Experts examine collaborative learning and writing instruction

More than 300 university faculty and staff, graduate and undergraduate writing tutors, and high school instructors have gathered for a three-day conference exploring the newest theories and practices in writing center work.

The conference, sponsored by the Midwest Writing Centers Association and hosted by the writing centers at Edgewood College, Madison Area Technical College and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, began Thursday and will run through Saturday, Oct. 22 at the Pyle Center, with people from 16 states attending.

Three preconference workshops will explore ways of establishing and expanding peer tutor writing programs, doing inquiry-based writing center research, and implementing the best methods in consulting with multilingual writers.

Sessions will consider a wide range of topics, from building bridges with a generation of “digital natives’ in the continual evolution of electronic communication technology to service learning’s outreach within the institution and into the larger community. Other sessions will address the nature of writer-consultant relationships and the application of research principles in real writing center settings, to name a few.

Professor Emeritus Deborah Brandt, a renowned literacy scholar in the composition and rhetoric program in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will deliver the keynote address Friday, Oct. 21 at 1 p.m. at the Lowell Center, sharing results of her latest research. Brandt’s particular interests include the social and economic histories of mass literacy; the status of mass writing within late-20^th  century and early 21^st-century culture; and diversity, equity, and access in literacy learning.

Michele Eodice, associate provost for academic engagement and executive director of learning, teaching, and writing at the University of Oklahoma, will lead participants through a charett —a group idea generation process that comes from architecture—and apply this creative process to the writing center work.

Her closing session is on Saturday, Oct. 22 at 2:45 p.m. at the Pyle Center.