As a writing center, we are committed to working with writers from all backgrounds and valuing their literacy histories. As part of that mission, we are involved in community-engaged work. We are currently collaborating with secondary schools, and we are open and looking forward to other kinds of community collaborations as well. If you are a community member looking to partner with us, please contact UMass Writing Center Director Anna Rita Napoleone at @email.
Bringing Meaningful Writing Centers to Secondary Schools
In 2019, the UMass Writing Center was awarded a Public Service Endowment Grant to work with local secondary school teachers to create writing centers in their schools. This grant inspired collaboration between college and secondary instructors as they worked to implement writing centers or writing center theory and pedagogy in their schools.
Frontier Regional School
Melissa Strelke, a teacher at Frontier Regional School, reached out to the UMass Amherst Writing Center to discuss ways in which the two institutions could collaborate to create a writing center at her school, which serves four rural towns. Melissa worked with Anna Rita and Robin Garabedian (Assistant Director) to prepare a grant proposal: "Bringing Meaningful Writing Centers to Secondary Schools." They were awarded $15,000 from UMass' Public Service Endowment Grant to develop resources, infrastructure, and capacity for writing centers in Western Massachusetts secondary schools.
As part of the grant, a study group of seven teachers from five different schools in the area, as well as Melissa, Anna Rita, and Robin, was formed. Each month, the teachers read writing center scholarship and discuss how those readings might apply to their own contexts, whether in their future writing centers or in their classrooms.
Melissa Strelke: “The study group allowed me to work through and be transparent about my process of starting a writing center as it was happening. In that first cohort was also my student teacher, who had worked at the UMass Writing Center. She was an invaluable asset and . . . [Frontier’s Writing Center] was really successful because of her support, because of Anna Rita’s support.”
High school students from the group members' schools visited the UMass Writing Center to talk with tutors and see what a writing center can look like. Read more about their visit in The Daily Collegian's article. UMass Writing Center tutors also visited Frontier to talk to students interested in being writing tutors.
In 2020, as the program shifted online and then paused due to the pandemic, Seth Czarnecki, the Northeast Representative from the Secondary School Writing Centers Association, visited the group to discuss his own experience running Algonquin Regional High School's writing center.
Melissa, Anna Rita, and Jaclyn Ordway, a UMass Writing Center graduate tutor, began reimagining what "Bringing Meaningful Writing Centers to Secondary Schools" looks like amidst a pandemic.
Melissa and Jaclyn co-facilitated a virtual, three-day writing center workshop series focused on the history of writing center pedagogy, the challenges of peer-to-peer tutoring, and the value of writing conferences for a new cohort of six high and middle school teachers. UMass Writing Center tutors came to speak with the teachers about their experiences as tutors and answered participants’ questions about writing centers and tutor training.
Kevin McKenna, a participant: “I liked meeting people from different types of schools (middle school, high school, & college level) and discussing how a writing center could fit the unique demands of each setting. It was cool to collaborate and work together to problem-solve best practices.”
Erin White, a participant: “I believe I could begin the process of training a teacher to build tutors for their program, especially if they are with us a long time period. I think the workshop opened my eyes of the different forms a writing center could take and that supporting this initiative can help students utilize writing centers in future education endeavors.”