Our Writing Center Director, Associate Directors, doctoral
fellows, faculty, and consultants are actively engaged in a variety
of service activities.
St. John’s Bread and Life Soup Kitchen
and Community Center in Brooklyn
The English Department of St. John's College sponsors visits
twice-a-month where Writing Consultants lead writing/literacy
workshops for Bread and Life guests. In most cases, these workshops
center on fostering an outlet for the guests’ voices, which can
often go unnoticed. We hope this type of writing—along with our
other practical employment-related writing exercises—will empower
the guests to move forward in their lives and deal with their
hardships and hurdles. Among many other projects, we plan to upload
guests’ writing and art projects online and hope to sponsor
readings on campus and at Bread and Life.
Click here for more info.
Nazareth High School in
Brooklyn
Writing Center staff, led by doctoral candidate Kerri Mulqueen and
Writing Center Associate Directors Thomas Philipose and Chris
Leary, have been working with faculty and students from Nazareth
Regional High School in Brooklyn to launch a student-staffed high
school writing center on the premises of the East Flatbush school.
Involvement has included one-on-one and group training both on the
St. John's Queens campus and at the high school facility. Our
Writing Center consultants have been working with high school
students to understand the principals of peer tutoring. Cooperation
between the two schools is ongoing with St. John's providing
mentorship and materials for the burgeoning high school writing
center.
Click here for more info.
Law Enforcement and Public Safety
(LEAPS) High School in Queens
Writing Consultants hosted students, teachers, and
administrators from LEAPS for collaborative workshops geared
towards mentoring these high school seniors in their college
application process. The workshops are also planned to expose the
seniors to writing center work and mentoring so the LEAPS students
can start their own program for AP and honors students to mentor
underclassmen and other students in their school. The program
started when a St. John’s Writing Consultant, and LEAPS alumnus,
contacted his former high school teacher to see if we could lend
our services. The teacher, also an assistant principal, jumped at
the idea since she found many of her students don’t apply to
college because they are daunted by the process.
Frank Sinatra High School for the Performing Arts in
Queens
Our Writing Center has initiated meetings with administrators
and teachers at FSHS in order to plan a ‘writing program/major’ to
mirror the school’s other arts programs. FSHS administrators
observed St. John’s writing workshops and also hope to create their
own self-sustained writing center in the future.
The Mary Louis Academy in
Queens
Writing Center directors have hosted meetings with
administrators and teachers from TMLA in order to start a dialogue
on improving writing pedagogy and programs across the curriculum.
We also plan to work with TMLA to tweak their already existing
tutoring program into a more extensive mentoring program.
St. John's Preparatory School in
Queens
Lately our Writing Center consultants have been working with
high school students at St. John's Prep about their writing
projects, particularly college application letters and essays for
literature and history courses. And since St. John’s Preparatory
School is interested in having peer mentoring and workshopping
assume a larger role throughout the different academic disciplines,
our e-tutoring relationship with St. John's Prep students is
intended not only to help them improve as writers, but to introduce
students and faculty to some of our methods of peer mentoring.
Henry Street Settlement in
Manhattan
Students from a Learning Community that involved Discover New
York and Eng1000C recently participated in a partnership with high
school seniors enrolled in the “Expanded Horizons” college
preparation program at the Henry Street Settlement, a
not-for-profit community organization located on Manhattan’s lower
east side. Together with tutors from the Staten Island Writing
Center, students from both organizations worked collaboratively on
the college application essay and personal narrative, the
transition to college, and various issues relating to technology.
We established a social networking website where students could
communicate with one another, arrange events and topics, and
collaborate on their work and progress. This partnership emerged
from the provost’s Learning Communities initiative, expanded to
include elements of Academic Service-Learning, and drew on the
resources and creative pedagogies of both Discover New York and
First Year Writing. David Farley, one of our First-Year Writing
faculty, was instrumental in developing this relationship with the
Henry St. project.