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2025-2026 Writing Consultants and Interns:
2025-2026 Writing Consultants and Interns:
LEAD CONSULTANTS: Naisha Majmudar, Ella Bagchi, Hana Kim, and Rui Zheng
INTERNS: Charlie Dague, Ishika Yalamanchi, Amy Wu, Shreya Rozario, Evelyn Lu, Samuel Lin, Isabelle Burnham, Rose Ren, Allena Saleem, Pragna Obiddi, Nafiza Ilma, Ishae Pradeep Nag, Zoha Khan, Gianna Zhang
The Shaker High School Writing Center, established in 2014, is staffed by students who have shown an interest in writing and in helping others. Any students who meet the requirements are welcome to apply to participate in an English internship in order to become writing consultants. Upon successful completion of consultant training, students may then move on to work with writers in our school community. Some students also volunteer their time to help run the Writing Center (scheduling, advertising, data analysis, community outreach, etc.)
The primary goal of the Shaker High School Writing Center is to increase authentic engagement in writing. We operate on the core belief that providing trained, interested, and sympathetic audiences to student writers is one way to make sure that North Colonie students are developing their own ideas and using writing to engage in the world around them.
BEST WAYS TO USE THE SHAKER WRITING CENTER
BEST WAYS TO USE THE SHAKER WRITING CENTER
Prewriting (brainstorming, understanding an assignment, setting goals, freewriting)
Drafting (writing a thesis, supporting claims with evidence, discovering topics or examples that spark ideas)
Revising (checking claims/evidence, organizing ideas, using meaningful transitions, integrating quotes)
Editing (reducing wordiness, varying sentence length and structure, establishing a personal voice, citing correctly)
Publishing (testing out a final or almost-final draft on a real audience)
Preparing for On-Demand Writing (review your process, make a plan to organize your ideas and information, reflect on structures that work for a given assignment)
Practicing a Speech/Presentation (preparing notes or drafting; speaking in front of a small, supportive audience as practice; working on incorporating visual aids)
WHAT TO BRING TO THE WRITING CENTER
WHAT TO BRING TO THE WRITING CENTER
Contest Writing: Select a contest or publication to work towards, and use the Writing Center throughout your writing process to make sure you are checking in to see what impact your work has on readers
College Admissions or Scholarship Essay: Consultants can show you models and help you set and work towards your own standards for excellence in a final draft
Writing Group Work: If you are in a writing group, consultants can work with you about how to provide respectful, critical feedback for each other
Social Studies Writing: Thematic essays, DBQs, you name it: we can work with it all
Creative Writing: Our consultants can provide critical feedback about lyrics, poems, short stories, novel excerpts, and personal essays
Process Essay: Take research papers or extended process pieces to the Writing Center at any stage in order to talk through your choices
Analytical Writing: Bring paragraphs or essays in order to hone your thesis statements, topic sentences, organization, transitions, and use of evidence
Journal/Exercise Revision: Bring a journal entry or writing exercise to revise
Finalizing a Draft: Bring your writing to make sure that editing, citation, and/or formatting issues do not detract from the overall impact of a final draft
Editorials, Letters, etc.: Based on teacher input, our interns can create tailored resources to scaffold work you are doing Science Writing: Bring lab reports or science research writing for help with you clarity and development
In-Class Writing: Come review your graded in-class essays in order to reflect on your timed writing process and strategize ways to do your best on future in-class writing
Presentations/Speeches: Our consultants can serve as critical but safe test audiences before you present to a larger group
SAT Practice: We can work alongside you, examine the answer rationales, and talk through the process with you; some of our consultants who are also interested in mathematical thinking processes have even helped review the math section of the SAT
Just about anything you want!
HOW WE GOT STARTED: 2013-2014
HOW WE GOT STARTED: 2013-2014
Students in Writers' Workshop, an English senior elective, spent the year researching Writing Center theory and practice. We visited Siena College's Writing Center and corresponded with other area college Writing Centers in order to carefully plan out what we'd hoped would become a thriving and successful Shaker Writing Center.
The thoughtfulness and vision of these researchers and original consultants lives on in the Mission Statement they wrote, which continues to guide us.
Watch the 2014 North Colonie Board of Education Writing Center Approval Video
Watch the 2014 North Colonie Board of Education Writing Center Approval Video
MAKING THE DREAM COME TRUE IN 2015
MAKING THE DREAM COME TRUE IN 2015
This amazing group of writing consultants wanted to get the word out that the Writing Center was a fun, welcoming environment. Events like this flash mob definitely got Shaker students talking about us!
This amazing group of writing consultants wanted to get the word out that the Writing Center was a fun, welcoming environment. Events like this flash mob definitely got Shaker students talking about us!
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