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Outreach

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

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 Tutorial [...]

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

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 [...]

Writing Centers Have Flex Appeal

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 their flex appeal: for the flexible ways in which they meet not just the needs of student-writers who have drafts [...]

Paneling: A Communal Approach to Writing Center Outreach

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 at the [...]

Our Writing Center’s Founder: Professor Joyce Steward

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. Professor Steward founded the Writing Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in [...]

New(s) from the UW-Madison Writing Center!

Welcome to a new academic year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Writing Center! As our Writing Center re-opens on the first day of classes for the fall semester–on Tuesday, September 4–we’ll be eager to welcome undergraduate and graduate student-writers from across the University. And we’re delighted to have 26 talented new undergraduate [...]

Writing Across the Curriculum in Madison’s Summer Sun

During the searing heat and drought that the summer of 2012 has brought to the upper midwest, our Writing-Across-the-Curriculum (WAC) program has been busy (inside comfortably air-conditioned buildings) partnering with faculty and other instructors across our campus in exciting new collaborations.  At the same time, our summer writing center has been hopping with lots of [...]

Bridges That Outlast Their Builders: Creating Ongoing Partnerships through Outreach

During the snow storms last week, I trekked through the layers of fresh Wisconsin slush to the Social Sciences building. I made my journey upon an invitation to meet with a Sociology faculty member, prepared to discuss co-teaching a session on poster presentations. While watching flaky descents of snow through his window, we chatted [...]

Co-Teaching as Synthesis: Learning to Ask Questions

The students in Professor Rebekah Willett’s first-year course on the Internet and Society are crouched over their desks and laptops, some scribbling, some typing, some doing so fervently, some reluctantly. All are working to formulate a couple of sentences that synthesize two paragraphs of text they have in front of them. I’ve just walked with [...]

The Wisconsin Idea and the Writing Center

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has a long and distinguished history of public service. The guiding philosophy of this commitment to public service, called the “Wisconsin Idea,” is often described as “the boundaries of the university are the boundaries of the state.” Since I have a scholarly interest in the Wisconsin Idea, I’ve been thinking about [...]