Crossing the Barrier: Advocating for Students, Educating Faculty


Outreach, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Technology, Undergraduate Students, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Alexandra Asche – When I first started planning this post, I intended to write about the UMM Writing Center’s formal outreach to faculty. However, as I looked through the previous posts on this blog, I found that others have already written about how to plan this sort of outreach. I also noticed, though, that […]

March 14, 2016

Using Peer Writing Groups For the Senior Thesis and Beyond


Collaborative Learning, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, Writing Fellows

By Rebecca Steffy – This year, I have the privilege of coordinating the UW-Madison Writing Center’s Senior Thesis Writing Groups, small peer-led writing groups that meet weekly or bi-weekly throughout the daunting semester- or year-long process of writing a senior thesis. I help spread the word that senior thesis writing groups are forming at the […]

March 8, 2016

Rethinking Patience


Multilingual Writers, Peer Tutoring

By Rachel Azima – When I took my first writing center director position, I inherited a set of interview questions that I have continued to tweak, semester by semester. One question I have retained is one I imagine many folks might ask prospective consultants: what are some qualities you feel a consultant should have (and, […]

February 15, 2016

Peer Tutoring and the Serious Work of Undergraduate Scholarship


Events, Higher Education, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, Writing Center Research, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

By Rachel Herzl-Betz Rachel Herzl-Betz is an Assistant Director of the Writing Fellows Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she has been a tutor and administrator since 2012. She is also a PhD candidate in Literary Studies, with a focus on Victorian Literature and Disability Studies.  I’ve always been a fan of academic conferences. At their best, […]

November 30, 2015

A Case for Compulsion? On Requiring Whole-Class Writing Center Visits


Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Jessica Citti Jessica Citti, Ph.D., has tutored in the writing centers at UW-Madison and the University of Iowa, where she also taught composition, rhetoric, and technical communication. She is now the Writing Skills Specialist at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, where she provides one-on-one writing consultations for students and coordinates the HSU Writing […]

October 26, 2015

Showcasing Undergraduate Research


Big 10 Writing Centers, Collaborative Learning, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Fellows

By Emily Hall At a large university we are regularly exposed to the original and sometimes groundbreaking research that takes place across campus. Mostly, this research comes from the work of professors and graduate students, many of whom have grants, research funds, and laboratories to support their endeavors. Less frequently do we have the opportunity to […]

April 20, 2015