I loved getting to visit Shawna's students at Renaissance! It was so exciting to see a high school Writing Center program, and I just cannot believe how invaluable the service is that they are providing. It is a very unique situation, though, as it is really due to the special nature of the school that it can make the program work. Firstly, the school is specifically a college-prep type institution that has incredibly high standards for students. Because of some of the specific programs that they are enrolled in, students are required to perform volunteer work. Thus, they are able to work as writing center consultants as a way to fulfill that requirement. This allows the program to have thoughtful, highly motivated and free consultants. Shawna mentioned that because the consultants are working for free, though, that they do not have a great deal of time to devote to training. Thus, they have completely a very comprehensive handbook that consultants are introduced to at the beginning of the year and that they can refer to throughout. Shawna noted that during the center's downtime the consultants are called upon to read articles on writing center practices, or to brush up on their grammar skills by reading one of the many grammar texts available in the space.
Overall, though Renaissance's program works only because of the nature of the institution, it works, and students are able to get great feedback from their peers on their writing, which helps them to grow as writers. What an amazing and unique program, and what a fantastic opportunity for enrichment of all at that school.
In meeting with the consultants, it was immediately clear that although their center was very different from ours at Boise State, like all writing centers, it had its key sticking points which seem to transcend all programs: multi-lingual writers and email consultations. It was crazy to think that these young consultants experienced the same issues as we do at the college level, but I think these complications just attest to the continuity of writing centers throughout the country.
As a note on email consultations, Sam's lesson went fabulously on Thursday. It was so good for each consultant to have to write a response to the same piece and then have an open forum (along with small group work) to identify what was said, what needed to be said, and how to go about doing it. I think it helped the 303ers to have a "game-real" experience to really see what doing an email consultation is like. Even more, I think it was valuable for them to see how others responded so that they could gauge how others responded to the piece, to see where their responses fit, and to see that they likely experienced the same challenges as did other consultants. On that note, I took mine to class in digital format, so I'm sending it your way this morning.
I hope you had a fabulous time in San Diego, Melissa! I can't wait to hear all about the conference, and especially about how Dory's presentation went. What a great opportunity for her and for the other consultants that went. Wahoo!
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