A key feature of the HEX program is an emphasis on sustainability. Several past HEX projects are still ongoing in the form of service-learning courses, permanent writing centers, tutorial services, classroom materials, and other amenities for the community. For example:
Starting in the fall of 2008, "The Prison Writing Workshop" became institutionalized as a class offered by the UW-Madison English department, English 201 “Writing in the Prison: A Service-Learning Course." The course description reads, “In this service-learning section of English 201, students study writing and the teaching of writing while reading about and researching prison issues in the United States. Students also tutor incarcerated individuals in the essay portion of the GED exam at a nearby prison. This course is meant to provide students opportunities to practice writing and to reflect both on and through writing in order to develop greater rhetorical awareness and skill in writing while helping others improve their writing.” The course is currently taught by Dave Stock, a PhD student in Composition and Rhetoric.
“MAAX: Madison Academic and Athletic Exchange” was founded by HEX scholar Will Rogers (PhD, English) in 2004 and later taken over by Justin Kolb (PhD, English) in 2006, as a collaboration between scholar-athletes at UW-Madison and at Madison East High School. In the spring of 2008, Justin taught a section of English 100 at UW-Madison, and he partnered his students with East High School’s writing center as part of this HEX project. Justin said of his work, "MAAX is a special section of English 100 that partners a section of First-Year Writing with the Center for Reaching Excellence in Writing (CREW), a new Writing Center at Madison East High School. Our mission is to use the resources of the UW to support sophisticated writing instruction in the Madison Public Schools and engage UW students in writing and academic practice related to a community outside the university, in this case, a large, urban high school with a diverse population of students. We have been doing this by building institutional ties between programs at both schools and by bringing English 100 students to East High for regular joint class sessions.”
Now under new leadership, this section of English 100 continues as a service-learning partnership between UW-Madison and East High. For more information, visit the MAAX website.
