Category: Higher Education

Conversation Starter: Social Media and the Writing Center

Big 10 Writing Centers, Community Writing Assistance, Events, Higher Education, International Writing Centers, Outreach, Social Justice Committee, The Online Writing Center, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Receptionists, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Center Workshops, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

by Jennifer Fandel – I have two words of advice on using social media in the Writing Center—embrace it!

December 12, 2018

The Power of Open

Collaborative Learning, Higher Education, Science Writing, Social Justice Committee, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum

By Katie Lynch – Upon graduating from UW-Madison with my Ph.D. in Literary Studies in 2010, I took a tenure-track position at Rockland Community College (RCC), one of the 64 institutions in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. My specific job description combined the teaching of writing and literature with a partial course release […]

October 22, 2018

The Benefits of a Collaboration Between a Writing Center and a Student Journal

Higher Education, Student Voices, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Centers

By Taryn Okuma – In Spring 2015 I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw that John Tiedemann (a fellow UW-Madison alum) had shared a link for WRIT Large, a student publication from the Writing Program at the University of Denver. John is a teacher whom I’ve always admired and his enthusiasm for his […]

October 15, 2018

Writing with Custodians: Community Writing Center Work within the University

Community Writing Assistance, Events, Higher Education, Multilingual Writers, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Calley Marotta – How can a university-sponsored community writing center serve those whom the university does not reach? This is a question community writing centers consistently try to answer by designing writing support for those who live and work beyond the university’s walls (Rousculp 2014).(1) By doing so, they seek to bridge a gap […]

September 17, 2018

Venn and the Art of Writing Instruction

Collaborative Learning, Higher Education, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Center History, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Shifra Sharlin – Shifra Sharlin has been a Senior Lecturer at Yale University in the Department of English since 2013. In 2007, she received her Ph.D. in the Composition-Rhetoric Program from UW-Madison where she worked in the Writing Center. She has also taught at UC-Berkeley, the Wisconsin English as a Second Language Institute, UW-Madison’s […]

September 10, 2018
An aerial photo of the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A New WAC Faculty Sourcebook for a New Academic Year

Events, From the Director, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Science Writing, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum

By Bradley Hughes – Greetings from a new academic year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center! We had a very busy and productive summer of 2018. The Writing Center was open for 12 weeks this summer, offering consultations, workshops, and writing groups for hundreds of undergraduate- and graduate-student writers. The summer center was staffed […]

September 3, 2018

Challenging Ableism and Institutional Barriers Through Writing Center Work

Disability and Writing Centers, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Peer Tutoring, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Brenna Swift – Imagine for a moment that you’re trying to reach an educational goal, one you’ve had your sights on for as long as you can remember. As you move closer to the goal, you encounter barrier after barrier along the way. School culture at large, including some of your instructors, tells you […]

April 23, 2018
book covers of recent publications on reading in higher ed

Reading in the Writing Center, Beyond the One-on-One Session

Higher Education, Technology, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Center Workshops

By Angela J. Zito – With recent publications like the NCTE’s Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom (2018), What is College Reading? of the WAC Clearing House (2017), and Indiana UP’s Critical Reading in Higher Education (2015), it seems that reading in colleges and universities is gaining a good deal of new critical […]

February 20, 2018

Writing Center Outreach and Leading from the Middle

Higher Education, Outreach, Technology, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Centers

By Angela J. Zito – Last week, the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network held its annual conference in Montreal, Quebec, where the keynote speaker Randy Bass called upon all of us in attendance (and the programs and institutions we represented) to help steer higher education in the direction of increasingly inclusive and integrated learning […]

October 31, 2017

Which Shoes Should You Choose? A Meditation on Indecisiveness in Writing

Graduate Students, Higher Education, Peer Tutoring, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Undergraduate Students

By Zach Marshall It has recently come to my attention that I don’t know what to do when I work with writers who experience a certain kind of writing anxiety.  As a writing tutor, part of my job is to provide motivational scaffolding to the writers I work with—encouraging them when they make progress, recognizing […]

April 4, 2016