Writing Center Research
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 [...]
(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 [...]
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 [...]
Undergraduate Research in Writing: Keeping It Real
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 Association conference [...]
Conversations Near and Far
I’ve considered myself a “writing center person” for over twenty years now, ever since I anxiously took my first college paper to my undergraduate writing center and left with a few concrete ideas for revision and the sense that I might actually be able to do the whole college thing. I eventually became a writing [...]
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 [...]
New Podcast Presentations by Katrin Girgensohn
All of us at the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are delighted to share two new podcasts from our theory and research series, featuring Katrin Girgensohn, a faculty member and Director of the Writing Center at European University Viadrina in Germany and one of the leading writing center scholars in Europe. During 2011-12, [...]
Joint Staff Meeting 2012: Bringing It All Together
On Friday, February 17 the Writing Fellows Program hosted our annual Joint Staff Meeting with the Writing Center. Seven Writing Fellows gave presentations based on research they conducted for their English/Interdisciplinary Courses 316 class. Writing Center instructors served as moderators for each presentation and posed questions designed to help audience members delve more [...]
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 [...]
