Writing Center Mission
We now have a new home: Arts & Sciences Building, Room 202
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Providing assistance to LCC students with writing projects in courses across the
curriculum.
A Pedagogy of Direct Intervention
Our mission in the Writing Center is most clearly articulated by Stephen
North in his 1984 landmark essay, "The Idea of a Writing Center." 
North
explains that writing centers are designed to help students become better
writers, not necessarily or immediately to produce better texts. To reflect
classroom practices in LCC's English Department, the Writing Center emphasizes
the entire process of writing rather than just the final end product. Our
practice of providing writing assistance in the Center is based on a model of
peer assistance and what North calls "a pedagogy of direct intervention," in
which we seek to interrupt and alter the writing process and, by so doing,
assist students in developing better writing strategies. This direct
intervention necessarily causes students to reflect on writing processes and
practices and, in so doing, to become better prepared to approach college
writing assignments.
"The Writing Center helped me to make good decisions
about how to structure my paper and how to develop my paragraphs."
- Alyssa Clouse, Sonography Major
The keys to direct intervention are timing and motivation. Our intention is that Writing Center services be required of no one. The Writing Center serves its mission best as a place where writers come when the timing is right and when they are motivated to receive feedback.
We assist students with content/ideas first, early-on in the writing process, and mechanics later in the process when drafts are being polished for immediate submission.
The Writing Center works to support classroom instruction, not to replace it. This is perhaps most true in the area of mechanics. Our work with mechanics does not involve editing or proofreading but instead what we call "instructional editing," in which we assist students in addressing their patterns of error. This assistance usually involves pointing the student to relevant sections in current writing course texts, or, when these texts do not provide adequate information, to offer other reference books housed in the Center.
Again, we passionately resist correcting students' errors for
them but instead assist
students
in finding the resources to address their own errors, and thus, to take
responsibility for their own writing projects. Students will, in all likelihood,
visit The Writing Center and return to class with mechanics errors in their
papers, as it takes developing writers time to learn how to use resources
efficiently in identifying their own errors. As the Writing Center is not
designed to provide instruction - but rather to support it - we advise that
students who need more direct instruction in writing seek their classroom
instructor's assistance during office hours - hours, which students often forget
are expressly set aside for this purpose.
"A good thing about the Writing Center is they make you
think about what you've written. Of course, you may not way to, but from my
experiences, I am learning it is necessary to do so. I know I would not have
matured as a writer, or even student, as much as I did if it wasn't for the
Writing Center."
Brandon Briegel, Engineering Major
We embrace a model of peer assistance in the Writing Center because it draws on natural social synergies and socially constructed/justified knowledge that exists between peers in a way that it does not exist between students and their instructors.
We are eager to assist you with your writing needs. Please feel free to contact us.
Arts and Sciences Division
Arts and Sciences Bldg, Room 255
Phone: (517) 483-1018
Additional contact information »
