As part of Canadian Library Month, CUPE is presenting stories from members of the National Library Workers’ Committee to highlight and celebrate the different roles CUPE library workers play in promoting literacy in their communities.
Kristin Welbourn
I’m a librarian at Bay View High School in Upper Tantallon, Nova Scotia. Prior to working at Bay View, I worked at Millwood High School, home to 800 students in Middle Sackville. In 2018, a review of Millwood’s grade 10 provincial exam results showed that student writing scores had been dropping over the previous three years. Part of my job as a school librarian is to program for students to encourage all forms of literacy, so I began to think about what I could do to help.
Until that point, my work had primarily focused on building students’ reading skills, so I had to think about how I could adapt my efforts to help improve their writing. After some soul searching, my idea for the Millwood High Writing Centre was born.
I looked for examples of high school writing centres that I could emulate, but I couldn’t find one in Canada. So, I reached out to the Saint Mary’s University, SMU, writing centre for support and guidance. I then worked with the school’s guidance office and English teachers to recruit students to serve as peer tutors who would help run the program. Staff from SMU’s writing centre volunteered their time to provide three training sessions and resources for the peer tutors.
When the writing centre opened in November 2018, I was disappointed that not one student came to access the service. Undaunted, the peer tutors and I launched a campaign to integrate the writing centre into the school’s culture. We created posters, made daily announcements, and put a notice in the monthly email home to parents. We also decided that if the students wouldn’t come to the tutors, the tutors would go to the students. They began to meet students in their classrooms to work with them on their assignments, brainstorming thesis ideas, assisting with rough drafts, and helping with research, quotations, spelling, and grammar.
The peer tutors mean more students receive individual attention in the classroom and teachers are better able to target specific students for both peer and teacher assistance. After a disappointing start, the number of bookings with peer tutors by teachers and students quickly grew and the initial stigma associated with the writing centre faded.
Although we cannot yet track the writing centre’s impact on provincial examination results, the program has been a tremendous success, engaging the high school community in deeper and more sustained conversations about writing that build student confidence. The writing centre is no longer an oddity. Instead, it has become a part of the school’s academic culture. Because of the success we had at Millwood, I’ve re-created the peer writing centre at Bay View, where I currently work. I’m proud to have developed this service for students and to have a hand in promoting literacy and student success.