More Than Words: A Collaborative Approach to Writing Instruction in a Graduate Science Seminar


Graduate Students, Outreach, Science Writing, Writing Across the Curriculum

By Nancy Linh Karls – With 2016 soon drawing to a close, many of us have been reflecting on what we’ve been able to accomplish over the past year. For staff in the UW-Madison Writing Center, that’s a pretty significant list: meeting with thousands of student-writers in one-to-one sessions at our main location and across our […]

December 12, 2016

The Impact of Writing Center Outreach: Empirical and Anecdotal Evidence


Classes, Collaborative Learning, Outreach, Satellite Locations, The Online Writing Center, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Workshops

By Leah Pope—Every semester, the Outreach team of the UW-Madison Writing Center devotes dozens of hours to visiting classrooms, workshops, resource fairs, and student organizations to deliver brief introductions to the Writing Center’s services and teach or co-teach workshops on various genres and aspects of writing. As the TA Coordinator of Outreach this year, I have the unique pleasure of a bird’s-eye-view of Outreach teaching […]

November 7, 2016

Writing Center Workshops: Test-Drive an Academic Writing Genre Today!


Classes, Graduate Students, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Workshops

By Zach Marshall Zach Marshall is the 2015-16 TA Assistant Director of the Writing Center at UW-Madison, where he has been a tutor since fall 2012. He is also a PhD candidate in English literary studies writing a dissertation on American literature, slavery, and media culture. Here at the UW-Madison Writing Center, we offer a […]

September 28, 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

International Writing Centers and Environmental Humanities


Community Writing Assistance, International Writing Centers, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum

By Rob Emmett Writing centers can launch lives in new directions, across continents and oceans. The years I spent working at the Writing Center while in graduate school in Madison certainly set me on a path to my current work at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society (RCC) in Munich, Germany. The RCC […]

February 3, 2014

The Importance of Being Interested


Collaborative Learning, Graduate Students, Outreach, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Michelle Niemann Michelle Niemann is the assistant director of the writing center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for 2013-2014. Her first tutoring experience was in the writing center at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, in 2003 and 2004. She recently defended her dissertation and will receive her PhD in English literature from UW-Madison in […]

December 9, 2013

Understanding Student Perceptions of the Writing Center–A Conversation Between a Student, a Writing Center Instructor, and a Director/Professor


Collaborative Learning, Outreach, Peer Tutoring, Student Voices, Undergraduate Students, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers

By Taryn Okuma, The Catholic University of America. Taryn Okuma is Director of the Writing Center and Clinical Assistant Professor of English at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. She received her Ph.D. in Literary Studies from UW-Madison in 2008. While at Madison, she served as the Co-Director of the English 100 […]

April 29, 2013

Considering Transfer: Pedagogical Interdisciplinarity in the Classroom and the Writing Center


Outreach, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum

Kristiane Stapleton is the 2012-2013 TA Coordinator of Writing Center Outreach.  She is also writing her dissertation in Literary Studies, working on early modern women writers and the visual rhetorics for authorship they construct.   In this blog post, I’m going to explore the ways that my Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum training […]

April 22, 2013

Shame and the Writing Center


Higher Education, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Undergraduate Students, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Lauren Vedal. Lauren Vedal was a tutor at the UW-Madison Writing Center from 2004-2009. She is now the Writing Specialist in the Humanities at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, where she provides one-on-one writing consultations for students and support for faculty who want to better incorporate writing instruction into their courses. Shame and Writing […]

March 18, 2013

(Under) Graduate: Reflections on the Joint Writing Center-Writing Fellow Staff Meeting


Collaborative Learning, Student Voices, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

By Jenna Mertz, Undergraduate Assistant Director of the Writing Fellows Program.  Jenna is a senior majoring in English, Spanish and Environmental Studies.  She has been a Writing Fellow for six semesters. Last Friday, undergraduate Writing Fellows and Writing Center instructors convened to mingle, share, and engage with each other at the annual joint staff meeting […]

March 13, 2013