Reading club provides a space to discuss writing center scholarship. Based on the article or chapter chosen, participants will share experiences, ideas, strategies, and questions about online writing centers (OWCs).

OWCA is pleased to offer the April 2026 Reading Club session focused on two articles exploring the affordances and trade-offs of multimodal online feedback. The session will be facilitated by Shelbi Fitzpatrick, Miranda Hannasch, Lacie McEntire, and Jalees Tamayo, all of whom are graduate students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) as well as Lead Consultants at UNLV’s Writing Center.

Stewart’s “Investigating Multimodal Feedback Methods in Asynchronous Tutoring at the Writing Center” discusses student responses to a combination of written and audio feedback at a small private college, while Lee and Michelini’s  “Beyond Convenience: A Mixed-Methods Study of Asynchronous Multimodal Tutoring and Its Impact on Understanding and Connection” describes the process of training consultants to leave asynchronous video feedback at a public Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).

Both studies suggest that multimodal feedback can increase accessibility and help bridge “empathy gaps,” making it easier for students to understand and connect to online feedback. However, adding this type of feedback is intimidating–it requires Writing Centers to adopt both new technology and modified tutor-training methods.

Our conversation will use these articles as a jumping-off point to discuss participants’ experience (if any) with audiovisual feedback and to brainstorm potential smaller-scale multimodal approaches that we might adapt to our own Writing Centers.

Guidelines for Participating

Reading Club is currently held in a Zoom Pro room. Participation is open to everyone, including not-yet OWCA members. To ensure a safe space for open communication and interaction, these sessions will not be recorded.

Register

You can register for a reading club through the scheduling system below (note: there may be multiple events listed). Follow these steps:

1. Select your time zone from the drop-down menu
2. Click the “Register” button next to the event you’d like to attend
3. Fill out the registration form and click “Complete Registration”
4. Save your confirmation email to have the Zoom information or cancel your registration later. You can also respond to this email to contact the event organizers.

A reminder email will also be sent the morning of the event.