Writing is an essential skill for any high school student today, with quality writing mattering just as much in social science classes as in English courses. However, Chamblee students’ writing hasn’t lived up to the administration’s standards, so English teacher Zachary Welser was commissioned to find a way to help students improve their writing.

“[In the] fall of 2018, it was like seven or eight months after Ms. Barnes had been made principal, she came to Ms. Branca and me and she was like, ‘Hey, our kids can’t write for crap,’ and I was like, ‘Huh, why not make a writing center. Those are a commonly done thing,” said Welser. “So then the idea was born, and it’s just taken a couple years to actually get it going, and we’re still in the getting it going phase.”

The Chamblee Writing Center is intended to help students through the entire writing process.

“It’s a center for writing. Like, it’s exactly what it sounds like,” he said. “You just take whatever you work on there and tutors help you with it. They look over it, they help you come up with ideas, they tell you if it needs to be tweaked a little bit, that kind of thing.”

Although the Writing Center was supposed to launch earlier in 2020, it has been delayed as school has been relegated to a virtual experience.

“It was supposed to open in January of this year, but then I had a personal crisis, so that didn’t happen,” said Welser. “And then the school shut down in March, so that didn’t happen. And so we started it online this year.”

However, the program hasn’t been used as much as the administration hoped.

“There’s a whole page for it, all the English teachers have told their kids about it, they’ve put up the link. Kids just don’t go,” Welser said. “As of now, a handful of students have shown up, and the services are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from two to three, right after seventh period. They just don’t go.”

Welser provided some examples of writing techniques many students need to improve. 

“I would say there are probably some common threads that everyone could work on, you know, phrasing, sentence structure, that kind of thing,” he said. “It mostly depends on the group of students, like a lot of our magnet kids are already strong writers, but then they just get away with turning in nonsense that sounds pretty. […] And then a lot of our non-magnet students, they’ll actually just answer the question, they don’t try to pump it up, but that’s also part of the problem, cause theirs is just blunt and lifeless even though they’ve answered the question given to them. So it just depends on each individual, what they need to work on.”

The Writing Center can be accessed by students via their English teacher’s website.

“There is a link that every English teacher was asked to put in their Google Classroom. And I have to believe in my colleagues, I’m sure they all did it,” said Welser. “[The links] just go to the site, and then you can schedule a conference, or you can go into one of the video conferencing rooms available from two to three.”

Welser sees the value of such a writing center, citing some problems he could have worked on.

“I struggled with transitions until a professor of mine just called me out, and was like ‘Zach, what’s wrong with you?’ And so it’s mostly just, you know, it’s a nice safe place [where] someone, a friend, can call you out,” he said. “And you can then improve from there and they’re all very nice. They’re all very wonderful. Mostly young ladies. Well, we got a few gentlemen too and they’re all very nice and they just wish people would come see them.”

The tutors themselves are older Chamblee students who have experience writing.

“We have like a dozen or so [tutors]. Most of them are former students of mine. […] I was looking for, you know, I couldn’t just have ‘Oh, you’re a strong writer,’ that’s not helpful to anybody. I needed a strong writer, dedicated to writing, cares about it, but [is] also friendly,” said Welser. “‘Friendly’ was a really important piece here because if people are just going to come get ruthlessly criticized, that’s not the goal. You’re not going to want to come back. And so that was kind of the main criteria. So just friendly, helpful students I’ve taught previously.”

Welser urged students to visit the writing center, even if some resist using such resources. 

“I think one of the common misconceptions is people are like, ‘Oh, if I go to get help, that means I’m not a good writer or that I’m, like, bad in some way,” he said. “It’s not a deficit view. Everyone needs their writing looked at. Professional authors have editors for reasons. […] They’re the Writing Center, they’re there to help.”