Graduate Students
A Room with a View / Writing with Others
Unfortunately, the photograph with which I would have preferred to begin this post doesn’t exist. Instead I’ll have to help you reach the right place to recreate the picture for yourself mentally. I’m John Bradley, interim associate director of the Writing Center; thanks for following my lead. I’ll get to the point along the way, [...]
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 [...]
Writing Center Websites and Their Discontents or
Dissing the Contents of Your Own Writing Center Website
All Graduate Teaching Assistants (TAs) who are beyond their first semester of tutoring in UW-Madison’s Writing Center participate in professional development opportunities, known as Ongoing Education opportunities, affectionately, as an “OGE.” At the start of a semester, Teaching Assistants will often see a description at the top of an OGE selection form that reads as [...]
Madison Writing Assistance: Writing and Tutoring across the Community
By Elisabeth Miller and Anne Wheeler, Graduate Co-Coordinators of Madison Writing Assistance.
As of the Fall 2011 semester, Madison Writing Assistance (MWA) was active at 7 Madison area libraries and community centers, conducted nearly 200 sessions, employed a staff of 10 people from several different disciplines and programs within the UW-Madison Graduate School of Letters & [...]
It Begins with a Mentality: Disability and the Writing Center
By Sarah Groeneveld. The day I met Laura (a pseudonym) was a memorable one. It was a slow day at the Writing Center last January, and I had a free hour in the middle of my shift. Laura was scheduled to meet with me later, but had mistaken the time of our appointment and had [...]
Panic Attacks and Mirror Neurons
If you’ve ever staffed a writing center or tutoring center in an evening, you’ve probably seen your fill of pure, visceral panic. I’m in my third semester as a Writing Center instructor now, and I’ve been in the trenches. Most times, you can see the warning signs a long way off: the wide, intense eyes; [...]
Who Needs a Muse? The Real Reasons Why UW-Madison Students Are Attracted to Ongoing Appointments
By Rachel Carrales.
The summer before last, I spent a month traveling through France, Italy, and Spain. It was a whirlwind trip, and I was only able to spend a day or two in each city I visited. It was so fast, in fact, that I find myself remembering only snippets of things: the fat, cuddly [...]
Writing Across the Foreignness
By John Stafford Anderson. Saturday, at a party we had celebrating her upcoming dissertation defense, a friend of mine tearfully took me aside. She wanted to know if I would be available next week to help her with some writing points on her dissertation. Of course, I agreed to help, but I wanted to know [...]
A Graduate Education
This week my shift at the writing center will be bitter sweet. I’m finishing
my work on two dissertations and a master’s thesis. In my work at the
writing center, I’m a bit of a graduate student junkie. In fact I probably
spend way too much writing center time with graduate students and not nearly
enough slogging away in [...]
The Psychosociocultural Perspective: Academic Families and Student Mentoring
On Friday, February 11 we had our monthly staff meeting, which, as we usually do in the spring semester, addressed social justice in Writing Center work. UW-Madison Professor Alberta Gloria, an award-winning researcher, teacher and mentor from the department of Counseling Psychology, spoke with us at length. Her presentation was entitled “Research and Practice Implications [...]
