NCHS Writing Center

Our Mission

The New Canaan High School Writing Center was created to help students achieve their academic goals for any assignment that involves writing, reading or research. The Center is staffed each period every day by a team of English and Social Studies teachers. The Writing Center focuses primarily on:

• providing one-on-one writing conferences for students in all grades

• providing freshmen, sophomores, and juniors with reading and writing strategies that will help them meet graduation standards

• assisting seniors with college application essays and supplemental responses

• assisting sophomores and juniors with research-based reading and writing projects

• improving writing and reading performance on benchmark assessments through programmed activities in Social Studies and English classes

About the Writing Center

The Writing Center, formerly the Academic Center, opened in 2001 with the goal of providing individualized support to all students who wanted to improve their writing performance and reading skills in classes across the curriculum. Since that time, the Writing Center has continued to add services, helping students meet graduation standards for writing, reading and research, and collaborating with the English and Social Studies departments to prepare students for internal and state assessments.

Students have traditionally used the Writing Center in two ways: they drop in for one-on-one writing conferences; or they confer with a Writing Center teacher by appointment as part of a collaboration with their classroom teacher.  In addition, selected students are assigned to the Center on an alternate-day basis for individualized assistance in meeting graduation standards.

Events

April 10, 2025: College Essay Workshop #2 focused on structuring the essay and offered two choices--narrative or montage.  This workshop also addressed ways to make your essay uncommon rather than common.  If you missed it, check out the recording here.

March 27, 2025: The Writing Center hosted College Essay Workshop #1, led by Ali Pineo from The College Essay Guy.  The workshop focused on brainstorming and selecting an appropriate writing topic.  If you missed the workshop, check out the recording here.  Here is a link to the College Essay Guy's workbook, and here is a link to slides with action steps to take prior to the second workshop on April 10.

September 19, 2024:  The Writing Center hosted a workshop on writing supplemental essays, led by Mindi Trimble of The College Essay Guy.  The workshop focused on approaches to four of the most common supplemental essay prompts:  Why Our School?, Identities and Communities, Extracurricular Activity, and Why This Major?  If you missed the workshop, check out the recording here.   Here too is a link to the College Essay Guy's workbook on writing the supplemental essays.