Answering the Unaskable: Personal Questions in Campus Visits
/Pax Gutierrez-Neal returns for Part II of her on-campus interview advice, this time tackling the thornier issue of dealing with personal questions.
Read MoreA Writing Center Journal
What happens when we write? Why do we teach writing the way we do? How does writing education engage with questions of race, gender, accessibility, and cultural difference? How does the writing center function as an interdisciplinary space?
Axis extends the writing center conversation from Praxis, our peer reviewed scholarly journal, into a public forum. Exploratory, experimental, and informative, the blog speaks to questions on the cutting edge of writing center theory and practice. Axis features writing from undergraduate and graduate educators at the University of Texas at Austin, and guest writers from universities across the United States.
Pax Gutierrez-Neal returns for Part II of her on-campus interview advice, this time tackling the thornier issue of dealing with personal questions.
Read MorePax Gutierrez-Neal, our pal, out-going Assistant Program Coordinator at UT’s University Writing Center, and recent survivor of the job market kicks off Axis’s summer blogging with some wisdom for those facing campus interviews in the coming year.
Read MoreWe are pleased to announce that the spring 2018 issue of Praxis is now available!
Thank you very much to the authors and editorial board that contributed to this issue, and we hope you enjoy reading it.
Axis will return soon with our regular posting, but we're excited, and we want to take every opportunity to promote the CFP for our upcoming special issue, in collaboration with our co-editors! See the full CFP below:
Praxis: A Writing Center Journal
Call For Papers: Race & The Writing Center
For a special Spring 2019 issue, Praxis: A Writing Center Journal welcomes submissions related to the theme of “Race & the Writing Center.”
Read MoreGalen David Bunting, a graduate student and writing center consultant at Oklahoma State University, discusses the importance of SafeZone tutors for the LGBTQA community.
Read More"As an artist and what Steve Sherwood calls an 'artist-as-tutor,' I am both 'hunter' and 'maker' of kairotic situations. By following creative impulses, I encounter singular opportunities to nudge writers down paths of creative inquiry and emboldened writing, which I define as writing instilled with boldness, authentic heart and purpose."
Read More"Should writing centres encourage students to sign up for group sessions, or should they focus on promoting one-to-one sessions? What are the benefits of working with multiple students, and what is negative about this work? In many disciplines, such as math and science, group sessions are quite common; why is this different for writing?
Read MoreJason Hoppe—founding director of the West Point Writing Program, Writing Fellows Program, and Mounger Writing Center—argues for why we should tell more stories about the difficulties of writing center work.
Read MoreOne of our managing co-editors considers a recent interview in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "What's Wrong With Writing Centers," from her own experience.
Read More"We work with writers to establish their ideas, restructure their argument, and clarify their writing. But as we unpack their ideas in these ways, we also unpack our own assumptions, as well as the assumptions and stereotypes that are prevalent in our society.
The writing centre allows us the time and the space to connect and to talk through matters of social justice, to have these conversations that we wouldn’t be having otherwise."
Read More"What I loved most about working in the writing center at my old campus was watching it become a place that students incorporated into their plans and thought of as part of their process."
Read MoreIn our last post for the semester, Pax Gutierrez-Neal (UT grad student and Assistant Program Coordinator here at the UWC) has some insightful things to say about teaching and teaching statements, one of the most feared job materials in the academic world.
Read MoreDr. Danielle Koupf, Assistant Teaching Professor in writing at Wake Forest University, advocates for the pedagogical use of scrap writing.
Read MoreDr. Oren M. Abeles, Assistant Professor in Rhetoric and Composition at Michigan Tech University, discusses the rhetorical tradition and teaching in a new environment.
Read MoreManaging Editor Sarah Riddick reflects on supporting the creative process as a consultant.
Read MoreA former Praxis managing editor ruminates on the new Blade Runner film, memory, and the act of writing.
Read MoreImage by TeroVesalainen from Pixabay
Apologies for this week's blog post title. Like many other people across the globe, I was utterly absorbed by the premiere of Star Trek: Discovery last night and am still recovering.
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about the place of directive versus non-directive tutoring in writing center consultations. As it has been with every other Praxis editor, I began my time at the UWC as a consultant. Though my days are now full of article proofs, lengthy e-mail chains about proper MLA formatting, and conference-related considerations (such as IWCA in November), I once spent my time working with students one-on-one, helping them to improve their writing projects and processes however I could. Oftentimes, I felt constrained by the core writing center principle of non-directive guidance; a good deal of recent writing center research deals with this point of tension and its relationship to both language acquisition and identity politics (e.g. Horner et al., Canagarajah, etc.). We have even published some excellent work on these topics and similar intersections of theory and practice, such as Beatrice Mendez Newman's piece on tutoring translingual writers.
Indeed, it seems as though our field is experiencing something of a sea change when it comes to balancing tried-and-true principles with an increased awareness of the populations our centers serve. So, with that in mind, what struggles have YOU experienced when trying to balance a non-directive tutoring approach with the exigencies presented by different student populations and assignment types? Feel free to chime in below, in the comments section.
"Writing varies across cultures and languages, and I love helping students feel like they can succeed in the particular writing culture we primarily support (i.e., one that is based in US academic culture and the English language) while also learning about their own cultures and existing writing practices.
Read MoreFace front, true believers!
Alejandro here, with a few items of interest for our loyal readers:
That's all from me for now, folks. In the meantime, enjoy the new semester, stay out of the heat, and keep those pencils sharpened.
UT Graduate and Undergraduate consultant Hilary Langberg explains effective strategies for encouraging ELL students in using articles.
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