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

September 18, 2025:  The Writing Center hosted a workshop on writing supplemental essays, led by Kristen Brown and Robert Darken.  The workshop provided students with an interactive workbook with sample essays, graphic organizers, and suggested outlines for four common supplemental essay prompts: the “why this college” essay, the community essay, the extracurricular activity essay, and the “why this major” essay. 

For any student unable to attend the workshop in person, please stop by the Writing Center to pick up your copy of our workbook.  The teachers in the Writing Center can work with you one-on-one to cover the content you missed.  We also encourage ALL seniors to bring the drafts of their essays to the Writing Center for feedback.  

September 29-October 3rd, 2025: The Writing Center will push into junior English classes before the PSAT to conduct a mini lesson on how to join and separate clauses as well as how to use different forms of punctuation.

March 2025:  The Writing Center will host a college essay workshop geared towards juniors. The workshop will help students brainstorm topics for their personal statement essays as well as review common organizational structures to help them begin writing their drafts.  Check back soon for more information on when the workshop will take place.