Kent, Richard (2006). A Guide to Creating Student-Staffed Writing Centers, Grades 6-12. New York: Peter Lang.

Pages: 172     Price: $29.95     ISBN: 0-8204-7889-X

This book explicitly promises to guide teachers in creating student staffed writing centers; however readers will find much more in it: plenty of reasons to start a writing center, savvy suggestions to overcome reluctance and inertia, plus Richard Kent's passionate and encouraging testimony of teaching High School English with a writing center.

In seven chapters, intertwined with proven strategies to start and run a writing center, Richard Kent presents a body of pedagogical principles in action. You can look at actual classes with vivid exemplars of NCTE Beliefs about the Teaching of Writing: "Everyone has the capacity to write, writing can be taught, and teachers can help students become better writers." These classes embody also the following principles of the author: editing is crucial to good writing, everyone can become a good editor; "editors are guides, confidants, and caretakers;" editors "understand the subtlety and mystery of the craft," therefore, by becoming editors, students improve their own writing; and writing is a powerful "way to learn and to serve others."

The guide begins with an Introduction, devoted to general aspects of writing centers, their theoretical foundations, and different manners of staffing and running them. In particular, it describes the effects of the Mountain Valley Writing Center on the student staffers, on the school, and on Richard Kent, whose "teaching life changed forever as a result of the writing center."

A chapter on Planning and Organizing explains the strategy for getting started. It includes how to introduce the center to colleagues, principal, entire school staff, parents/caregivers, and superintendent. Kent advises waiting to "get the OK from your superintendent and principal" well before introducing the writing center to the school board and the media, since "[a]s you know, the hierarchy in schools is alive and well" (p. 28).

Staffing and Training reveals how Kent recruited and trained student editors, and student directors of his writing center. The author emphasizes that, "Our handpicked group of writing center staffers represented a cross-section of the student body. However, these young people had one common trait: Other kids liked them" (p. 4). Recruitment started by sending personal letters to potential staff members, requesting them to perform several writing and reading activities over the summer. Training was an on-going process. After the summer introductory plan, students editors got involved in a demanding program aimed at understanding writing as a process. Throughout the semester, students became effective editors. They learned to connect with the writer; to focus on content rather than on correcting mistakes; to tutoring students with drafts; and to prompt students who arrived at the writing center with no draft. These young editors developed skills to work with diverse population, composed of their own peers, teachers, school administrators, and nonnative speakers of English. This chapter is particularly rich on Recommended Reading for Writing Center Staff.

In Operating a Writing Center, Kent narrates his own journey to find a home for the center. He also describes the creation of an identifiable image that comprised a smart-looking logo, brochures, calendars, hallway passes, literary magazine, and bookmarks. An asset of this chapter is the Record Keeping section; it presents how the Mountain Valley Writing Center kept and analyzed records from the editor's log, and tutors' signing book.

Working Drafts: Writing Centers in Action warns readers not to feel limited by the experience, however appealing, of a unique students-staffed writing center. To prevent such limitation, the chapter introduces three different writing centers, and explains their distinctive client and coaching issues, particular strengths and opportunities.

Resources and Activities is filled with suggestions and tips to help "create a community of writers while marketing the center" (p. 123). Kent shares websites that supply sample writing assignments for teachers, and tips on writing, as well as publishing outlets for students, writing contests, and information for English-language learners. He also includes lists of resource books, of books on writing, and of books on publishing. And there is much more: tips to catch digital plagiarism; quotations for journals; and themes for school-sponsored writing contests. Furthermore, this chapter suggests and briefly describes dozens of activities to be sponsored by the writing center, including writing careers night; writing workshops; literary cafés; publishing enterprises, and fundraising for charitable causes, among others.

Kent wraps the book up with festive anecdotes that illustrate how the editor-students' enthusiasm and confidence inspired, encouraged, and helped him "dare to create a wide variety of activities and opportunities," and to redefine his role as teacher (p. 148). In a very similar way, Kent's enthusiasm and commitment could inspire all of us, novice and seasoned teachers, to create a student staffed writing center. In doing so, we might also redefine, and renew, our role as teachers.

References

Writing Study Group of the NCTE Executive Committee. (2004). NCTE beliefs about the teaching of writing. Retrieved May 10, 2007 from http://www.ncte.org/about/over/positions/category/write/118876.htm

Reviewed by Celine Armenta, Ed. D., professor of education at the Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla (Mexico). She served as middle school science teacher for 20 years. Her professional interests include inclusion and diversity, and measurement and evaluation. Email: celine.armenta@iberopuebla.edu.mx .