Resources
What is a Writing Center?
Writing centers “support and enrich writing instruction by drawing on trained tutors as accessible experts who engage students in academic discourse, build confidence in writers, and help them navigate expectations of audience, purpose, and clarity in writing” (IWCA Position Statement on Secondary School Writing Centers, 2015). As academic learning spaces, writing centers provide support for student writers throughout the writing process for personal and/or academic writing tasks across all subject areas. Writing centers offer one-on-one consultations for student writers, engage peers in meaningful collaborative learning and leadership opportunities, and support literacy instruction throughout the school.
By adopting writing centers, secondary schools gain peer- and teacher-led resources that enhance classroom-based writing instruction, including the following research-based outcomes:
- A focus on the writing process generated by collaborative inquiry between peers. Writing tutoring helps students transfer knowledge about writing across subject areas and writing tasks, which is particularly important in the wake of AI-generated texts and student accountability for their own learning and writing.
- Writing support across the curriculum (WAC). Writing centers facilitate content literacy experiences and engage teachers and students in considering the role of writing to learn in all disciplines and contexts.
- 21st century skills and dispositions. Peer-to-peer learning engages students in collaboration, creation, communication, and critical thinking. In addition to writing, speaking, and listening skills, writing tutors develop empathy and emotional intelligence that carry with them into future career and academic settings. Student writers develop self-efficacy, risk-taking, and confidence as writers and thinkers.
- Teacher leader development. SSWCs provide opportunities for teacher directors to professionalize their practice and become teacher leaders through local, regional, and national professional networks.
In secondary schools, writing centers sometimes run as an extra-curricular offering, where trained student tutors conference with their peers after school or during flex periods during the school day. Increasingly, secondary schools are finding ways to integrate writing centers as a co-curricular support service, offering credit-bearing tutor-training classes and integrating tutoring availability throughout the school day. In either model, secondary school writing centers (SSWCs) are typically directed by one or more teachers and are staffed by trained student tutors; they thrive when they have the support of school administrators, teachers, and students.
Why become a Peer Writing Tutor?
Recommended Reading
Below is a list of recommended resources to learn more about SSWCs. In addition to reading these online and print publications, you may consider joining the SSWC-Listserv, becoming a member of The Secondary School Writing Centers Association, or attending a writing center conference to connect with others who are invested in this work.
The Toolkit is a practitioner resource published by the Secondary School Writing Centers Association (SSWCA) and intended to support writing center implementation across all levels of development. Each of the book’s 15 chapters draws on resources contributed by SSWC directors from all over the country, showing a range of options and templates for proposing a center, recruiting and training tutors, gathering and sharing center data, and more. With its accessible structure and voice, and replicable artifacts and strategies, this book is a must-have for any SSWC, new or old. SSWCA offers a discounted rate with membership.
First published in 2006 and revised in 2017, this book has been a pillar for 21st-century SSWC professionals. Richard Kent draws on examples from his own experience as an SSWC director in the 1990s as well as the experience of other SSWC directors. The first four chapters provide an overview of founding and operating an SSWC, and the fifth chapter provides case studies of four SSWCs. The book includes an abundance of resources including proposals, memos to faculty, and mission statements to model what works in SSWCs. Readers will come away from this book with ideas for how to envision, propose, maintain, and revise their SSWC.
Written by university and secondary writing center directors and tutors, this edited collection investigates how SSWCs contribute to literacy education. Each chapter draws on the experiences of SSWC professionals and provides theory-to-practice models. Some chapters cover basics such as starting an SSWC and tutor training while other chapters discuss more nuanced issues such as the diversity of tutors in relation to the student body, or integrating reading into writing tutoring. Perhaps the greatest strength of this book is its depiction of a wide range of SSWC models. Overall, this book showcases the possibility and legitimacy of student-led SSWCs.
The research journal of SSWCA, The Journal of Peer Tutoring in Secondary Schools (JPTSS) is a useful resource for the most recent approaches and findings related to secondary school writing and peer-tutoring centers. Articles are written with practitioners (SSWC directors and tutors) in mind, so they are meant to combine both research and practice/implementation. You can find conference proceedings from recent SSWCA conferences (e.g., 2022 and 2023), profiles of SSWCs, and articles written by SSWC researchers, directors, and student tutors.
This is a very accessible handbook that many K-12 and university centers use for tutor training and professional development. Broken into small chapters that weave together writing center theory and pedagogy with practice scenarios and examples, it can be a great starting place for tutors and directors alike.
This website site combines a three-part tutor training resource with additional information on the Muncie-Area Writing Centers. Its goal is to support faculty who are starting writing centers in their school through a localized source of resources.
School-University Partnership Resources
Collaboration between secondary schools and university partners (e.g., university writing centers, teacher preparation programs, National Writing Project sites) is an effective way to support teacher leaders and student tutors in developing and sustaining SSWCs. School-university partnerships, then, can establish paths toward SSWC independence and sustainability with the support of university resources such as faculty, student tutors, preservice teachers, and their related knowledge, research, administrative experience, and professional networks.
We are still learning about the possibilities and outcomes of SSWCUP collaboration. Below are resources developed by existing SSWCUPs that you might adapt or modify as you build or grow your own partnership. To offer additional resources to add to this collection, email sswcupmail@gmail.com.
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Professional Networks
Many education- and writing-focused professional organizations have a long history of supporting writing teachers and student writers by promoting approaches to writing pedagogy that include peer-to-peer tutoring, collaborative learning, and writing support. Each of the organizations listed below welcomes researchers, teachers, and students from both secondary and postsecondary spaces who want to connect around developing and growing peer writing centers.
Whether you are already part of a school-university partnership, or if you are looking to find partners to collaborate with, participating with these organizations can help you. It’s a good idea to attend conferences, read online and print publications, and seek other opportunities for connection that these organizations offer.
The Secondary School Writing Centers Association (SSWCA) exists to build community among secondary school writing and learning center directors, tutors, and partners; promote advocacy for peer-driven programs that transform schools by empowering student leaders; and support development and sharing of resources for new and existing centers across the United States.
The National Writing Project (NWP) is the nation’s largest network of teacher-leaders, K–university and across the curriculum, working together through local Writing Project sites to improve the teaching of writing and learning in schools and communities nationwide.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education.
The International Writing Centers Association (IWCA) fosters the development of writing center directors, tutors, and staff by sponsoring meetings, publications, and other professional activities; by encouraging scholarship connected to writing center-related fields; and by providing an international forum for writing center concerns.
English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE) serves NCTE members who are engaged in the preparation, support, and continuing education of teachers of English language arts/literacy.
The National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing (NCPTW) promotes the teaching of writing through collaborative learning.