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The New Bryn Mawr Writing Center
By: Brynn B.’26
After 139 years, it’s finally here: on January 14th, Bryn Mawr is officially launching its first student-run writing center. Many of you may be unsure of what a writing center is or has to offer you, or maybe you’ve visited the Gilman Writing Center while taking a class across the bridge. Whatever your familiarity may be with the concept, hopefully, this article can provide some clarity about exactly what services are, and aren’t, offered by the Bryn Mawr writing center coaches.
As a broad overview, here is a list of what the writing center will not do for you:
Writing coaches will not “fix” your paper. In fact, there’s a good chance they will not make a single change to it themselves. The purpose of a writing center is not to correct your essay. It’s to create discussion that will encourage you to deepen your thinking and understanding, and will hopefully aid you in figuring out, for yourself, what it is your writing needs.
Writing coaches will not tell you what to write. One of the writing center’s core values is that your writing is your writing. They will ask you guiding questions or prompts to help you establish your own ideas, but they will not instruct you on what words to use to express yourself.
Writing coaches are not an extension of the English department. The Writing Center is not specific to one subject, rather it is a space to work on any writing assignment from any class, or even writing you do on your own outside of school.
The writing center will not tell you how to get a good grade. It is a space completely devoid of grades so that it can be fully dedicated to improving your abilities as a writer. You will be able to develop skills like analyzing literature, building an argument, and clearly articulating your thoughts, which over time will build you into a better writer, but the main priority of each session will never be your grade.
Founded by Dr. Klevytska, a Biology teacher, and Ms. Viglietta, an English teacher, the writing center was made to be a space for discussion and collaboration. They believe that a student-run writing center will fully align with Bryn Mawr’s school mission, which is to encourage girls to learn from each other and share their ideas freely. Something important to keep in mind is that writing center coaches are not experts. The beauty of a student-run writing center is that the coaches are peers to the writers who come in, meaning that they are on equal footing in terms of experience. Writing coaches do not necessarily know any better than the people they are working with, their main role is to be a person for you to bounce ideas off of. Knowing they have nothing to do with your grade allows your discussions with them to be completely authentic, which is something that you can not always get by meeting with a teacher.
Upon entering the writing center, you will be partnered with one of the coaches on duty, who you will have up to a 30-minute session with. No matter what stage of writing you are in, whether you haven’t started an assignment, or you think you’re done, you are welcome to meet with a coach about potential steps forward or places where there is room for improvement. When you start a meeting, you need to allow yourself to think about your writing the same way you would think about the literature you read in class. You will need to be ready to take full ownership of your words, and be open to thoroughly and thoughtfully expressing your ideas.