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[instrumental music]
Hey, my name is Brittney and I'm a student here at MCC.
We are on the Longview campus today, behind me is the Learning Center.
There are some very well kept secrets here
that we want to reveal today so come on and follow me.
One of the best well kept secrets at MCC-Longview is the Writing Center
which is located in the Learning Resources building on the second floor in room 225.
So let's go check out some of the resources they have available for us.
I sat down with the Writing Center Specialist,
Jennifer Fenton, to learn more about the Writing Center.
Jennifer, can you explain exactly what the Writing Center is?
--Sure, a Writing Center is basically a safe haven for students when they are writing,
uhm, for their various classes for writing projects.
It's a Center where basically they can tutor, uh, one-on-one with peers
and talk about brainstorming, editing, revising, drafting when they're writing papers.
Our ultimate purpose is to help students feel like they're more strong and independent writers
by talking them through the writing process.
And essentially our tutors are made up of a diverse crowd of students
who come from all kinds of academic backgrounds
and they're also trained professionally to learn more about tutoring
and to work better with writers as they're going through the process.
We use a specific training program called CRLA, College Reading Learning Association,
and so they professionalize through that program
to become a beginning tutor to an advanced tutor.
And we can also give, uhm, students all kinds of handouts
and also other resources that they can use while they're also writing
in case they need anything after they leave our-our, uh, Center as well.
Uh, essentially the whole purpose of the Writing Center
is for students to feel like they have a place to go wherever they are in the their writing
and we encourage everyone, no matter what class they're in, to come and see us.
--That's really awesome.
What times are tutors available?
--They're available actually from 8:30 to 7:00 Monday to Thursday,
and then also 9:00am to 12:00pm on Fridays.
And you don't even have to have an appointment;
you can just walk into the Center whenever you need it.
--That's awesome because I know my schedule's constantly changing
so to have that flexibility is really nice.
--Yeah, we really want to be.
In fact, we also have a online service in that sense too
because we have a email address which is LVWritingCenter@mcckc.edu
and so you can just submit your paper to that email address
and we'll respond in writing back to that paper.
Uh, we still think that it can be convenient for students to still come see us if they can.
So, sometimes people will notice that we wrote,
"Hey, if you can drop by the Writing Center too,"
just because the conversation really helps students a lot when they're writing.
Uhm, so essentially that's something we would also encourage students to do.
They also need to be aware that when they submit papers
that essentially there's a 24 hour turnaround.
So, if you turn in something Friday afternoon we probably wouldn't see it until Monday
because it would have to be during business hours.
--Cool, it's good to know that the Writing Center's online as well.
So, could you tell us a little about the tutoring sessions that happen in the Writing Center?
--Sure.
When you're in a tutoring session, uhm, you'll notice that since it's walk-in, uh,
usually there's gonna be multiple people working at a time
and that, uh, sometimes there might be a little bit of a wait too.
Yet, we try to see people as soon as we can
and we do encourage people to study while they're waiting.
When you sit down with a tutor they're gonna ask you about who you are, uh,
what your writing assignment is, what you think about writing,
they're gonna ask a lot of questions
because part of the Center ethic is we want you to learn on your own as best as possible
and sometimes you just need to think through writing process and talking about it.
Essentially we also go through something called The Hierarchy of Concerns with students
and it sounds very official but essentially you just ask or we would ask you actually about
essentially the assignment, what your focus is, how you're developing your writing, uh,
where your paragraphs are going and being structured,
then sentences, then grammar usually last.
So we really want to get through the more important things before getting to the small things
'cause you can have a perfect grammatical paper and it would still not be the assignment
if you're not writing on the right topic and whatnot.
So that's really what happens.
Afterward we write a few notes about the session for just our notes
but we only inform the teacher that you came,
we don't tell them anything about what happened in the session
in case you need that for privacy.
'Cause we really do want people to feel that this is a community
that they can trust and go to whenever they need to.
--Excellent.
So that's what's happening over here, right?
(Jennifer) Mm-hmm.
Yep, basically we have tutors who are constantly working with other students.
Or sometimes they work on their own tutor projects too.
--As you can see, this is a great tool here at MCC-Longview
so let's not keep it a secret anymore.
If you want to learn any more about this or have any questions
feel free to stop by during their business hours or give them a call at 604-2208.