Student Voices
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 [...]
In Praise of Quiet
By Mitch Nakaue, The University of Iowa.
As a deeply introverted person, I’ve always been interested in the power of writing center work to incite talk. As a graduate student at UW–Madison, I learned to cultivate an expressive and even outgoing classroom teaching persona, but found myself much less drained by one-to-one discussions with students. Writing [...]
(Under) Graduate: Reflections on the Joint Writing Center-Writing Fellow Staff Meeting
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 highlighting [...]
Senior-Thesis Writing Groups: Putting Students in the Driver’s Seat
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 up [...]
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 [...]
Physician, Heal Thyself!
By Kevin Mullen. Kevin Mullen is a dissertator in Literary Studies, with a minor in Composition and Rhetoric, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is his third year working at the Writing Center.
There is a particular kind of shame that forms when you come face-to-face with the fact that you are not practicing what you [...]
My Week in Dissertation Heaven
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 [...]
The Rose Pathways Writing Project: Developing a Language for Writing
By Amanda Detry and Molly Rentscher.
Each new semester in the Writing Fellows Program presents a range of exciting opportunities and challenges. Having served as Writing Fellows for the past few semesters, we have collaborated with many faculty members and worked with students of all writing levels and abilities. Amid such diversity, however, every writing appointment [...]
Why Do You Ask? Questioning the Question in the Writing Center
By Matthew Capdevielle, Director of the Writing Center, University of Notre Dame
“So, what are you working on today?”
“When is your paper due?”
“Are you concerned about anything in particular in this draft?”
In the writing center that I direct at the University of Notre Dame, we spend a good deal of time asking questions. We pose questions [...]
The Madison Area Writing Center Colloquium
I’ve long argued that writing centers at research universities should prepare interested doctoral students to lead strong, innovative writing centers and WAC programs when they move into their faculty careers. And that we should do this in systematic and sustained ways. Being a dedicated, successful, experienced writing tutor is of course a necessary part of [...]
