Working together, sharing, and collaborating
The Center for Teaching and Research in Writing (CTRW) was founded to coordinate the English Department’s writing programs and to serve as a research engine on the subject of writing for the university and beyond. While CTRW constituent programs are already mature and well-functioning units, their coordination allows its professionals – faculty, instructional staff, and graduate students – to better flourish and engage in research, drawing additional expertise from around the campus and around the world. Read more about us.
Teaching Support
CTRW is centered on the teaching of writing, and UW-Madison offers a full spectrum of writing support and opportunities at every level for:
- Students (college/university, but also K-12 programs via GWMP)
- Teachers (focusing on graduate teaching assistants, as well as PT/FT instructional faculty)
- Program/unit directors (who are interested in writing research opportunities and becoming an affiliated program)
- Community members (writing events of all types for writers in the community)
Research Support
At the CTRW, we harness the intellectual and research power of the center’s core programs and open up the programs as research sites to other researchers and teachers on the UW-Madison campus with an interest in writing and writing pedagogy. The center serves as a research home base to faculty, instructional staff, and graduate students who wish to affiliate with the center and/or conduct research using the intellectual resources found in its constituent units.
- Visit our research overview for more information on research opportunities for faculty, staff, and graduate students interested in research on writing and research that supports writing instruction.
- Find grants & opportunities on our blog.
Upcoming Events
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Announcements
Grants & Opportunitites
WAC Program
Contact the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) for ways to incorporate writing into your courses
ESL Program
The English as a Second Language (ESL) Program provides a wide range of support international students and ESL instructors.
English 100 Program
English 100 is an introductory college composition course that helps students prepare for the demands of writing at UW.
English 201 Program
English 201 is an intermediate composition course that helps students prepare for writing after and outside undergraduate life.
Undergrad Writing Fellows
The Undergrad Writing Fellows brings talented undergraduate and committed faculty together to improve student writing.
GWMP/NWP
The Greater Madison Writing Project (GWMP) offers support for K-12 educators, as well as young writers.
Since its start as the Writing Laboratory in 1969, the Writing Center at Madison has helped literally tens of thousands of University of Wisconsin students, both undergraduate and graduate, learn more about writing and has helped them successfully complete course papers, theses, dissertations, and articles for publication — in all sorts of academic disciplines. To provide this help, we offer an extensive range of individual instruction, non-credit workshops, curricular-based writing tutors (Undergraduate Writing Fellows), and instructional materials.
The Writing Across the Curriculum Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is eager to help you think about creative and effective ways to incorporate writing and speaking assignments into your courses at all levels and in all disciplines. The hundreds of pages of materials on this site offer a good place to start.
If you teach at UW-Madison, we would be happy to consult with you about ways to customize these materials and the pedagogical strategies they suggest. Click on “About Us” above to see some of the many ways we can help with your teaching. And please do not hesitate to request a consultation or contact us if you would like additional support.
The UW-Madison’s English as a Second Language Program mission is to support the University’s international students. We provide a wide range of ESL courses for undergraduate and graduate students. We train international teaching assistants to become more effective teachers and prospective ESL teachers who desire TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification. Our program supports the University’s community and international outreach goals. We look forward to meeting you and answering any questions you may have.
English 100 is an introduction to college composition that helps students prepare for the demands of writing at UW-Madison and also helps them think about writing beyond the classroom. The course satisfies the Communication A general education requirement for undergraduates.
Students in English 100 build rhetorical awareness in both written and oral communication. Assignments engage questions of audience, purpose, genre, discourse conventions, and research methods. Students use narrative strategies to explore abstract concepts; summarize and synthesize information; engage in conversations with the ideas of others; and construct arguments through original research. The course views writing as an act of inquiry, a means of communication, and a process. With this in mind, instructors emphasize drafting, revising, and editing as critical practices.
Instructors for English 100 are part of a dynamic intellectual community, centered in the English department. In this community you will find doctoral students in literary studies, composition and rhetoric, English Language and Linguistics, and Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies, as well as Creative Writing MFA students. Additionally, instructional staff often includes experienced doctoral students from the School of Education, Linguistics, and other areas of the university.
English 201 is a 3-credit, intermediate level, general education writing course that satisfies the university’s Communications B requirement for enhancing students’ literacy skills. Enrollment in English 201 assumes that a student has successfully completed or been exempted from the “Communication A” requirement.
English 201 is a low-enrollment course that depends on student participation, so each section is capped at 19 students. It is designed to develop skills in the four modes of literacy: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This course places special attention on writing, requiring numerous assignments of multiple pages, each developed through extensive planning, drafting, revising, and editing. Most classes employ a workshop approach, meaning that students work in peer writing groups, reading and commenting on one another’s work in constructive ways that are taught to students early in the semester.
The Greater Madison Writing Project (GMWP) at University of Wisconsin – Madison (UW) is an affiliate of National Writing Project (NWP) network, a nationally acclaimed professional learning community that puts educators’ knowledge, experience and voices at its center. GMWP offers both professional development for educators as well as enrichment opportunities for children and young adult writers. The Greater Madison Writing Project was founded as a joint effort at between the College of Letters & Science and the School of Education and is now a member of the Center for the Teaching and Research on Writing in the UW-Madison English Department. Find GMWP teacher-writers and their stories on our Medium Blog