“What if every high school had a writing center?”
Around the nation an educational reform movement is stirring and students are at the center — the Writing Center!
On Saturday, October 29th, writing tutors from 11 High School Writing Centers from Fairfax County Public Schools gathered to share, learn, and celebrate their work.
The conference was entitled “The Tricks and Treats of Tutoring in a High School Writing Center” and took place on the George Mason University Campus, in the Long and Kimmy Nguyen Engineering Building from 9:00Am – 3:00PM. The conference was designed to give tutors the opportunity to network, share tutoring “tricks,” and participate in workshops with Northern Virginia Writing Project Teacher consultants Bill McCabe, Kim Sloan, and Alison Grace, as well as Mason faculty members Dawn Fels, Director of the GMU Writing Center, Paul Rogers, Director of the Northern Virginia Writing Project, and Terry Myers Zawacki, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at Mason. The High School Tutors also took part in an interactive Q&A session during lunch with Mason writing tutors Alicia Gleason, Heather Hilton, Josh Ambrose, Kim Ruff, and Danielle Harms.
The 2011 conference included tutors from the following Fairfax County High School Writing Centers:
- Centreville High School
- Chantilly High School
- Edison High School
- Herndon High School
- Interagency Alternative Schools
- Lake Braddock High School
- Louisa County High School
- McLean High School
- Oakton High School
- Trinity Christian School
- West Springfield High School
- Woodson High School
The conference was hosted by the Northern Virginia Writing Project and co-sponsored by Fairfax County Public Schools, the George Mason University Writing Center, and Bedford St. Martin’s. The event was free, and each tutor received a celebratory T-shirt with the names of all the participating schools and and the phrase “Write. Right?” on the front. All participating writing centers were also ”treated” to Writers Reference Guides thanks to a generous contribution from conference co-sponsor Bedford St. Martin’s. The conference was organized by Writing Center Directors from the Fairfax County Public Schools; lunch and logistics were taken care of by the Northern Virginia Writing Project.While the 2011 event was limited to Fairfax County Writing Centers, plans are in the works for a fall 2012 regional conference that will include writing tutors from throughout Virginia, Washington D.C., Maryland, and beyond.For more information on high school writing centers please visit:
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