This is a guest post written by Chantal Winstead NCTE’s P12 Policy Analyst from Virginia.
In March 2013, after recognizing writing weaknesses in Virginia鈥檚 11th-grade English Standards of Learning (SOL) test, the 11th-grade English team began brainstorming ideas to help support writing across the curriculum. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the NAEP, acknowledges that 鈥渨riting is one of the most difficult academic areas for students to master鈥� and notes in their 2011 report that only 27 percent of eighth and twelfth graders are scoring at or above the proficient level in writing (
We were a young school at the time (just two years new), and our small but growing population of Gap Group 1 students (Students with Disabilities, English Language Learners, and Economically Disadvantaged Students) highlighted a need for a student-centered writing resource to support all learners.
After observingin December 2013 and reading our team spent the spring recruiting tutors for the coming school year through teacher recommendations. We mailed 28 invitations that May and welcomed 17 tutors-in-training to a one-day workshop later that summer. There tutors designed our mission statement and practiced effective tutoring skills. In early September 2014, we met again to create an 鈥渋ce bucket challenge鈥� 聽 assign leadership roles, and develop and Twitter accounts. Our first writing-center clients began trickling in that October.
Since 2013, the writing center鈥檚 staff has grown to include more than 25 tutors. In addition to supporting the writing process in English classes, we have found past success in partnering with the counseling department for essay-writing workshops and in extending our services to ELL students at our feeder elementary school. While this year and last we have been solely a volunteer operation offering services before and after school and during study periods, beginning next year, Writing Center will be offered as an elective course in high schools throughout Loudoun County.
The introduction of this pilot demonstrates that effective schoolwide writing programs begin with the support of teachers and administrators who value and understand the benefit of writing across the curriculum.
Chantal Winstead is NCTE鈥檚 P12 Policy Analyst for Virginia. She聽teaches English 11 and Advanced Placement Language and Composition at John Champe High School in Loudoun County, Virginia.