Category: Writing Center Theory

A red neon light painting of a question mark on a dark hallway. The hallway is narrow and covered in graffiti.

“Is this going to be hard?”: Reflections on My First Year Teaching Composition as a Writing Center Coordinator

Higher Education, Writing Center Academic Staff, Writing Center Staff, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers

By Tabitha Fisher,  Pennsylvania State University—It’s September 2022, and I’m standing at the front of my classroom, walking through the questions my students posted online in response to the new assignment. At Penn State, nearly all instructors new to the department teach English 15, the university’s first-year writing course in rhetoric and composition. This is my first semester teaching after two years as the Writing Center Coordinator. […]

December 12, 2023
a drawing of sound waves going into an ear and then leading to a lightbulb representing how listening can lead to new ideas and understanding

Linguistically Diverse Writers’ Experiences Guide Linguistic Equity Training 

Multilingual Writers, Peer Tutoring, Racial Justice, Writing Center pedagogy, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers

By Susanne Treiber, Madison College and Karen Best, University of Wisconsin-Madison—Just a bike ride away from the renowned UW Writing Center lives a hidden gem of a neighbor–the Writing Center at Madison Area Technical College, a 2-year institution with a mission to “provide open access to quality higher education that fosters lifelong learning and success” (“Madison College: Our Culture”). Within this progressive community college resides a writing center, where an average of 33% of its visitors over the past 7 years identify as […]

July 11, 2023
3D rendering of several small wooden sticks being held together with tension from rubber bands, with glass balls balanced on them.

From Tension to Agency: Supporting Multilingual Writers in the Writing Center

Diversity and Inclusion, Multilingual Writers, Peer Tutoring, Tutor Training, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers

By Kerri Rinaldi, Immaculata University—Over the past few semesters, the tutors at the writing center I direct have expressed a desire and a need for more training on supporting multilingual writers. I heard their requests, but at first, I wasn’t sure how much additional training time to devote to this topic. After all, our small campus (2,500 students) has an even smaller population of international students and multilingual writers (just 1-5% of all students). And, my tutors […]

May 16, 2023
black and white photo of two hands touching

Weddings, Selfies, and Writers: Validation and Sustainable Emotional Labor Practices in Writing Centers

Peer Tutoring, Writing Center pedagogy, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Rachel Azima, University of Nebraska-Lincoln—So what could an overwhelmingly queer fandom in 2022-23, the aggressively cishet space of a wedding planning message board in the early aughts, and writing centers possibly have in common, besides being spaces/communities where I have been or am an enthusiastic participant? More than you might imagine, it turns out.

April 4, 2023
A mechanic grinding down a metal beam with sparks flying.

Show Your Work(flow)

Peer Tutoring, Technology, Tutor Training, Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Writing Center pedagogy, Writing Center Staff, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Joseph Franklin, New York City College of Technology—I am writing this at a bamboo table and simple folding chair combo. I am using Microsoft Word on a Mac laptop mounted on a Roost laptop stand and using a Logitech ERGO K860 keyboard that supports my wrists. I am playing instrumental music by Grandbrothers through Sennheiser PXC 550 noise canceling headphones and I have notifications turned off on all devices. These tools (and others) have been curated […]

October 4, 2022
A person walks through a stone labyrinth by the edge of the sea

The Peace of the Dancing Mind: Co-Creating the Writing Center as a Quiet, Slow Space 

Higher Education, Peer Tutoring, Writing Center Theory, Writing Centers

By Mary O’Shan Overton—In her acceptance speech at the 1996 National Book Foundation Medal ceremony, the novelist Toni Morrison said that “There is a certain kind of peace that is not merely an absence of war. It is larger than that. […] The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one—an activity that occurs most naturally, most often in the reading/writing world we live in.” I am interested in making space for that kind of peace. In fact, as a writing center director, I feel an ardent responsibility to do so. […]

March 22, 2022
Bree Newsome climbing up a flag poll and removing a Confederate flag.

Allyship & Co-Conspiracy in an Antiracist Writing Center

Diversity and Inclusion, Graduate Students, Peer Tutoring, Racial Justice, Social Justice, Tutor Training, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Gabrielle Isabel Kelenyi and Seth Umbaugh—This fall, the Writing Center offered an ongoing education group (OGE) about being an ally versus a co-conspirator in an antiracist writing center, which was co-facilitated by the TA Assistant Director of the Writing Center, Seth Umbaugh, and the TA Coordinator of Multicultural and Social Justice Initiatives, Gabrielle Kelenyi. We assembled […]

December 7, 2021
Worn tools for building laid out on a white background.

Developing a Multimodal Toolkit for Greater Writing Center Accessibility

Disability and Writing Centers, Diversity and Inclusion, Graduate Students, Peer Tutoring, Writing Center Research, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Tutors, Writing Centers

By Ellen Cecil-Lemkin and Lisa Marvel Johnson—As several scholars have already pointed out (Dembsey; Hitt; Kiedaisch and Dinitz to name a few), historically, the scholarship on disability in the writing center is… not great (to put it lightly). It’s seeped in ableism by positioning disabled writers as “other” and problems that need to be solved. This framing leads to positioning disabled students “as so radically different from other students that they are beyond help—that they require too much time, resources, or special knowledge” (Hitt). This perspective, however, goes beyond ableism that occurs on an individual level. […]

April 20, 2021

Writing with Others: Renaissance Coteries, the Writing Center, and Community

Collaborative Learning, Writing Center Theory, Writing Groups

By Emily Loney—When Sir Philip Sidney sent the manuscript of his prose romance, the Arcadia, to his sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, sometime in the 1580s, he sent a letter along as well. Apologizing for the imperfections of his tale, Sidney tells Pembroke in his letter that the Arcadia was written for her, and he reminds her […]

February 17, 2020
A drawing of a dragon in the lower margin of Hatton 76, fol. 126v. The dragon is penned in a pale grey ink, with its head toward the outer margin to the left, with a long neck and curling tail.

Medieval Monks Wrote in Their Books and So Can You

Tutorial Talk and Methods, Uncategorized, Writing Center Theory, Writing Center Workshops

By Leah Pope Parker—We learn to write by imitating, by reading, and by thinking about the construction of texts we aim to emulate. It is commonly understood among teachers of writing that learning to write—at a more sophisticated level, in a different style, in a new genre—requires writers to read models for the kind of writing that they want to produce. This is why we […]

November 12, 2018