across campus.

November 23, 2021
Graphic "Celebration of Writing"

Madison Writing Assistance Celebration of Writing 2021: Sharing Stories, Writing for Change

Community Writing Assistance, Events, Madison Writing Assistance, Uncategorized

By Kyle Smith—This spring, Madison Writing Assistance (MWA)—represented by Associate Director Angela Zito, Assistant Director Weishun Lu, and myself, an MWA instructor—asked members of the Madison community to tell us about their relationship with writing. As the community-outreach arm of the UW-Madison Writing Center, MWA works with anyone in the Madison area who has a writing project they want to develop or improve. MWA’s patrons work with us on projects ranging from […]

May 4, 2021
decorative flower image

Honoring the Writing Center’s Instructors: 2021 Awards for Excellence in Teaching

Awards and Honors, Graduate Students, Peer Tutoring, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Writing Center Tutors

By the Writing Center Leadership Team TA Award Committee—For the past five years, the Writing Center has celebrated our excellent instructors by honoring selected students with teaching awards. Each semester, we have between 45 and 50 doctoral-level teaching assistants who work with our students in one-to-one writing instruction, provide outreach across campus, lead workshops, and more. To select our award winners, we invite our teaching assistants to nominate their colleagues or themselves for these awards. Nominees are invited to apply by submitting […]

April 27, 2021
Person typing on typewriter outside on UW-Madison campus

Revisiting Grammarly: An Imperfect Tool for Final Editing

Multilingual Writers, Technology

By Dorothy Mayne—As I entered the Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for my shift as a tutor in the writing center one day in the fall of 2015, I noticed a new and overwhelming number of flyers and posters for Grammarly, the automated written corrective feedback (AWCF) software. As the flyers purported, students could use Grammarly to help “perfect” their writing. […]

January 26, 2021

Welcome to Fall 2020 at the UW-Madison Writing Center!

Community Writing Assistance, From the Director, Higher Education

From the Directors—We are happy to welcome you to the Fall 2020 at UW-Madison’s Writing Center. In doing so, we’d first like to acknowledge the unique stressors of this semester. The Spring 2020 semester called for quick transitions to virtual and physically distanced services, surrounded by uncertainty and individual-level issues for us all in a global pandemic. […]

September 8, 2020