Chasing after an Emerging Genre: Creating a Writing Center Workshop on Diversity Statements


Diversity and Inclusion, Tutor Publications, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Center Workshops, Writing Centers

By Antonio Byrd—As this academic year’s assistant director for the UW-Madison Writing Center, I teach a few sections out of more than 70 sections of free non-credit workshops in academic writing for undergraduate and graduate students. The Writing Center has offered these workshops since its inception in 1969, and I’m proud to have contributed to this stellar history by creating a new workshop this year simply called “Writing Diversity Statements for the Academic Job Market.” […]

November 6, 2017

Let’s Chat: Considering “Friendly Talk” in the Writing Center


Tutor Publications, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Writing Center pedagogy, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Tori Thompson Peters Last year, I had several appointments with an advanced writer named Linda Park who was working on an article for publication about language and cultural barriers in our healthcare system. As we were discussing the project, Linda explained to me that even though she was studying communication between doctors and patients with […]

October 9, 2017

Writing Group as Community: The Case of DePaul’s Writers Guild


Tutor Publications, Writing Centers, Writing Groups

 By Jen Finstrom and Matthew Fledderjohann  Jen Finstrom and Matthew Fledderjohann served together as graduate assistants and then professional staff at DePaul University’s University Center for Writing-based Learning (UCWbL) for four years. During that time, Jen began in her capacity as a facilitator for Writers Guild—the UCWbL’s creative writers’ writing group—and Matthew was a regular […]

September 18, 2017

“Something Magical in Meeting with a Group of Like-Minded People”: Graduate Writing Groups in the Writing Center


Tutor Publications, Writing Centers, Writing Groups

By Chris Earle, Elisabeth Miller, and Bradley Hughes  Every week this spring semester, roughly 90 graduate students keep coming back to Helen C. White Hall on the UW-Madison campus. They slog through ice and snow on winter mornings; they eschew sunny spring afternoons and evenings all to participate in the Writing Center’s Graduate Writing Groups. […]

April 25, 2016