One-on-one tutoring provides teacher and student with an opportunity to zero in on specific areas of concern. Finding the time and the staff to offer this kind of service in the context of a large community high school would seem like an impossible task, but that’s precisely what the WERCS (Writing English Resource Center Services) at Deerfield High School is doing.
Generally referred to as the Writing Center, the WERCS is available to any student interested in obtaining help on a writing assignment. Students are paired with a teacher, trained volunteer or peer tutor, who works with them on everything from topic selection to editing their final draft.
WERCS director Kay Severns, a member of Deerfield’s English department, thinks the center’s non-judgmental environment has been crucial to its success. She observed, “This is a place where there are no grades and no pressure. We’re here to respond, to take a positive attitude, to give the students permission to trust themselves as writers.”
First-year English teacher Jeff White adds, “Working on mechanics is the easy part. What’s difficult is getting the student to loosen up and actually begin writing.”
WERCS coordinator Penny Frankel, an experienced English teacher, was hired in 1981 to do remediation in preparation for the district-mandated minimum competency English test. Hearing that tutoring was available, students of all ability levels began coming in for help.
Frankel continued, “Writing centers were already common fixtures on college campuses, and the concept was beginning to catch on in high schools. We started investigating, and several of us eventually attended a summer workshop that really clarified the concept. When school opened in the fall of 1987, we were ready to go.”
Deerfield High School is a charter member of the North Shore Writing Center Consortium, an association of teachers either already involved with an existing center or interested in establishing one. Stevenson, Highland Park and Libertyville High Schools are among the area schools with operative writing centers.
