Writing Center Theory
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 [...]
Making Charoset: Teaching by Hand in the Shadow of MOOCs
By Eli Goldlbatt, Temple University.
Eli Goldblatt graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990 and taught at Villanova University from that year until he moved to Temple University in 1996. He is currently professor of English and Director of First Year Writing at Temple. He was faculty co-director of the Writing Center at Temple from [...]
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 [...]
Directive
By Andrew Kay. Andrew Kay is a Ph.D. candidate in Literary Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is at work on a dissertation about Romantic and Victorian poetry. He has worked at the Writing Center since Fall 2009.
Toward the end of his life, Robert Frost wrote a wonderfully mysterious poem called “Directive.” In [...]
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 [...]
Virtues of Conversation: Ethics in the Writing Center
By John Duffy. John Duffy is the Francis O’Malley Director of the University Writing Program, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, and a proud former tutor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Writing Center.
Most people who have taught in a writing center, or who have given the work any serious [...]
How I Became an Addict
A revision addict, I mean—addicted to sharing my work with others and responding to theirs, addicted to creating a community of writing collaborators.
“Very Heaven”
By Dennis Paoli, Coordinator of the Reading/Writing Center and Co-coordinator of the Writing Across the Curriculum Program at Hunter College, City University of New York. He also writes plays and films and is Donor/Adviser of The Heidi Paoli Fund for cancer patients. He met Heidi in Madison.
Hi. Dennis Paoli, University of Wisconsin Class of ’69. [...]
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 [...]
