Show Us Your Best

For this month's essay contest we are looking for the best examples of academic writing at Snowden. It's easy! You don't even have to write anything new. Take a look at all the great writing you've done so far. Pick your best piece. Edit and revise as necessary, and submit it.

College Student Returns for Writing Help

On a recent Thursday afternoon, Snowden graduate and Northeastern University freshman Victoria Bautista stopped by the Writing Center for some help on a paper for her freshman writing seminar about perspective. Tutor Kelly Caiazzo was happy to help, and the two spent over an hour together reworking Victoria's draft.

Victoria and Kelly: Making College Writing Happen

This was an important moment for the Writing Center. It showed that we have had an impact, and that Snowden students, no matter where they end up, always know that they are welcome back at school, and especially in the Writing Center. We look forward to seeing more returning students and hearing about the writing they are doing in college.

Peer Tutors Make a Smashing Debut!!!

After intense training and much preparation, the Snowden peer tutors made their debut on Friday, January 30th in Mr. Peterson's 9th grade ELA classes.


In what has to be some sort of record, a total of nine tutors (5 peers, 4 college students) worked in one classroom together at the same time helping students write in-class essays exploring the structure and meaning of poems. More pictures of the festivities are posted below.

The inaugural Snowden-Claderwood Peer Tutoring Class was selected in October from a competitive group of applicants. The six seniors met weekly from October through December learning and practicing the techniques that make great tutoring in writing. Each tutor who completes the training and works through the year as a tutor will receive a college scholarship. This year's peer tutors are:

Caroline Casey
Nhu Dao
Dana Mendes
Clarimar Nivar
Elizabeth Nwaoshai
Chelsey Roberson

(Left to Right) Clarimar, Nhu, Dana, Chelsey and Caroline

The peer tutors' first assignment was unlike anything they had been prepared for. After months of practice in traditional one-to-one "sit down at the table" sessions, they were asked to take on a unique assignment.

Mr. Peterson's classes were preparing to write an in-class essay analyzing a poem of their choice. The mission of the peer tutors was to take their newly acquired tutoring expertise and have a series of short writing conferences with a number of students as they wrote. At the end of each conference, the students were to make notes at the top of their paper reflecting what they had discussed with the peer tutors. Usually, the notes were a rough outline or list of major ideas that would be covered in the essay.

After a special training session on Thursday, the peer tutors showed up ready to work on Friday afternoon. They were, understandably, nervous, but they were a smash hit. Students were eager to work with them. The conversations going on around the room were deep, meaningful and writing-focused. It wasn't all perfect of course. The peer-tutors encountered all of the problems that tutors always face: students who don't want help, won't talk, haven't read or are reluctant writers, but they were able to break through some of those walls and make good decisons of when to move to another student.

The peer tutors listen to Mr. Peterson as he prepares his
students to get started.

Initial reports from that first session were generally positive. Despite the frustrations, tutors were gratified to finally get their hands dirty, and they felt good about the work they had done. "It felt good to help," one of them reported. In fact, the sessions went so well that Mr. Peterson invited the peer tutors back the next week to hold more traditional writing conferences with the students as they evaluated and prepared to revise their drafts. We'll have pictures of that soon.

Thanks to Mr. Peterson and Ms. del Solar for inviting us into their classroom, and congratulations to the peer tutors for an exciting, historic, record-breaking, successful debut!!!!!!

Raphael Casimir wins "Heroes and Villains" Essay Contest

After being delayed by an extended winter break, the winner of our second essay contest has finally been announced.

Congratulations to Senior Raphael Casimir for his essay that looks critically at the whole idea of villainy, and asks if villains really exist outside of literature. Raphael happened to be in the Writing Center as his victory was announced, and we have his reaction in the picture below. The text of his essay follows.

Villains

by Raphael Casimir

The word villain is derived from the French word vilein, which meant someone who performed unchivalrous acts. Nowadays, villains are the antagonists of stories. If the hero strives to accomplish his own goals, then there must be something that stands in his way. A villain is often portrayed as a person whose values counterpoint the protagonist’s, a force that is able to break through their abilities, or someone who tries to best them using their own ideals or challenges. I believe the best villain, in fiction, is one who has the power to shatter a protagonist’s ideals. However, in the real world, things are never so clear cut.

Usually the villains are considered to be the more popular characters in stories even though the hero usually strives against his/her obstacles until the end. Heroes aren’t as popular because of the repeated, cliché gimmick of being an archetype of greatness. The villains are cruel, greedy, powerful, or are evil in some sort of way. Villains like the Gremlins, from the movie “Gremlins”, are not necessarily evil. The Gremlins are just creatures who just want to have fun using any means possible while threatening humanity. They depict the urges of human beings, the natural free desires that we aren’t allowed to show.

My favorite villain is Major Montana Max from the graphic novel, Hellsing. He is every man’s worst enemy, since he doesn’t care who he destroys or how many people are sacrificed, as long as he reaches his goal of conducting the war that will overshadow all other wars. The Major commands the remaining forces of the Nazi regime. He took control over people who desired power for all their selfish needs and made them into artificial vampires. Though the Major may seem to be a man beyond the acts of evil most people comprehend, his goal is, ironically, to destroy the infamous Dracula. Even in the end, he dies with a smile, on his face as many enemies would not.

Sometimes a story is more interesting without villains to show true human nature. Humans have diverse natures in which they fight a battle against themselves just as a villain would do with a protagonist. People are never usually as evil as a fictional villain would portray. People are driven by their desire, greed, or temptation of reaching a certain goal. Even heroes are sometimes their own worst enemies; for example, in the Japanese novel Trinity Blood, the main protagonist, Abel, is constantly threatened with the choice of saving his allies or killing his enemy. (Note that his enemy is a human and Abel took a vow to never kill humans.) He asks a question in his mind; either finish his enemy, or let everyone else die because he followed his vow. The only thing that would be able to solve this is unbiased chance.

In the end, there are no such things as villains in our world. They are all human beings, or at least living things driven by desire. Pure evil doesn’t exist in the realm of reality; only in fiction, because of beliefs society has claimed. It makes things simple when you know who the villain is. They have the same motives as heroes but have interesting counterpoint arguments and knowledge of their goals that may question our ability to tell a hero from a villain.

What Makes a "Good" Tutoring Session?

Often, I walk away from a tutoring session (when I am the tutor and in sessions when I am the student), and feel a sense of accomplishment. I think, "That was great!" Other times, the session feels less fruitful. My question is, why? What makes us think a session is "good" or "bad"? In short, what makes a tutoring session work? I'm interested in hearing back from tutors, teachers, and, particularly, students!

News Flash!!!

Jennifer would like everyone to know that she is actually doing work today. This is a positive development, as followers of the blog will remember. In our last post she was identified as one who only shows up to provide moral support, but today she's here, she's reading and she wants you all to know it.

Just an Average Day

So far, all of the posts on the blog have been about special occasions, but what really makes the writing center special is the work that goes on each day. Today we'll spotlight the after school crowd.

As I write, there are six students and three tutors in the WC.



(Foregound Left)
Ali works with Julian on finalizing his paper on federalism for Mr. Ruzzo. This is the culmination of two weeks of work and four visits to the writing center. Julian had worked with tutors earlier in the year in Ms. Terry's class, but was reintroduced to the WC last week when Mr. Ruzzo invited us into his classroom.

(Foreground Right)
Rossana doesn't need a tutor, she just needs to type and print her paper, and she's got moral support. Jennifer and Anthonie anxiously await her finishing so they can go home for the day. This is Rosanna's writing center m.o. She's here a lot, and she almost never asks for help. Just typing and printing. Fine with us; she knows we're here if she needs us.

(Background Left)
Shaq is back. For the second straight day, Shiquile is in the writing center after school working on his ghost story for Ms. Bylaska. This time Kelly is helping him finish what Ben helped him start. She provides a sounding board for his thoughts as he progresses through the plot.

(Background Right)
After some technical difficulties, Devon and Luis get underway. The first draft of the ghost story was trapped on a computer at home, so a phone call, an e-mail and some finaigling gets them ready to work.

That's it. . .just a regular day. We'll be here a while, just like every other day.