The Writing Center offers individual tutoring sessions for help in all types of writing and reading situations. We are a friendly and supportive place where students can receive feedback and encouragement. We can help students gain confidence in their ability to develop important writing skills. We also have computers available for word processing, research, and printing. Students are welcome to drop in for a tutoring session or to schedule an appointment in person or over the phone (747-2294). We are located inside the Student Success Center. During the Spring 2010 semester, the Writing Center will be open from January 19 to May 13. NEW LOCATION GE 207
Summer 2010 Hours:
Mondays 1-8
Tuesdays 11-6
Wednesdays 1-8
Thursdays 11-3
Summer 2010 Tutors:
Lori Franklin Mondays 3-5
Wednesdays 1-5
Thalia Gibbs-Jackson Mondays 5-8
Wednesdays 5-8
Pamela Lapcevic Mondays 1-3
J.B. Moore Tuesdays 11-3
Thursdays 11-3
Jeanny Urquhart Tuesdays 3-6
Students are encouraged to visit the Writing Center at any stage of the writing process, from the day they receive assignments to first drafts to revised drafts. Tutors can assist students in developing the following skills:
Understanding an assignment
Analyzing a reading
Conducting research
Selecting and focusing a topic
Generating ideas for a topic
Organizing ideas and outlining
Formulating thesis statements
Creating transitions
Developing paragraphs
Structuring an essay or paragraphs
Proofreading
Editing
Sentence structure
Sentence variety
Word choice
MLA in-text citations and Works Cited lists
APA in-text citations and Reference lists
Business letters/resumes
We do not proofread or guarantee a grade!
We have computers available for word processing and printing!
Students:
Please bring assignment sheets and any other handouts or textbooks that will help the tutor assist you.
Please bring any feedback from your instructor.
Remember to ask for a stamp. Then your instructor will know that you visited the Writing Center.
Please don’t wait until the last minute! We can help you more if you have a little time!
Instructors:
Please contact the Writing Center at 747-2294 or Lori Franklin at 747-2215 if you would like to schedule an orientation with your students. You can bring your class to the Writing Center or a tutor can come to your class.
We encourage you to send us copies of your writing assignments and exemplar essays that we can use to help your students.
If you would like to require your students to attend a tutoring session of offer extra credit, we can verify with a stamp your student’s visit to the Writing Center.
We have referral sheets available for your use. You may use the referral sheet to provide the Writing Center and your student with some guidance on the student’s needs and your expectations. The tutor will also use the referral sheet to summarize the tutoring session and provide you with some feedback on your student's progress.
Let us know how we can best support your students and your goals as an instructor.
Meet the Tutors!
Lori Franklin
I have had the pleasure of teaching English composition, public speaking, reading, and literature courses here at Northern for the last five years. For the last three years, I have enjoyed tutoring in the Writing Center and during the last year, I have assumed responsibility for directing the Writing Center. With the expertise, support, and leadership of my fellow tutors, this has been a very worthwhile experience. The Writing Center Staff consistently works together to make the Writing Center the best it can be. Tutoring is such an enriching experience because it provides the opportunity to work individually with students. I love the challenge of helping students discover what they really want to say in their essays and the most effective methods to say it. Also, it is so rewarding to be in a supportive and encouraging role for our very deserving students and to watch them gain confidence in their writing. The Writing Center is a wonderful place to be and a very important part of our campus environment.
Pamela Lapcevic
Tutoring at the Writing Center has made me realize how vital this program is to the nurturing and development of not only our students, but our community. As a developmental English instructor, I am keenly aware of the fact that in order for my students to succeed in acquiring good writing skills, it is critical to engage them in weekly critiques of their most current work. In order for them to proceed to the next piece of writing and improve without repetitive mistakes, immediate instruction, encouragement, and feedback are essential. Due to time constraints, however, it is impossible to work one-on-one with every student during class. As a tutor, I am not only able to help my own students succeed, but also others from various departments throughout the college. I have helped students write pieces concerning nursing, history, philosophy, literature, essay composition, psychology, scholarship applications, resumes, and cover letters.
The Writing Center satisfies a deep community need. And it produces results: students improve their grades, are encouraged to continue to accept and meet both academic and personal challenges, build self-confidence and self-esteem, develop critical thinking, and improve writing skills--all in a relaxed and informal environment. I have come to believe that the Writing Center is the inner heart of NNMC--it's cool.
J. B. Moore
The best poetry reading I’ve ever attended was given by Espanola teenagers at a teen center in La Puebla. I came away energized and inspired by writers much younger than myself, writers from the heart of Valley culture. At the reading I met a former director of Northern’s Writing Center, who later recruited me, an out-of-work poet, to come and tutor essay-writing at the college. My three years at the Writing Center have given me one of the most satisfying job experiences of my now middle-aging life. Assisting students of different ages and backgrounds’, students at various skill levels, in finding their unique voices and in discovering and extending the capacities of their own intellects --- their analytic, imaginative, and perceptual abilities – is always potentially an exercise in empowerment. My aspiration for each meeting is that we, the student and I, identify the catalyst ingredient which will enable that individual to make the next quantum leap (to mix chemical and physical metaphors) in awareness and realization of her or his own expressive power.
Sue Pitt
Working in the Writing Center and reading English assignments, I discovered the heart and soul of Northern New Mexico College. My clients were critiquing literature, expanding on philosophies, researching news events, or writing reflective essays, but they were really telling me their losses and success, clarifying their goals, or maybe healing an emotional wound. This is all accomplished under the guise of defining that thesis and supporting it. After that major accomplishment, writing pieces can be refined by eliminating the run ons and sentence fragments, punctuating and checking the grammar and spelling. In the Writing Center, I am always the one to gain for I meet many individuals from a wide spectrum of walks of life in Espanola, and this makes me a better instructor and a better person.