Opening for teacher check outs at the start of Q2! Set up an appointment below!
In 2018, the Writing Center Instructors course began with only 7 students, led by Ms. Lauren Wilkie. A new classroom was lifted from scratch for the purpose of creating a safe environment where all students can stop by to receive assistance and guidance on their writing. Room 2019 began as a room filled with boxes of uniforms and multiple tables with computer desktops; however, the fantastic team of 7 worked diligently to turn the room into a comfortable and accurate space in which students can work. Aside from the physical aspects of the room, we worked on a variety of projects with different teachers to put the writing center to use. While the writing center began with a very diminutive size in students, as a whole, it has become a powerful resource for the students to use.
During the 2018 Writing Center opening, mentors wrote and discussed a proposal to deliver to the school administration. This proposal included the vision statement of the space as well as the mission to ensure the space would be used for the academic benefit of all students. This proposal set the foundation for what the writing center would look like and how it would be utilized. During this presentation, other important factors were discussed: writing center funding, the aesthetic structure of the space, the times it would be open, etc. Overall, this proposal was the starting point for the writing center to commence its useful opportunities in mentoring for all students.
In 2018, mentors took part in a variety of important actions to create a viable writing center space and create a culture of writing at Solorio:
They presented to staff about culturally responsive teaching during a half day professional development
They mentored students in both English and in Spanish
They provided feedback to Ms. Piwowar and Ms. Slifka's rubrics for Civics and partnered with students in Q3.
They wrote and maintained a public blog that was shared with other writing centers and staff members.
They created a creative writing contest in Q4 to encourage students to share non-academic writing.
In 2019, our course grew from 7 students to 22, with one returner, Daisy Damian. Having a returning mentor helped us grow our center and our program, allowing us to have two courses and serve all three lunches more regularly. As a result, our sessions skyrocketed, engaging more students than ever before. Building off of the first year success, this group of mentors dove head first into innovative writing center work, all while juggling a strike and a pandemic:
They wrote 10+ page scholarly research papers and participated in staff/student mentoring around supporting specific subgroups of students in the writing center space.
They created subcommittees to lay the framework for a potential Solorio newspaper and Literary Magazine
Three students were selected to attend the SSWCA Annual Conference in Washington DC, later cancelled due to COVID. Students virtually attended these presentations via Zoom while learning remotely.
They were successfully "rented out" for our first Rent-a-Mentor program, pushing into teacher's classrooms.
They managed our first social media pages on both Twitter and Instagram.
They created a creative writing dropbox to collect ideas and writing from Solorio students during the pandemic.
2020 was a tumultuous year for not only our writing center, but also our world. Much like other schools around the country (and world), we went remote, never meeting our crew of 21 mentors in person, but through the screen. While we had one returner, Tahj Busch, which made training mentors a bit easier, it was still a challenge to compete with the distractions of home life. Pandemic life made our job as mentors more difficult but all the more important, as we were tasked with supporting students both academically and socially, all without possibly seeing their face or hearing their voice. We dabbled with using the myWConline platform for student sessions, but found it cumbersome; we stuck with the website for signins, but utilized Google Meets to engage in mentoring sessions. I was incredibly proud of this group's tenacity and innovation:
They conducted hundreds of hours of mentoring sessions remotely via Google Meets.
They proposed and presented at SSWCA's annual conference via Flipgrid videos and attended virtual sessions.
They led breakout rooms and class sessions through virtual Rent-a-Mentor.
They utilized platforms like Canva to create advertisements to promote our center.
They led multiple student raffles for attending the writing center, even giving away gift cards