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Berkeley Preparatory School
NCPTW Presentation
Who We Are
•   Fifty year old independent school
•   Nineteen year old writing center
•   Eighty tutors from grades 10 to 12
•   Thirty interns/directors
•   Rotating Eight Period Schedule
•   Tutors and director staff nearly every block
•   Over seven hundred tutorials last year
•   Tutor students from grades 7 through 12
•   Multiple outreach programs
Outreach Programs and Advertising
•   Academy Prep
•   OWL
•   Eat n’ speak
•   Publicity
•   Self Study –Us!
•   Our Blog
•   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nnYo4L3X
    Go
Brandt chicago presentation
Benefits of our Skype Sessions
 • We saw ourselves in a mirror
 • We saw possibilities for our center
   that we hadn’t thought of
 • Invited to visit Glenbrook North
 • Learned to ways of getting people to
   come to the center
 • Invited to publish
Brandt chicago presentation
• Obstacles to Skype meetings
 ▫ Finding schools that are willing to meet
 ▫ Finding schools that have writing centers
 ▫ IWCA resource
 ▫ Finding a common time to Skype
 ▫ Time Zones (Mr. Brandt’s flawed understanding of
   them)
 ▫ Special schedules at school proposed difficulty in
   availability
 ▫ Having to get out of class early
• Platform
 ▫ Skype is free, common, and crappy
 ▫ The recordings of the interviews play back the best
   when taken with a mac
 ▫ Face time
 ▫ Google plus Hangout
 ▫ Oovoo
Brandt chicago presentation
Room Set Up
• Figuring out how each school would set up their
  interview
 ▫ How many students
 ▫ Conference table setting or one on one
 ▫ Whether to use a projector screen or computer
   monitor
 ▫ Setting up speakers and microphones depending
   on connection and amount of people involved in
   the interview
Glenbrook North
                  Their Blog
Center
•   Large room with computers and work tables
•   Have a center pet- large fish
•   Provide tea and hot chocolate
•   Center also serves as
        a quiet study hall area
Tutoring Help
•  tutors available for multiple different types of assignments: Science labs,
  History research papers, English papers
• Online sign-up for appointments with a drop down menu from which
  students choose what subject they need help in and have the ability to
  choose tutor
• Also tutor the Middle and Elementary school
Tutor Identity
• Makes the tutor realize that they have to be more friendly and
  outgoing
• Makes them feel empowered as leaders within the tutorial
• Better communication skills—being able to talk to strangers and
  offer them advice is a challenge that makes you a better speaker
• Tutors now feel like tutoring is a privilege
• Strong sense of community among their tutors
• All their tutors seem to be very involved in other school clubs, etc.
• Really good at winning someone over in a short time
• When tutoring a senior and you are a junior it reverses the power
  structure
• Important to provide a sense of security to tutee in order to gain
  trust
• It is hard for a student to go in and be told they are not as smart as
  the tutor—again. Not their perception of the center, but they do
  realize that to accept being tutored is an act of humility
Brandt chicago presentation
How tutors are chosen
• Nominated by a teacher during their freshman or sophomore year, must
  maintain a B average
• Able to apply for a tutor position as juniors or seniors
Paraphrase from the Skype Session
(we lost the audio)
• One of the tutors had heard from the seniors
  that the arc was a creepy place and not to go in
  there, however, when she went in she found that
  it was actually a cool hangout place
Minnetonka High School
          Their Blog
General Information
•   Located in Minnetonka, Minnesota
•   Approximately 2,800 students
•   Public High School
•   Located in the Minnetonka School District
    ▫ Recognized as a school district of excellence by the
      United States Department of Education
Minnetonka Writing Center - Video
• Highlights:
  ▫ ―Students don’t know us as a volunteer group, we’re
    considered a secondary resource instead of an elite
    group of students‖
  ▫ Their center continues to grow
  ▫ Birth of Center: November of 2007
  ▫ Off the Page Events
  ▫ Tutors offer help to students in all subjects
     ―It’s not just a writing center‖
  ▫ Writing Center Parties
     ―When you know someone just gets it, it makes you feel
      really confident in yourself‖
Tutor Identity in Minnetonka
• ―Knowing at the end of the conference, that the
  student walks away confident and feeling better with
  what they were struggling with[…]Knowing that
  there’s a degree of progress‖-- how the tutors
  measure their success
• ―Figuring out how to explain something that I do
  naturally‖– Tutoring others forces one to reevaluate
  their own writing process
• ―Once you become a writing coach, there is a new
  self-identification with writing‖
  ▫ ―Writing is now a part of what you do‖
What motivates you to get through a
difficult tutorial?




                   (Actually our cat but it is still relevant to
                    the quirky nature of writing centers)
Edison High School
          Their Blog
General Information on the School
•   A Public High school for grades 9-12
•   In Alexandria, Virginia
•   Founded in 1962
•   Approximately 1,767 students
Writing Center Identity (From their Blog)
  Did you know that the Edison Writing Center...
  • is staffed by PEER TUTORS who have taken an elective course in
    tutoring writing, including a major research paper in writing in a
    subject area?
  • tutors writing from ALL SUBJECTS, not JUST English?
  • is a great place to go for PREWRITING or BRAINSTORMING?
  • is a STUDENT RUN organization, designed with YOU in mind?
  • has SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAYS you can look at to get an idea
    of what your teacher wants?
  • hosts a RESOURCE LIBRARY full of books on MLA format,
    researching, etc?
  • has LAPTOPS and a PRINTER you can use?
  • gives out FREE CANDY for each visit?
  • sponsors WORKSHOPS on college essays and more?
  • allows you to EAT your lunch while conferencing?
  • sponsors a monthly RAFFLE where you can win a GIFT CARD for
    yourself and donuts/pizza for your WHOLE CLASS?
  • is in its THIRD location in THREE years?
  • tutored 248 PAPERS in first quarter alone?
  • is a fun place to play BANANAGRAMS? (don't know what that is?
    come see us to find out!)
Questions and Answers from Skype Session
• How do you get people in?
• Are you leaders in your community?
• What else do you do besides tutor papers?
Main Themes of the Conversation
• Helping Others
 ▫   ―To share my power and knowledge. That’s why I
     became a tutor.‖
• Best Ways to Get Practice
 ▫   ―But really, here’s the pool, jump in, and let’s get
     started.‖
• Taking Time
 ▫   ―My biggest challenge as a director is to slow things
     down so people can actually have a 30 minute
     conversation.‖
• Creating a Presence and Getting People to Come
 ▫   ―I like to think of the writing center as a virus. We like
     to take over in little insidious ways.‖
Does Tutoring Make You a Better Writer?
• Yes!
  ▫ Planning
  ▫ Brainstorm
  ▫ Grammar
  ▫ Confidence
  ▫ Practice what
    you preach
What We Learned About Tutor Identity
• Assertiveness:
 ▫     Tutoring has changed me as a person in that it has
       made me more assertive about the way that I present
       certain things so when I’m tutoring you have to know
       or at least pretend to know what you’re talking about
       sometimes if you aren’t completely sure but you can’t
       just tell the tutee, ―Oh my god, I have no idea,‖
       because that’s just not helpful to them if you’re not
       sure we go to get a resource from the writing center so
       being a tutor has definitely made me more assertive in
       the way I present things.
• Embracers of Awkwardness
     ▫ ―You’ve gotta own it.‖
Windward Academy
      Their Blog
General Information
•   Independent Day school located in Los Angeles,
    California
•   College preparatory school
•   Writing Center established in 2010
    •   Student tutors
    •   A place to go for writing help as well as help with
        oral presentations
    •   Tutors have worked with Stanford University in
        efforts to improve the Windward center
•   Grades 7-12
    •   540 total students; 172 in middle school and 368 in
        upper school
Personal Identity
The Studio for Writing and Rhetoric is a peer-to-peer learning
environment where students can consult with each other to improve as
writers and work on digital media projects and oral
presentations. Students are encouraged to come for helping overcome
writer's block, thinking about how to revise and improve a piece of
written work, or getting help with rethinking how they approach the
writing process.

The Studio was the outgrowth of the efforts of the Writing and
Rhetoric Across the Curriculum initiative (WRAC). Since 2010,
Windward has explored best practices in the teaching of writing and
oral rhetoric. The work of the WRAC
initiative has benefitted from the
formation of university collaborations
to learn innovative research on
communication, including visits
and discussions with
Stanford University’s Hume Writing Center.
Quotes

• ―Thai food with Dr. Stillman, [the head of the
  English Department]; who will be speaking
  about thesis statements. Initiating a speaker
  series theming a food and a mystery guest.‖

• ―Younger students look up to me when I tutor.
  Being a tutor has empowered me to give good,
  personal, advice in regards to study habits and
  getting help from teachers.‖
Quotes Extended
• One student said that in the tutorial he tried to
  ―find the process that has worked in the past for
  the tutee‖

• ―I notice mistakes I make easier now‖
What We Got Out Of Our
Skype Sessions/Tutorials
• We saw ourselves in a mirror (literally and
  figuratively)
• It was fun to show off our center, our tutors, and
  share our experiences
• Got our tutors thinking more about tutor
  identity and their roles as academic leaders
• Beneficial in that it showed our tutors that not
  every school has a writing center and the schools
  that do, do not necessarily operate in the same
  ways as us
Continued..

• Made us consider revising our blog
• Presented us with new ideas
  ▫ Writing parties (from Minnetonka)
  ▫ keeping a statistical analysis of traffic
  ▫ ways to better attract people to the writing center
• Redecorating ideas- tutorial with Glenbrook
  North made us consider revisiting the idea of
  having a tea stand in the writing center or a fish
How to create you own Skype Series
• Break Out Session Steps
1. Create an account
2. Figure out your ideal set up based on number of
   students, technology available, etc.
3. Skype with us to practice!
4. Get in touch with other schools
5. Do your research on them so you are prepared to
   jump right in with the hard hitting questions
6. Skype with them!
7. Reap the rewards of the sharing of new ideas and
   cuddly warm fuzzy feelings
Thank You!
Self- Study Director                Mr. Brandt

Self-Study Group                    Karaghen Hudson
                                    Emily Harwell
                                    Hannah Jaggers
                                    Maddie Haist

Grand Wizard of Technology          Sarah Cohen

Special Thanks to the Schools Who   Glenbrook North HS, Chicago, IL
Took the Time to Help Us            Minnetonka HS, Minnetonk, MN
                                    Edison HS, Alexandria, VA
                                    Windward Acad., Los Angeles, CA

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Brandt chicago presentation

  • 2. Who We Are • Fifty year old independent school • Nineteen year old writing center • Eighty tutors from grades 10 to 12 • Thirty interns/directors • Rotating Eight Period Schedule • Tutors and director staff nearly every block • Over seven hundred tutorials last year • Tutor students from grades 7 through 12 • Multiple outreach programs
  • 3. Outreach Programs and Advertising • Academy Prep • OWL • Eat n’ speak • Publicity • Self Study –Us! • Our Blog • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nnYo4L3X Go
  • 5. Benefits of our Skype Sessions • We saw ourselves in a mirror • We saw possibilities for our center that we hadn’t thought of • Invited to visit Glenbrook North • Learned to ways of getting people to come to the center • Invited to publish
  • 7. • Obstacles to Skype meetings ▫ Finding schools that are willing to meet ▫ Finding schools that have writing centers ▫ IWCA resource ▫ Finding a common time to Skype ▫ Time Zones (Mr. Brandt’s flawed understanding of them) ▫ Special schedules at school proposed difficulty in availability ▫ Having to get out of class early
  • 8. • Platform ▫ Skype is free, common, and crappy ▫ The recordings of the interviews play back the best when taken with a mac ▫ Face time ▫ Google plus Hangout ▫ Oovoo
  • 10. Room Set Up • Figuring out how each school would set up their interview ▫ How many students ▫ Conference table setting or one on one ▫ Whether to use a projector screen or computer monitor ▫ Setting up speakers and microphones depending on connection and amount of people involved in the interview
  • 11. Glenbrook North Their Blog
  • 12. Center • Large room with computers and work tables • Have a center pet- large fish • Provide tea and hot chocolate • Center also serves as a quiet study hall area
  • 13. Tutoring Help • tutors available for multiple different types of assignments: Science labs, History research papers, English papers • Online sign-up for appointments with a drop down menu from which students choose what subject they need help in and have the ability to choose tutor • Also tutor the Middle and Elementary school
  • 14. Tutor Identity • Makes the tutor realize that they have to be more friendly and outgoing • Makes them feel empowered as leaders within the tutorial • Better communication skills—being able to talk to strangers and offer them advice is a challenge that makes you a better speaker • Tutors now feel like tutoring is a privilege • Strong sense of community among their tutors • All their tutors seem to be very involved in other school clubs, etc. • Really good at winning someone over in a short time • When tutoring a senior and you are a junior it reverses the power structure • Important to provide a sense of security to tutee in order to gain trust • It is hard for a student to go in and be told they are not as smart as the tutor—again. Not their perception of the center, but they do realize that to accept being tutored is an act of humility
  • 16. How tutors are chosen • Nominated by a teacher during their freshman or sophomore year, must maintain a B average • Able to apply for a tutor position as juniors or seniors
  • 17. Paraphrase from the Skype Session (we lost the audio) • One of the tutors had heard from the seniors that the arc was a creepy place and not to go in there, however, when she went in she found that it was actually a cool hangout place
  • 19. General Information • Located in Minnetonka, Minnesota • Approximately 2,800 students • Public High School • Located in the Minnetonka School District ▫ Recognized as a school district of excellence by the United States Department of Education
  • 20. Minnetonka Writing Center - Video • Highlights: ▫ ―Students don’t know us as a volunteer group, we’re considered a secondary resource instead of an elite group of students‖ ▫ Their center continues to grow ▫ Birth of Center: November of 2007 ▫ Off the Page Events ▫ Tutors offer help to students in all subjects  ―It’s not just a writing center‖ ▫ Writing Center Parties  ―When you know someone just gets it, it makes you feel really confident in yourself‖
  • 21. Tutor Identity in Minnetonka • ―Knowing at the end of the conference, that the student walks away confident and feeling better with what they were struggling with[…]Knowing that there’s a degree of progress‖-- how the tutors measure their success • ―Figuring out how to explain something that I do naturally‖– Tutoring others forces one to reevaluate their own writing process • ―Once you become a writing coach, there is a new self-identification with writing‖ ▫ ―Writing is now a part of what you do‖
  • 22. What motivates you to get through a difficult tutorial? (Actually our cat but it is still relevant to the quirky nature of writing centers)
  • 23. Edison High School Their Blog
  • 24. General Information on the School • A Public High school for grades 9-12 • In Alexandria, Virginia • Founded in 1962 • Approximately 1,767 students
  • 25. Writing Center Identity (From their Blog) Did you know that the Edison Writing Center... • is staffed by PEER TUTORS who have taken an elective course in tutoring writing, including a major research paper in writing in a subject area? • tutors writing from ALL SUBJECTS, not JUST English? • is a great place to go for PREWRITING or BRAINSTORMING? • is a STUDENT RUN organization, designed with YOU in mind? • has SAMPLE STUDENT ESSAYS you can look at to get an idea of what your teacher wants? • hosts a RESOURCE LIBRARY full of books on MLA format, researching, etc? • has LAPTOPS and a PRINTER you can use? • gives out FREE CANDY for each visit? • sponsors WORKSHOPS on college essays and more? • allows you to EAT your lunch while conferencing? • sponsors a monthly RAFFLE where you can win a GIFT CARD for yourself and donuts/pizza for your WHOLE CLASS? • is in its THIRD location in THREE years? • tutored 248 PAPERS in first quarter alone? • is a fun place to play BANANAGRAMS? (don't know what that is? come see us to find out!)
  • 26. Questions and Answers from Skype Session • How do you get people in? • Are you leaders in your community? • What else do you do besides tutor papers?
  • 27. Main Themes of the Conversation • Helping Others ▫ ―To share my power and knowledge. That’s why I became a tutor.‖ • Best Ways to Get Practice ▫ ―But really, here’s the pool, jump in, and let’s get started.‖ • Taking Time ▫ ―My biggest challenge as a director is to slow things down so people can actually have a 30 minute conversation.‖ • Creating a Presence and Getting People to Come ▫ ―I like to think of the writing center as a virus. We like to take over in little insidious ways.‖
  • 28. Does Tutoring Make You a Better Writer? • Yes! ▫ Planning ▫ Brainstorm ▫ Grammar ▫ Confidence ▫ Practice what you preach
  • 29. What We Learned About Tutor Identity • Assertiveness: ▫ Tutoring has changed me as a person in that it has made me more assertive about the way that I present certain things so when I’m tutoring you have to know or at least pretend to know what you’re talking about sometimes if you aren’t completely sure but you can’t just tell the tutee, ―Oh my god, I have no idea,‖ because that’s just not helpful to them if you’re not sure we go to get a resource from the writing center so being a tutor has definitely made me more assertive in the way I present things. • Embracers of Awkwardness ▫ ―You’ve gotta own it.‖
  • 30. Windward Academy Their Blog
  • 31. General Information • Independent Day school located in Los Angeles, California • College preparatory school • Writing Center established in 2010 • Student tutors • A place to go for writing help as well as help with oral presentations • Tutors have worked with Stanford University in efforts to improve the Windward center • Grades 7-12 • 540 total students; 172 in middle school and 368 in upper school
  • 32. Personal Identity The Studio for Writing and Rhetoric is a peer-to-peer learning environment where students can consult with each other to improve as writers and work on digital media projects and oral presentations. Students are encouraged to come for helping overcome writer's block, thinking about how to revise and improve a piece of written work, or getting help with rethinking how they approach the writing process. The Studio was the outgrowth of the efforts of the Writing and Rhetoric Across the Curriculum initiative (WRAC). Since 2010, Windward has explored best practices in the teaching of writing and oral rhetoric. The work of the WRAC initiative has benefitted from the formation of university collaborations to learn innovative research on communication, including visits and discussions with Stanford University’s Hume Writing Center.
  • 33. Quotes • ―Thai food with Dr. Stillman, [the head of the English Department]; who will be speaking about thesis statements. Initiating a speaker series theming a food and a mystery guest.‖ • ―Younger students look up to me when I tutor. Being a tutor has empowered me to give good, personal, advice in regards to study habits and getting help from teachers.‖
  • 34. Quotes Extended • One student said that in the tutorial he tried to ―find the process that has worked in the past for the tutee‖ • ―I notice mistakes I make easier now‖
  • 35. What We Got Out Of Our Skype Sessions/Tutorials
  • 36. • We saw ourselves in a mirror (literally and figuratively) • It was fun to show off our center, our tutors, and share our experiences • Got our tutors thinking more about tutor identity and their roles as academic leaders • Beneficial in that it showed our tutors that not every school has a writing center and the schools that do, do not necessarily operate in the same ways as us
  • 37. Continued.. • Made us consider revising our blog • Presented us with new ideas ▫ Writing parties (from Minnetonka) ▫ keeping a statistical analysis of traffic ▫ ways to better attract people to the writing center • Redecorating ideas- tutorial with Glenbrook North made us consider revisiting the idea of having a tea stand in the writing center or a fish
  • 38. How to create you own Skype Series • Break Out Session Steps 1. Create an account 2. Figure out your ideal set up based on number of students, technology available, etc. 3. Skype with us to practice! 4. Get in touch with other schools 5. Do your research on them so you are prepared to jump right in with the hard hitting questions 6. Skype with them! 7. Reap the rewards of the sharing of new ideas and cuddly warm fuzzy feelings
  • 39. Thank You! Self- Study Director Mr. Brandt Self-Study Group Karaghen Hudson Emily Harwell Hannah Jaggers Maddie Haist Grand Wizard of Technology Sarah Cohen Special Thanks to the Schools Who Glenbrook North HS, Chicago, IL Took the Time to Help Us Minnetonka HS, Minnetonk, MN Edison HS, Alexandria, VA Windward Acad., Los Angeles, CA

Editor's Notes

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