Category: Higher Education

Blogs Can Create Community Among Students in Courses Across the Curriculum

Classes, Collaborative Learning, Higher Education, Technology, Writing Across the Curriculum

By Annette Vee—Like every other teacher in higher education right now, I’m navigating the new terrain of socially distanced, online, hybrid or hyflex teaching due to our global pandemic. I’m also a writing program administrator, which means that I share some responsibility to help other teachers navigate this terrain as well. Conscious of the labor issues of instructors preparing new classes in flex, hybrid or online contexts, I’m digging into my online toolbox to share strategies that might work for others in this context and for the future, after the pandemic. The best little tool I have for teaching online or in hybrid formats is a class blog. […]

December 29, 2020

Reflecting on a Virtual Semester

Collaborative Learning, Community Writing Assistance, Diversity and Inclusion, Events, Higher Education, Madison Writing Assistance, Outreach, Peer Tutoring, Social Justice, Writing Center Workshops, Writing Fellows, Writing Groups

From Chrissy Widmayer—Looking back on the Writing Center’s Fall 2020 semester, I am awed by all that we have been able to do. Alongside our students, we grappled every day with new challenges posed by the pandemic, adapting to an entirely online slate of services this semester, and sought to maintain the high level of professionalism we always offer. I am grateful for the patience our students have shown as we’ve adjusted to our new methods of teaching and so pleased with the reciprocal culture of care the Writing Center has fostered this semester. […]

December 15, 2020

“Focus on the Now,” or Embodiment in a Virtual Dissertation Writing Camp

Graduate Students, Higher Education

By Calley Marotta and Jennifer Conrad—In May of 2020, two months after the sudden jump to online-only instruction necessitated by COVID-19, our writing center held its first virtual Dissertation Writing Camp. Co-sponsored by UW-Madison’s Graduate School and facilitated by Writing Center instructors, the central goals of this camp have always been to support writing and its production during a compressed timeline and to provide dissertators with a community of fellow graduate student writers engaged in the same effort. The decision to host this long-running camp online rather than in person felt provisional, and yet necessary amid so much upheaval.

November 10, 2020
A nighttime view of earth from space

Translingualism: An Alternative to Restrictive Monolingual Ideologies in Writing Instruction

Diversity and Inclusion, Higher Education, Multilingual Writers

By Emily Bouza, Tim Cavnar, and Keli Tucker—Multilingual students should be celebrated for what they bring to academia. In this post, we hope to share what it looks like to support multilingualism in education. Emily’s section will cover different frameworks for understanding multilingual practice, Tim’s section will discuss language ideologies as a framework for thinking and talking about language and writing, and Keli’s section will propose a translingual disposition as a possible move toward a more inclusive writing center pedagogy.

October 27, 2020

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

What Makes a Writing Group? Undergraduate Writers Model Compassion and Acceptance

Collaborative Learning, Higher Education, Undergraduate Students, Writing Groups

By Mia Alafaireet—As an undergraduate student at the University of Missouri, one of the things I loved most about campus was that it seemed like there were endless places to write. There was the tried-and-true Bookmark Café, where you could count on the muted din of coffee cups to keep you focused. On a sunny day, you could find a spot under one of the many Bradford pear trees that studded campus. Or, if you were a little bit weird like me, you could sit on the edge of a flowerbed and write amongst the horticulture school’s newest arrangement of ornamental cabbages. […]

August 3, 2020

Mutual Empowerment In and Beyond the Writing Center

Higher Education, Uncategorized, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Centers

By Michelle Niemann – Since 2016, I’ve been running what I think of as a one-woman writing center for faculty. I’m a “solopreneur,” one of those post-academics earning her living through a micro-business. My aim is not to grow the business or make a lot of money (why would I have gotten a PhD in English if that was ever the goal?), but to support myself by doing good work—work that institutions of higher education need done, even if they don’t always know it. […]

October 21, 2019

A Valediction

Big 10 Writing Centers, Collaborative Learning, Events, From the Director, Graduate Students, Higher Education, International Writing Centers, IWCA, Peer Tutoring, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center History, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

By Bradley Hughes – In August of this year I retired from my career as Director of the Writing Center and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I had the privilege of directing the Writing Center for 35 years (from 1984-2019) and the Program in Writing Across the Curriculum for […]

September 23, 2019

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts

Community Writing Assistance, Events, From the Director, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Outreach, Peer Tutoring, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Center Workshops

By Emily Hall and Nancy Linh Karls –

There’s a slight chill in the air. An enormous sea of red streams across University Avenue. The beat of “Jump Around” reverberates through the air. The signs are clear: school is back in session at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. […]

September 9, 2019

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!

And, to be absolutely honest and establish my hard-won credibility on the subject, let me say that I’m, personally, no social media devotee. But I have seen what social media can do, and […]

December 12, 2018