The Write Track

Last night, a group gathered outside the door to Old Town High School’s writing center in anticipation of a ribbon cutting ceremony to reveal the finished space.  Mr. Gordon, the principal, Mr. Walker, the superintendent, several OTHS teachers, writing center staff, and many parents waited to see the space and celebrate the hard work of the Write Track tutors.

Since January, 15 OTHS students have given up their time to train for this wonderful new opportunity.  They have worked hard to learn the theory and practice behind the tutoring of writing, and last night’s ceremony marked a milestone for them.  With proud smiles, Ms. Ruark, Mr. Pittis, and Ms. Davis prepared to reveal the physical space to all those present.  Channel 5 news even covered the story (http://www.wabi.tv/news/11540/old-town-writing-center-opens).

And so, dear reader, celebrate with us by looking at some of the photos from our grand opening.

With this milestone now behind us, I would like to offer, on behalf of everyone at The Write Track, a giant THANK YOU to the following people, without whom this center would not be possible

Mr. David Walker, Ms. Judy Pusey, Ms. Amy Ketch and Mr. Brett Hoogterp, for enthusiastically supporting, and believing in this endeavor from its inception.

Mr. Scott Gordon, for zealously agreeing to let us take on this project, for finding us a home at Old Town High School, and for being so wholeheartedly committed to opportunities that benefit our school and our students.

Mrs. Donna Lodge, for always having the supplies, answers, keys, and other random things we need.

Ms. Melanie Ruark and Mr. Matt Pittis, for putting up with my insanity, for being fabulous sounding boards and contributors to this entire process, and most importantly for being such wonderful friends and colleagues.

The Write Track Student Staffers, for giving up their time and energy to see this project come to fruition, and for being so earnestly enthusiastic about our writing center.

The OTHS Staff, for helping at every step of this process by being willing to let us try something new.

The Maine Writing Project, a site of The National Writing Project, for providing wonderful professional development opportunities to teachers, and for giving teachers the opportunity to explore their craft.  Special thanks here to the Fellows and Directors of 2009 for letting us all Come Write In.

The most important thanks go to all teachers, thinkers, and writers out there who challenge us to try new things each and every day!

And now, dear reader, we are certainly on:

Last night, The Write Track celebrated its grand opening with a ribbon cutting ceremony to reveal the newly painted and furnished space that the tutors will inhabit.

To give you an idea of what we were working with, look at these:

During our renovation project, we had something like this:

Thanks to teamwork by the co-directors, and some fabulous work with cutting by Mr. Dexter, we ended the day with this:

We still had work to do, though, before we would be ready for the GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION on May 3.

A million thanks to Ms. Ruark, Mr. Pittis, and Mr. Dexter for being willing to give up a day of vacation to work on the Write Track!!!

With our opening only 3 weeks away, there is much to be done.  Our meeting this afternoon was brief, but important.  We finalized a few details, and will soon be ready to go!  Look back for photos of our space now, and after the April vacation remodel.  In the meantime … mark you calendars because you’ve been invited!  Download the details here: opening_invite

We’re almost there … I know, I know, I’ve been saying that for a few weeks now.  But, the end is in sight.  Here’s the low-down on what happened during Monday’s meeting.

We started the session looking over a brochure that Mr. Pittis created.  The Write Track plans to utilize this sensational piece of work as we spread the word about our opening, and in the future for anyone who wants information.  Tutors agreed, wholeheartedly, that Mr. Pittis’s work is magnificent!

The next order of business for the few, but the mighty, present was to choose a date for our GRAND OPENING!  After looking at the calendar for a few minutes, and throwing around a few different dates, those present decided that THE day will be Monday, May 3.  We hope to hold an evening ribbon cutting ceremony complete with snacks and a meet and greet.  Tuesday, May 4 will be the first day The Write Track will be open for tutoring.

In order to spread the word about The Write Track, tutors will visit English classes the week of April 26.  In 5-10 minute presentations, tutors will spread the good news, and it’s wonderful to see how enthusiastic this group is about the visits and our opening!

As we prepare for this most momentous occasion, there is still work to do.  The center needs painting, supplies need purchasing, and the word needs much spreading.

Stay tuned for news and photos on our progress as we get on The Write Track.

The gloomy weather and the beginning of spring sports season meant that only a few tutors attended this afternoon’s meeting.  Despite the small group, our afternoon was successful, fun, and exciting!

First, Ms. Davis and Mr. Pittis filled writing center staff in on the Maine High School Writing Centers Conference they attended last Wednesday.  At the conference, the co-directors presented this poster to other attending schools, as well as writing center guru, Rich Kent.

The poster can be seen in The Write Track, at OTHS.  The presentation portion of this poster brought Ms. Davis, Ms. Ruark, and Mr. Pittis face-to-face with student tutors and writing center directors from across the state.  The other individuals at the conference were impressed with the progress of The Write Track Staff, and Dr. Kent got “writing center chills!”

The next order of business took the group into the maine building for some decorating discussion.  Using paint color swatches picked up by Ms. Davis tutors selected two colors for their center.

One tutor really wanted to paint the walls to look like camo, but the ladies present quickly nixed that.  Mr. Pittis has promised a surprise in some random, isolated spot of the wall – let’s see who can find that first.

The Write Track should be open for business after April vacation, which leaves tutors and co-directors two weeks to get everything together!  If it all works, perhaps we will all be left with writing center chills!

With spring just beginning, the training of The Write Track staff is winding down.  Today’s session brought together the discussions and information from each of our previous meetings, and student staffers showed their stuff in mock tutoring sessions.

The afternoon began with an engrossing lesson on linguistics.  Mr. Pittis shared the following sentence, including the fact that it is 100% grammatically correct (the author of this post may have incorrectly copied the information, so please forgive any errors, Mr. Pittis).

Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

How, you may be asking, can this medley of words form an actual sentence.  Well, the fabulous Mr. Pittis took the time to explain, and here’s what he said …

Buffalo – noun, as in Buffalo, New York
buffalo – noun, as in bison
buffalo – verb, as in to bully

Taking those definitions into account, the sentence might also read:

Buffalo bison bully Buffalo bison.

Well, now that we’ve covered our linguistics for the day, we can move on to the meat of the session …  Student staffers worked in pairs to run mock tutoring sessions.  They used our wc_session_log to keep track of what they did, and while they worked Ms. Davis, Ms. Ruark, and Mr. Pittis walked around to answer questions and observe.

After each student had a chance to be the tutor, the group came back together to debrief and discuss.  In a conversation led by Ms. Davis, students and co-directors made the following observations and conclusion:

1. Tutors did a phenomenal job making sure to use the compliment sandwich discussed three weeks ago (praise – polish – praise).
2. Tutors won’t always have the answer, and that’s ok!  Admit it to the client, and then offer to help or to help them find someone who has more experience with the topic.
3. Always try to keep the client engaged (by having them read their work and write notes it themselves)
4. Understand that it’s ok to be nervous!  This is a learn-by-doing task.

Our final tasks for the afternoon were to compile questions for the Maine High School Writing Centers Conference that Ms. Davis, Mr. Pittis, and Ms. Ruark are attending on Wednesday and to look at the Write Track flier that Ms. Davis created.  Student staffers came up with some great questions for the co-directors to ask, and helped to finalize the wc_info.

With only two training sessions left, The Write Track should be open for business after April vacation.  The only things left to do are publicity and decorating!  Stay tuned for photos of both.

After a two-week hiatus from a rigorous training schedule, a group of 14 tutors and 3 co-directors convened in Portable 10 at 2:30 on a sunny Monday afternoon, to resume in our preparations for the OTHS Writing Center.  The afternoon began, as usual, with a scrumptious snack.  This week’s menu featured double-stuffed Oreos – or quadruple-stuffed if you squish two halves with the filling together.

Since Wednesday is St. Patrick’s Day, this meeting’s opening featured the group trying their hands at limerick writing.  Many were left feeling uninspired, but one tutor used the limerick form to vent her frustrations with a certain boy in her life.  While the endeavor wasn’t the most successful it was a jocular way to jump back in.

The meat of this meeting required writing center staff to work on some logistics: a name and the objectives for our writing center.  Using a printout of idioms for the words right and write staff narrowed down their choices to:

The Write Place, Come Write In, and The Write Track

In an effort to spice things up Ms. Davis read some synonyms for the word PLACE from her favorite book (the thesaurus).  Mr. Pittis, and several tutors, coveted the name The Writing Locus, but since majority rules, they lost.  After choosing a name, staffers generated a list of objectives for their writing center.  The entire meeting can be summed up with the following:

At The Write Track …

You ask, we assist.
You talk, we listen.
You revise, we advise.
You write, we help.

An afternoon full of this much student-generated brilliance could only be ended with the Tom Hennen poem “The Life of a Day“.

Indeed, this group of exceptional students is Write on Track.
P.S. – Tutors need to remember to bring a piece of their own writing next week.

Due to events over the weekend, Ms. Ruark and Ms. Davis have decided to postpone the training session this afternoon.  We will resume training next Monday, March 15.

Take care of yourselves.

Reminder: No meeting next Monday, March 1.

Our numbers may have been down today, but homemade mint brownies and some beguiling performances made the afternoon enjoyable anyway.

For opening moment, all of those present participated in a group reading of “Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes.  All those present took turns reading.  We read only to the punctuation points, and then switched speakers.  The blended voices brought the message of the poem alive.  As one writing center staff said, “That was cool.”  The best, though, was yet to come.

Next, tutors were given several handouts to help as we begin the process of running mock (and soon, real) sessions.  Ms. Ruark spent some time going over the wc_session_log and the running_sessions sheet.  Those in attendance will surely agree that the next thirty minutes of this training session were … interesting (and hopefully helpful).  Ms. Davis and Mr. Pittis role-played a bad and a good example of a tutoring session.

Role Play 1: Ms. Davis, channeling some rather repugnant qualities, grabbed Mr. Pittis’s essay and began attacking it with a large red marker.  Leaving the client unengaged in the process of revision, Ms. Davis corrected all of the mistakes, jeered at the structure, and generally ridiculed poor Mr. Pittis.  When he tried to ask questions about his work, the tutor laughed at, ignored, or dimissed poor Mr. Pittis.

Role Play 2: Mr. Pittis began by greeting the client coridally, asking her name.  Addressing Natalie (aka Ms. Davis) directly, he made inquiries about the assignment (what was it for? what goals needed to be met? etc).  Ms. Davis was prepared enough to have a copy of the assignment, which Mr. Pittis found extremely helpful.  After pinpointing areas of concern for the paper’s author, Mr. Pittis asked her to read the assignment aloud.  The 10 second reading astonished onlookers, but the help from tutor to client was even more staggering.  Mr. Pittis used a compliment sandwich (praise, polish, praise) to discuss possible improvements to Ms. Davis’s work.  Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside, Ms. Davis left the tutoring session with an amiable “Thank you” from Mr. Pittis.

With both role-play scenarios over, giggling ensued (or continued for some).  Ms. Ruark led the group in a discussion of why Mr. Pittis made a better tutor than Ms. Davis (hopefully it’s obvious).  While Mr. Pittis’s skills as a tutor during this meeting were indubitably better than those of Ms. Davis, some would say that her acting skills transcended his.  Good thing there’s an Academy Award for Best Male and Best Female performance – everyone wins.

Ms. Ruark brought this tantalizing training session to end with a reading of “Valentine for Ernest Mann” by Naomi Shihab Nye.  It’s safe to say, we think, that fun was had by all.

With the sun shining and temperatures unusually mild (for February in Maine), our growing group met for a third time to discuss the things that writing tutors should and should not do.  Before our group brainstorm ensued, however, Ms. Ruark led us in an opening moment full of musical hearts.

Using hearts cut out by Ms. Davis, and designed by Mr. Pittis, the group wrote down the songs and artists that have made an impact – good or bad – on our lives.  Only a few people shared, but we discovered quickly a near unanimous dislike of all things Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montanah.  Among the more positive were several showtunes and some Willie Nelson.

After spending some time pouring our hearts out (pun intended), the group moved on to the dirty work of the day.  In a discussion led by Ms. Ruark, tutors and co-directors listed some of the basic Dos and Don’ts for tutoring sessions.  Here’s what we came up with:

Do …
•    stay on task (create and stick to an agenda)
•    use positive statements rather than negative ones
•    be the “coach” not the writer
•    ask what the student would like to work on
•    encourage students to work ahead in order to avoid a time crunch
•    use sticky notes to make comments, or ask the student to mark their own work
•    have the student read their paper out loud to you
•    check for proper paper formatting

Don’t …
•    write the paper for the student
•    be mean or disrespectful
•    lost your temper or patience
•    try to tackle too many issues in one session
•    try to fix everything
•    focus on lower-order issues (MUGS)
•    take too long (30 minutes is a good amount of time in most cases)

After the brainstorm, Ms. Davis handed out two chapters from the book A Tutor’s Guide: Helping Writers One to One.  Writing Center staff should read the packet over vacation as we prepare to begin mock tutoring sessions.

We ended this week’s session with a closing moment a la Mr. Pittis.  In true writer’s style he sared a poem called “Spell Checker Blues”.

Note: There will be NO training session on Monday, March 1.