From graduating seniors to incoming freshmen and anywhere in between, papers and essays are frequent for high school students. English teacher Sara Pitt saw a lack of writing resources outside of the classroom and decided to fill that demand with something called the Writing Center.
“The Writing Center is a place for students to come [and] get feedback on their writing at any stage of the process,” Pitt said.
Pitt’s interest in Writing Centers started when she was attending the University of Michigan. Writing resources are standard at colleges and universities, whereas in high schools they are not.
She knew there was a need for students to communicate with peers about their writing and get the help they needed to become better writers.
“I think conversation is a key piece to the writing process so this just helps facilitate that and allows some extra time, space and people to have that conversation,” Pitt said.
Students can access these writing resources every day during A and B lunch in the writing lab, across from Brinks’ room.
Currently, the Writing Center operates as a club which consists of 20 consultants that take turns coming in during their lunches to assist students with their writing. There are also four students that are involved with the Writing Center as an independent study.
Senior Emily Kline decided to get involved because she “really likes editing papers and helping people write to make them better than what they thought they could do.”
To become a writing consultant, each aspiring student filled out an application and attended a day-long workshop that focused on how to communicate and talk to students about their writing.
As the program expands, Pitt hopes to have more consultants, before and after school sessions, in-class help as well as online consulting.
To learn more about the Wildcat Writing Center, click here.
