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

Senior-Thesis Writing Groups: Putting Students in the Driver’s Seat


Big 10 Writing Centers, Collaborative Learning, Community Writing Assistance, Events, Higher Education, Peer Tutoring, Science Writing, Student Voices, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Workshops, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

By Elisabeth Miller and Stephanie White On a Sunday morning in February, five students brave the icy winds howling off Lake Mendota, knock the snow and slush off their boots, and straggle into the student union toward a table near the windows looking over a snowy Memorial Union Terrace. That night, another five students wrap […]

March 4, 2013

Collaboration Times Three


Collaborative Learning, Graduate Students, Science Writing, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

Nancy Reddy is a PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include composition pedagogy, literacy studies, and extracurricular writing groups. This is her first year with the UW-Madison Writing Center. In one of my first shifts as a new writing instructor tutor this past fall, I found myself […]

February 11, 2013

Writing Centers Have Flex Appeal


Collaborative Learning, From the Director, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Outreach, Peer Tutoring, The Online Writing Center, Undergraduate Students, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers, Writing Fellows

By Brad Hughes, Director of the Writing Center and Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. At many universities, writing centers have now earned significant respect for the work they do with student-writers.  Within that respect, though, almost never do I hear writing centers valued for what I like to call […]

January 21, 2013

Undergraduate Research in Writing: Keeping It Real


IWCA, Peer Tutoring, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Research, Writing Fellows

By Kim Moreland Kim Moreland is currently the Assistant Director of the Writing Fellows Program.  She is a Ph.D candidate in Composition and Rhetoric, writing her dissertation on authorship and networks. Undergraduate research is on my mind.  Undergraduate writing center tutor research was the focus of Lauren Fitzgerald’s keynote address at the International Writing Centers […]

December 3, 2012

Paneling: A Communal Approach to Writing Center Outreach


Collaborative Learning, Events, Outreach, Student Voices, Uncategorized, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Theory

By Kristiane Stapleton 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. Before I really get going, I’d like to offer a little bit of background on the Outreach program […]

November 26, 2012

My Week in Dissertation Heaven


Collaborative Learning, Events, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Student Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Center Workshops, Writing Centers

By Nmachika Nwakaego Nwokeabia.When I found out that the UW-Madison’s Writing Center was offering a dissertation writing camp (or, as I fondly call it, a dissertation boot camp) during this past summer, I knew I had to apply for it. I was obsessed with my dissertation, and this was yet another way for me to […]

October 15, 2012

Writing Across the Curriculum’s Head Start


Events, Graduate Students, Higher Education, Science Writing, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Centers

Every semester, our Writing Across the Curriculum program gets a head start. The week before classes have even begun, we have the privilege of spending two mornings training up to 75 new Teaching Assistants. These TAs will be teaching writing-intensive courses across the disciplines—courses that fulfill an intermediate communication requirement for undergraduates. In our UW-Madison […]

September 17, 2012

Our Writing Center’s Founder: Professor Joyce Steward


Collaborative Learning, From the Director, Higher Education, Outreach, UW-Madison History, UW-Madison Writing Center Alumni Voices, Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Center History, Writing Center Workshops, Writing Centers

By Brad Hughes, Director, The Writing Center, Director, Writing Across the Curriculum, UW-Madison. In this blog post, I would like to honor the legendary founder of the Writing Center (originally called the Writing Laboratory) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and one of the most influential pioneers in the modern writing center profession—Professor Joyce Stribling Steward. […]

September 10, 2012