Our Mission
“The new writing center, far from marking the end of an era, is the embodiment, the epitome of a new one. It represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula needs to be student centered.”
This new writing center, then, defines its province not in terms of some curriculum, but in terms of the writers it serves.”
—Stephen North, “The Idea of a Writing Center”
Our Center
The University Writing Center, a unit of the Department of Rhetoric & Writing, is a supportive community designed to help writers generate and express their ideas effectively. We have a firm commitment to learning, accessibility, and care. Individually and collaboratively, we work to build spaces and resources that serve the Longhorn community’s writing learning needs in a variety of ways:
- Maintaining accessible and collaborative sites of learning
- Showing flexibility and adaptability in writing and learning
- Building Interdisciplinary bridges
- Providing resources for writers
- Facilitating conversations among and between stakeholders
The University Writing Center aims to help all University of Texas at Austin students become more versatile, more confident, and more practiced writers.
Our Non-Directive/Non-Evaluative Approach
Our approach has emerged out of the non-directive, non-evaluative methods developed in writing centers and tutor training manuals over many years. For us, non-directive means we won’t revise a student’s work for them or tell them what to do. Instead, the student is in charge of the session, and together the student and consultant work to identify areas of strength and areas in need of revision. We do not think of “directive” and “non-directive” as an either/or choice. We see consulting methods as existing on a spectrum between directive and non-directive, and we strive to identify (with the student’s input) what they want to work on in their session, according to their needs in the moment (e.g, idea development, logic, sentence structure, grammar, etc). Instead of “fixing” students’ papers for them, we take an instructional approach to help them learn how to make their own changes.
Non-evaluative means we won’t judge a student’s work as good or bad, an A or a C, or so on. We focus instead on describing our experience reading the work, so the student can tell how another reader interpreted what they wrote and make choices accordingly. At the UWC, we believe that a successful writer is not a “good writer,” but someone who allows themselves the time to move back and forth through their writing process before arriving at a finished product. We help students cultivate this practice.
As a public university serving students from a wide variety of linguistic backgrounds, we respect and acknowledge the modes of and practices of writing all students bring to our center. We know that Standard Academic English is only one mode of writing, and we strive to help students work within this mode while staying true to their specific languages, voice, and style as they navigate their university work. We work to create a collaborative learning space where everyone, regardless of cultural background, language, discipline, gender, sexuality, nationality, age, and ability feels safe and respected.
Important Writing Center Books & Articles
- North, Stephen. “The Idea of a Writing Center.”(1984)
- Haswell, Richard. “Minimal Marking.”(1983)
- Kiedaisch, Jean et. al. “Changing Notions of Difference in the Writing Center: The Possibilities of Universal Design.” (2007)
- Rafoth, Ben. Multilingual Writers and Writing Centers (2015)
- Geller et al. The Everyday Writing Center (2007).