A 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.
We’re no longer in the cruelest month. (For those of us whose circadian rhythms move according to the academic calendar, April could also be described as a month-long inhalation before the semester furiously exhales.) Instead, we’re knee-deep in the weeds of writing those final essays.
Read MoreI don’t know what the energy levels are like where you are but, from where I sit at a computer tucked in the back of the WC, things feel like pell-mell frenzy meets the very last ions of the battery reserves. If we’re anything like our cellphones—and, given how much those devices have become extensions of our body, I’d say the similitude can’t be denied—exclamation points have replaced the more regular percentages indicating how much power is left. This occurs at five percent on mine and is immediately followed by a “battery critically low” alert.
Read MoreToday marks the exact middle of the month immortalized as the cruelest by T.S. Eliot—at least within the world(s) of Anglophone letters. While UT-Austin’s undergraduate population may disagree with everything else Eliot wrote, the ever-increasing hustle and bustle of the UWC (University Writing Center) suggests they’d likely agree with “The Waste Land’s” opening line.
Read More“So what brings you into the writing center today?” “Well, I’m not a very good writer…” Of the first exchanges I have with students visiting the writing center, some version of the above is what I hear perhaps most frequently.
Read MoreBrenda Hillman begins the title poem of Practical Water—part of an elemental tetralogy just finished with a flame of a book about fire—with a rhetorical question so vast that, in the poem’s second line, she admits the impossibility inherent in its very asking.
Read MoreIn our article, “When Writing Fellows Become Reading Fellows: Creative Strategies for Critical Reading and Writing in a Course-Based Tutoring Program,” we discuss methods for engaging First Year Writing students in critical reading and writing practices through a series of small group session plans we called pivot points. Reflecting upon this work pushed us to develop new ways to engage students, led to two regional conference presentations, and ultimately, the writing of this piece.
As we were writing, we found ourselves thinking about ways to sustain the collaborative and reflective aspects of our fellows' work. For Melissa, this meant continuing to use the momentum from the five fellows (all graduating seniors) from the fall 2013 semester into the summer and fall 2014 semesters. For Ricky, this meant applying fellows' practices during his own transition to a graduate program in information management and systems.
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