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 Fall 2008 semester, the Writing Center will be open from September 2 to December 11.
Fall 2008 Hours:
Mondays 11-8
Tuesdays 11-6
Wednesdays 10-6
Thursdays 11-6
Fall 2008 Tutors:
Nancy Buechley Tuesdays 11-12:30; 4-6
Thursdays 11-12:30
Lori Franklin Mondays 11-12:30
Tuesdays 12:30 -2
Thursdays 12:30-2
Pamela Lapcevic Mondays 2-3:30
J.B. Moore Mondays 3:30-8
Thursdays 2-6
Sue Pitt Wednesdays 10-12:30; 3-6
Carrie Vogel Tuesdays 2-4
Annie Woods-Tornick Mondays 12:30-2
Wednesdays 12:30-3
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 @ 747-2294 or Lori Franklin @ 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!
Nancy Buechley
People are often surprised to find a math teacher in the Writing Center, but there are reasons why I like doing this. My specialty is education, and I take pleasure in helping people look beneath the surfaces of things to the richness below, in any subject. I find that if you focus on the meaning, the other parts just seem to fit into place. Writing, like math, is not just a bunch of dreary rules to learn, but an opportunity, using these crazy symbols we humans have developed (and even some rules!), to reach across space and time and communicate interesting ideas to others in clear and creative ways. I enjoy the students and their interesting ideas, their myriad ways of seeing the world, so nothing could be better than helping out in the Writing Center.
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.
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.
Annie Woods-Tornick
Working at Northern’s Writing Center provides me with a connection to what I have loved the most during my 16+ years of teaching: experiencing one-on-one interaction with students, helping them to find their “voice,” supporting them in overcoming various fears they may have about writing, and encouraging them to become more effective writers.
The Writing Center is such a great place to be because students from all disciplines come in to seek help on their papers and projects – and we have the tools and the knowledge to provide positive support and feedback in an incredible environment.
It is my sincerest wish that instructors of all disciplines that require writing will send their students to the Writing Center. We can help any student polish his or her writing and help prepare them for success in their classes, at Northern, and in their future careers.