Maine High School

Writing Center Day 2008

University of Maine

College of Education and Human Development 

sponsored by 

Maine Writing Project

UMaine Writing Center 

[click on some photos to enlarge]

High School writing center staffs from across Maine gathered on the University of Maine campus on Wednesday, October 22nd, to share ideas and discuss common issues. Sponsored by the Maine Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project, and the University of Maine Writing Center, and supported by a service-learning grant from the University's Faculty Senate, the 2nd annual conference began with Table Talk focused on issues facing their student-staffed writing centers.

Table Talk...

High School writing center staffers from Penquis Valley HS, Nokomis Regional HS, Brewer HS, and Erskine Academy join UMaine Interns to discuss common issues facing high school WCenters. 

Harvey Kail of UMaine's Writing Center addresses a question from a high schooler. Harvey was joined by four UM tutors. 

Brewer High School writing center staffers discuss their poster with UMaine Instructor Maureen Montgomery and others. 

Nokomis Regional High School students present on marketing your writing center the productive way and –well–the less than productive way! Hilarious. 

Above: Professor Harvey Kail of the University of Maine Writing Center and Paul  Tritter of the Snowden
International School in Boston. Paul's writing center is one of three funded by the Calderwood Writing Initiative of Boston Athenaeum.

Below: Kaili Jordan (l), a Graduate Assistant and UMaine instructor, and Michelle Leavitt (R), an English teacher and writing center director from Penquis Valley High School, listen to English teacher and WCenter director Ryan Middleswart of Nokomis Regional HS. 

One of Brewer High's posters 

[click on photos to enlarge]

writing = revision to the nth power...

For those few of us in the writing world who actually do math, we know that the exponent "n" is a variable that may relate to an unspecified ordinal number or may also represent, in literary terms, the "highest" or "utmost" (e.g., "delighted to the nth degree"). 

For our purposes here in Maine, revision to the nth power suggests 1.) the revising process lasts as long as it lasts and 2.) that one of the x-factors or variables of the revision process in middle schools and high schools is the writing center. 

(Yes, t-shirt designer Professor Rich Kent either stayed at a Holiday Inn recently or–and the truth of it is–he sat next to Dr. Eric Pandiscio, a UMaine math education professor at the last Faculty Meeting. Luckily, he didn't sit next to an astrophysicist! Imagine the t-shirt design then...)  

Uh? 

Future English teachers and writing center directors of America! 

University of Maine English Education Interns add to the day's conversations in brilliant ways. Hire these people! 

Available for Interviews Spring 2009!

The poster session... students teaching students in the National Writing Project tradition.  

Two Erskine Academy students (top) portray a reluctant client and a skillful student coach. 

Cindy Dean, advisor to Erskine Academy's writing center, chats about the center's history. 

A student staffer from Absolutely Write! of Erskine Academy introduces another skit. 

Writing Center directors and friends Ryan Middleswart of Nokomis Regional High School and Ian Carlson of Brewer High School. 

October 22nd: UMaine High School Writing Center Day

UMaine High School
Writing Center Day 2008

Wednesday, October 22nd, 8:30-noon
Buchanan Alumni House
University of Maine


8:00-8:30am… Registration
Pick up packets and purchase t-shirts ($5.00)

8:30-9:45am… Poster Session
(Group A 8:30-9:05; Group B 9:10-9:45)
–Each visiting school or writing center staff will sponsor three to five posters with two facilitators at each poster. The “posters” (e.g., traditional 20x30” poster boards, laptop presentation, puppet show, tableaux) will focus on a single issue relating to secondary school writing centers. Someone who comes up to the poster should be able to capture the essence of the idea in one-to-two minutes, ask questions, and then move on. Let’s say 4-5 minutes at a poster. The following are a few examples of “poster” ideas:

o Strategies for working with an unhappy writer (perhaps a writer who was forced to come to the writing center)
o Advertising the writing center’s services in your school
o Revision: tips on sentence combining, language for talking with clients

9:45-9:55… Snack Break

10:00-11:15am… Workshops
–Three, 20-minute concurrent workshops (five minute passing time) featuring:

Absolutely Write! The Erskine Academy Writing Center
Brewer High School Writing Center
The Nokomis Writing Center

Conference participants will be divided into three groups and rotate through the workshops.

11:20-11:45am… Writing Center Panel with UMaine Writing Center Tutors

11:45-12noon… Final Q&A, conference feedback forms

12noon – 1:30pm… Lunch
Lunch on your own at the UMaine Union and optional tours of the UMaine Writing Center and campus

For more information contact Professor Rich Kent (rich.kent@maine.edu)
To register contact Heather Pullen (heather.pullen@umit.maine.edu)