"You Sit Down to Write" by Smurph

You sit down to write

And there is a sloth about your neck.

The words flow like marbles, dropping individually to the paper, dammed back

By the droop of your eyelids

And the tremors in your hands.

The face of the clock is blurring

But you know it isn’t late enough

So you push the heavy creature aside

And you keep writing.

You sit down to write

And there are moths fluttering in your chest

Making a home inside your ribs

Lifting, everything becoming that much lighter

And the words float out of you

Like each is a single gossamer insect

Seeking the light.

You sit down to write

And there’s a dragon clawing at your throat.

You can feel its breath sting your eyes

And the words roar out of your pen

Burning the page

Then extinguished by the tears that quickly follow.

It escapes from you in bursts of heat

And bloody anger

And it flies away

Leaving behind the taste of ash in your throat

And the promise of return.

You sit down to write

And there is something inside you

Deeper than the moths.

If you turn your head quickly enough

You can see feathers

And hear the beat of fragile wings.

This is the most valuable creature

And the only one

That will not fly away.

Treasure it.

“The Fight of the Ink” by El Manco

‘’It’s easy to know what you want to say, but not to say it”-Mario Vargas Llosa

In the everyday life I get involved in many different situations and with completely different people that without any expectation we have to face. When that’s happening people never get to really say what they were thinking but get a big frustration instead. It literally happens after every confrontation or fight that somebody had. Once I leave the “battlefield” is when a round of thought runs through my mind about what I could really have said while confronting the other person and but at that point all left there is to keep walking away.

That is the main reason why I started writing, because I never got to say what I truly felt or what I was actually thinking in the middle of a dispute or confrontation. I write when I think something is being unfair in my life. Any frustrations and desires I have I put them down in the simplicity but comfortableness of a paper.

I would classify myself as a very shy person. It costs me a lot to talk to people sometimes and I’d rather be on the side listening to conversations instead of being part of them, and when I write it is like having a full conversation with paper. It feels safe and I pour out all I have to say to the world on my piece of paper drawn with ink.

Mainly how I start my process of writing is really strange. Usually when it’s a free writing assignment I let my emotions talk for me. I get mad really easy for no reason. I’m upset almost all the time and literally my only medicine or what calms me down is writing in a piece of paper. I let the rage take possession of my hand and start drawing my thoughts in a really disorganized way. I first have to let everything out without holding back , it’s like a waterfall , when its descending is strong , really powerful but once it touches the lagoon it gets calm and starts going with the flow. And once I finish I throw everything I have into myself to the paper I start to give it shape and sense so the audience would understand what I am writing about.

One of my biggest struggles is when the prompt or the assignment that I have to write about does not get to me, like I do not feel like writing it because I just don’t feel identified with it .When I write, I do it because I like it and because I need to feel the necessity and passion to do it. Otherwise I would write some words that don’t make any sense. In this case I would mostly try to get myself involved in a situation where I could be able to understand the prompt and when I get to do it I would write about my own experience. As an example, if the prompt is “You realize you have inadvertently become a stalker.” And I don’t really know how being a stalker feels like nor what is even a stalker, I would look the definition up and then even if its sounds creepy I would stalk somebody randomly and once I get to the point where I got the idea of what the prompt is about I start writing about it.

I have my days where my mind becomes a piece of wood, no thoughts, no feeling, no consciousness and that’s one of my weakness as a writer because when I am in those days I find it strongly hard to go back in the game. In this situation I don’t really know what to do. I kind of wait until something happens to me that can fuel my desire to write anything, a tragedy or if I see a girl that I think is really beautiful ,those thoughts can become hopefully poetry or sonnets . I used to be an old school guy that frequently would write letters of love to every girl I found attractive and if I get to the point where I had to ask the girl out or if I have to confess my “love “for her I would write a lot of poems to try to explain myself, and how much it would mean to me if they could consent me the honor of being my date. But eventually times changed and girls wouldn’t find it romantic but cowardly instead which make me feel disappointment not towards myself, but to the destruction of such a beautiful art of cortege.

In conclusion, I write because is the only way of art that I’m aware of, the need of crying out what I really have to say to the world is fed continuously when I’m writing, and like many writers say, it is really hard to start writing but once you pass the wall everything becomes much easier, I like to drown in my writing until my desire is fulfilled. Until then I would keep taking my mind and putting it to my piece of paper. I write because I am not able to win a fist fight, but I might bring down countries with a single pen, one paper and feeling locked up on the deepest part of my conscience.

"The Music of Writing" by WhyCough

 Gustave Flaubert once said, “I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.” Frequently, this is how I approach my writing; I know what I feel and I can see the words painting pictures in my head, but they never seem to correctly decipher from internal thoughts to external pages. This has happened since the beginning of my relationship with writing.

In my early years, my mother was a librarian, so she spent much of her time planting me in gardens of books and watering me with words so I might grow to love ink and paper like she did. She succeeded. As a child, I was endlessly reading whenever I could find the time: during class, before sports practices, during dinner. Because of this premature passion for words, I became just that- “a violinist whose ear is true.” I was aware of all the ingredients that melded together to form a good story. To me, in writing, there was a canyon between right and wrong, light and dark, beauty and imitation, and I found it within myself to desperately try and recreate the allure I found reading my favorite texts.

As a result of this, when I started writing, I became my own biggest critic. It was a perpetual cycle: I would write a sentence, stare at it, dismiss it as trash, then delete it. The process I endured could be described flawlessly in one word: frustrating. My expectations for perfection stifled my ability to compose. The never ending battle between who I am and who I should be as a writer was suffocating. To this day, I still wrestle with these chains of excellence. As Voltaire said, “the best is the enemy of the good,” and I have learned that I need to be able to completely unleash my thoughts uncensored and unedited without worrying about their exact quality that I envisioned. Through this, I am able to actually produce work, instead of being smothered by mulling over insignificant details.

Sometimes, words lose their meaning once they begin the journey from the head to the pencil. Frequently, there is mistranslation. It worries me that, like the violinist struggling to reproduce their inner cacophony, I will be unable to fully duplicate my thoughts. In my opinion, there is always a sense of beauty that is lost when attempting to put phrases to a feeling. Writing is enchanting, but from time to time, pure wordlessness is the greatest magic of all, because it means that there is part of the human experience that can’t be computed, digitalized, or understood. Some things can’t be watered down to letters on a page.

Despite this, writers have the hardest job: trying to make the intangible something we can touch.

"The Power of Words in a Lonely Existence" by Jinxx Clark

A girl sits alone in the corner of an elementary school blacktop. Hair as dark as the night, short, and unruly. Looking down at a notebook that rested upon her criss-cross knees, hair fell into her face and casted shadows across her rounded cheeks. Even through those shadows her eyes still glowed as white-blue as the stars. Children danced around the blacktop and nearby playground, smiling, laughing, living. They danced around her, avoiding her except to stop and taunt or laugh in her face every once in awhile. She smiled at them sometimes, other times she was too far into her notebook to completely notice them. In her head, all the sounds of her surroundings were quieted, as if cotton had been stuck in her ears, and stories played out like a movie in front of her eyes. Each press of her pen to paper created a new tale, a new drawing, a new story.

Dragons, and fairies, knights, superheroes, leprechauns, and gremlins. Castles, oceans, lands, seas, mansions, and small villages. Magic, quests, missions, saving people, and battling for a new sense of freedom. All of it existed on the paper, and all of it existed in her head. It mattered not that she was sitting alone, because she wasn’t alone, not truly.

In a place where there are words, no one can be alone. In a place where you have the power to imagine, and create, and laugh in the face of danger, or smile at those that taunt you, you can never ever be alone.

A girl sits in a college lecture hall, listening with a smile as the professor reads out her newly published words. Her starry eyes gleam with joy as the people around her gasp and laugh along with the tale. Her hair falls into face as she attempt to hide her large smile and reddening cheeks. She can see it all in front of her, every single word making the tale come back to her mind as fresh as the day she first wrote it. She gets shoved back to reality as the people around her pat her on the back and the room explodes in claps. “You’re going to be the new Shakespeare or something!” someone calls out. She smiles at them.

The words had finally done their work, and it was with words that she would always feel at home. It was those words that had brought her to be somewhere where dreams could become realities.

"The Hallway" by Kelly Shepard

THE hallway. No, it’s not just like any other hallway because it’s THE hallway. Things happen in this hallway that don’t happen in any other hallway and probably shouldn’t happen at all. Doors shut on their own accord and stress is a physical being, a fog that spreads into every crevice of the corridor. The hallway has a soul of its own. Never able to be navigated because each day the doors shift, turns are added or removed. On top of that, the hallway is always either eerily quiet, or the sound of a storm and tress whipping against windows. No windows exist in this hallway though. Once inside, the feeling of being trapped fills your mind and your heart rate picks up. You feel as though your life will end here and no one will know. You wonder how many have passed away in that very spot.

You run around searching for a place to escape the creepy sounds and the nightmarish thoughts that invade your thoughts. Opening every door you see, trying to find that one room that will bring your heart rate back to normal and your thoughts back to the pleasant side. Every door you open shows a place worse than the nightmarish hallway. Within the doors are torture chambers and confines for your soul. Nothing feels right. You need to escape. You feel restricted to be the person that the hallway creates you to be. By the time you finally find a way out, you should be committed to a mental institution.

All hope is nearly lost when you open the last door in the winding maze of a hallway: The Writing Center. Within this room, it’s as if our mind is free to explore and is no longer in restraints. It’s as if a bright open field at midday has been placed within the room, creating an environment that is so peaceful and full of possibilities that you think a unicorn could appear and start frolicking with a leprechaun. No thoughts of the hallway outside could penetrate the bliss felt when you enter this room. You have escaped the horrible hallway and found peace.

Welcome to the Writing Center!!

"Justice" by July Third

Biographies don’t do a person justice.  Listing off things I have done while someone else takes their time to write it all down, twisting my words to make sense to them. 

Interviews don’t do a person justice. Millions could watch me from their televisions as I answer “deep” scripted questions, and then feel as if they knew me. Watching me to waste their time, barely paying attention. Five minutes afterwards I would be forgotten until the next time they heard my name. 

Grades don’t do a person justice. I can tell you I have spent too long studying for tests that I won’t ever be able to understand. I can tell you I never read that English book but somehow crafted the best essay you have ever read. Kids look around the classroom and “know” who is smart from judging off the number in the teachers book, but have any of them had a chance to ask who puts in the most effort? 

Public speaking doesn’t do a person justice. I could talk all day about nothing and entertain you more than I would if I was told to give a presentation. The list carries on but if I continue, the repetition is too much for someone as impatient as I to handle. 

Writing does a person justice. Writing is the time to let your thoughts flow and to convince someone your point without ever feeling rushed. You can hear my voice through writing and my personality flow through every word I chose. I have not said a single “fact” about myself but you can understand me better than you could through an interview or a conversation. 

You are hearing my thoughts when you read my writing. You are hearing them inside your own head and picturing me. Without knowing it you have created an idea of me. Just from my writing. I never said, I was born July 3^rd, 1999. I didn’t need to because those facts aren’t as important as my thoughts. You may not know that my favorite color is the heather grey that’s painted on my bedroom walls, but then again, you never ask such a trivial question, when there’s so much more to learn. Who wants to learn my favorite meal when I could share my thoughts on the world? I don’t want to repeat myself, you know how I dislike that- yet did it ever occur to you that you pictured me and my voice while you read this in your head and you now understand me without even knowing my name? 

Writing does a person justice.

"The Writing Center Family" by JK Rowling

After being accepted into Advanced Composition last year, I was excited to be a part of the Herndon Writing Center and to get more involved in my school. However, my excitement quickly changed into concern on the first day of class. It was sixth period and I started to become anxious walking down the English hallway.  My mind began to fill my head with nerve wracking thoughts. I started to think about how smart all the other tutors were going to be and how much they love writing. I didn’t want my writing to be compared to theirs and have it look like I didn’t belong there. It wasn’t long for these worries to float away. 

By the end of the class I was completely at ease and walking out the door with a smile on my face. I learned that the Writing Center was a safe place for me to share my writing and place I could go for encouragement. It was refreshing to be in a room with students that had the same interest as me. What I love most about the Herndon Writing Center is how welcoming the Writing Center family is, and I truly mean family. Just after my first class I felt a sense of belonging and like I was finally a part of something in my school; it was great to be a part of a team. Every tutor is happy to be tutoring (including me), creating a positive environment that I look forward to coming to everyday.

"A Reflection on NaNoWriMo" by Lindsey

10th Grade Tutor Lindsey took it upon herself to participate in the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. In addition to being a Varsity athlete and a stellar student, Lindsey wrote an entire novel in the month of November. Here are Lindsey's thoughts on her experience:

This past month, I participated in national novel writing month, or NaNoWriMo for short. The goal of this is to write 50,000 words in a month for a novel, or 1,667 words daily. Through the site, participants can have writing buddies and engage in conversations in forums about anything and not be limited to writing or novels. These features make it easier to focus and keep working if others are working right alongside of you, not to mention an enjoyable aspect.  Throughout the month, real, published authors give pep talks about their own experiences and tips for writing a novel. This year, Veronica Roth, author of Divergent, gave a pep talk. She was one of many, but she was the most recognizable, to me at least. I saw people participating in this last year through social media sites and always thought it was interesting. This year, I thought I would give in a try, so I created an account on a whim. I didn’t expect much, but I managed to complete my novel with two days to spare. In the end, I wrote 50,107 words taking up 82 pages, single spaced. Now that I am looking over my novel, I am noticing so many things wrong with it including plot holes and limited character development. I have a lot of editing to do before it is ready to read. I am excited to make this a completed piece and am extremely proud of myself to complete this daunting task. I was sure I would give up after a week, but 50,000 words later, here I am.

NaNoWriMo was such a great experience. I have developed as a writer and learned a lot about my writing style. I didn’t do that much planning, which was a mistake. I know for next year to plan carefully and stick to the plan. I drifted so much from my original plan that it the end didn’t make much sense. I knew this was a learning experience going into the month, so I was prepared to make many mistakes. I met so many great people through this program. I went to write-ins at my local library. Even though they were all adults and I was the only teen there, they welcomed me and I got some great writing done in that time. I also met a teen in Michigan with similar interests to me. We sent messages back and forth to encourage each other throughout the month.

Some things I learned:

• Writing in first person is difficult because it doesn’t give much freedom in perspectives. I always thought first person would be the easiest, but there were many times I wished I could write what was happening elsewhere.
• Planning is needed to know where the plot is going to go. I had a simple idea, but it ended up getting muddled with new ideas. The theme I was going for wasn’t clear.
• Think of the backgrounds of the characters and why they feel the way they do. It helps to have all their character traits written out to refer to when writing.
• It is difficult to advance the plot. Be careful on the action versus internal monologue. I found I would write an internal monologue rather than getting to the good, action parts.
• It really helps to have other writers surrounding you. If there are writing groups at school or in the community, join them.

I would highly recommend participating in NaNoWriMo. It was so creative and a unique opportunity. In school, there are little opportunities to write with no limitations. Even if you don’t consider yourself a writer, that could change when trying something new. To find out more, visit nanowrimo.org to sign up and get started.

Haikus and Cake: Part 1

On Thursday, 10/23, the HWC celebrated the National Day on Writing. This year, anyone who wrote an original haiku and brought it to the HWC got a piece of cake! We received 107 haikus and served an entire sheet cake in exactly 13 minutes. It was thrilling.

Thanks to tutor Jaiden C. for planning this day!

We'll be publishing the haikus we received over the next few weeks.

 Herndon Powderpuff

Class of 15 won both years

Hashtag legacy

-Mr.  Kim

Procrastination

I have better things to do

than to do this po.....

-Sahj S.

Striker straight ahead

goes for a shot, goal denied.

Great save, goalkeeper.

-Luis A

Said, « Let them eat cake ! »
No PRIDE card for empathy
Marie Antoinette
-Mme. Rosenthal

Turtles are so cute

I would want them as a pet

Now I want some cake

-Coraima

I love crunchy fries

It reminds me of candy

They both taste like life

-Natalie

The rain is falling

There is not anyone near

The silence is bliss

-Aaron

My bed is so warm

My clock is so very cold

I think I’ll sleep in

-Jessie

Cake is really good

I am writing this for cake

Cake is so yummy

-Ryan

There you are, with me

You are the reason I wake

Poptarts for breakfast!

-Milagros

We run everywhere

We brave all the elements

This is cross country

-Mariela

Is this a haiku?

I’m bad with syllables

and I give up

I will try again

This is not working at all

this haiku is dead

-Emily

"The Words are Brushstrokes" by Angsty Teen

Currently, writing impacts me daily even if it is typing out a text, sitting down to let my creativity run free or writing for a class. In my personal life I like to use writing as a creative outlet. I think of everything I write as a piece of art, but instead of brushstrokes I have words. It is amazing to feel the jumbled words coming from my scattered mind come together to form a brilliant chunk of artistry. A considerable amount of pride flows through my veins when the concluding sentence magically appears on my paper. These words that are transferred onto the paper come from a deep secluded area inside my soul. These words are not meant to be said aloud. The paper is justification enough.

           

It is very important to me to be able to come home and pour my feelings onto a piece of paper without being judged or criticized. Throughout the writing process I always seem to retreat to my “safe haven”, my bed. The conformity of my bed is consoling. When I write by hand it is more personal because I feel like the words are coming from me rather than flowing out of a keyboard onto a hollow computer screen. The hand cramps are an added bonus to the love of writing with pencil. The part of my brain that controls creativity is nonexistent, and creativity is not just handed to me. I have to search high and low for it, I never liked hide and seek so you can see why I have a dilemma. The chase for inspiration can be tedious, so I tend to start with taking a walk with Led Zeppelin or The Sex Pistols blaring in my ears, this usually works. Thank god for Robert Plant.  

Writing for academic purposes comes a lot easier, for the fact that everything is laid out in a format that the teacher wants their students to use. I can easily follow the guidelines of a rubric and make sure that I stay on task. After I write an essay for class I seem to understand the subject ten times better. When I write something it is important to actually understand what I am writing about I guess that is why teachers exercise the use of essays, so we can better understand what we are learning, or they just find it amusing to torture students with an extreme amount or writing. When I write as a student I tend to procrastinate. When it is the last minute I go to my safe haven. At two in the morning, adrenaline pumping, I feel like I am in a race with time and my stuffed animals are there to cheer me on.

There are an abundance of reasons why writing is important. It helps us communicate and learn new things. When I write I always learn new things, and I feel as though every time I write my mind grows more vast with the knowledge that writing, ever so kindly, gives to me. Writing opens the world up into something that everyone can understand and appreciate. Writing is art.

"Writing...Can You Feel It?" by Marsha Mellow

We write to inform ourselves about ourselves. Writing is a lot more than just pen to paper or words to page, writing is contributing ideas to society and feelings to posterity, writing is for the future and about the past, writing is everything it is  made while being everything it already is. And although the idea of writing is not always at the top of the priorities in our personal lives, it is a vital piece of the puzzle. Writing matters and will continue to do so through every era that passes by because it helps us learn as individuals and therefore teaches us about the nature of our population.  

I have found that there is always an undeniable edge in anxiety and a certain spike in uncertainty when writing is mentioned to most anyone. Understandably so, writing the thoughts that lie in the very deep and personal end of your heart is basically terrifying and can seem like the worst idea ever. Thing is, the moment there are no longer any young inexperienced writers, is the moment that the future old and experienced writers get cheated of their chance to grow. Writing is a craft that needs to be continued, not only to pass along scientific findings but also to convey the values and ideas that make up every era.  

The role of writing is very complex within society and within an individual’s life. For me, a life, a world, a universe without the written word is unimaginable. Life has a meaning, it’s meaning is to give it a meaning, to find something that speaks to you on a level that wouldn’t really be complete without writing down  a sentence or two about it, to write it down in hopes that it might touch someone else’s life and help them find their own meaning.

While writing is an important tool for immortalizing facts and has been a vital source of information regarding the ideas and philosophies of our ancestors, it has also allowed us to connect through this broader idea of writing down a story to convey something deeper than a series of events. Writing has taught us that pain and love and hardship have been constants throughout eras, that the fact that the author of your favorite book can touch your modern 20th century life with beautifully placed words crafted maybe before you were even a thought in the universe is important, its a point that only heightens the idea of writing being so vital in understanding the world and everything around us. And there's something spiritual about that, something that serves to connect generations with a string threaded by a sentence, made up of words that together mean so much more than a story. 

Therefore, writing is much more than a hobby or a job, writing is art. A hobby brings pleasure, a job creates wealth, but art makes you feel something. There's fear in writing a story, there's reluctance when writing that essay, there’s passion in writing that poem. That’s the point, that’s why writing matters, because there is something behind it, there's something that defines us as a population as much as it defines us as individuals. Theres somebody's life behind a book, someones dreams behind a poem, someones pain behind a short story, theres so much to convey, so much to learn, so much to accept about our nature. And the more that is written, the more that is read, the more ideas that are sparked, and the beautiful cycle continues.

I think people spend their lives reading, reading books, signs, letters, poems, stories, waiting for something to pull them into a state of realization, waiting for a couple of words to brighten their lives with understanding. People wait for a piece of writing that will change something about how they perceive, they wait for a person to write something groundbreaking that will change their life, never imagining along the way, that that person is them.

The HWC is on the Map!

The HWC was recently added to a map of Secondary Schools Writing Centers by the International Writing Center Association! You can view the map of all of the Secondary Schools Writing Centers here.

When looking at the map, you'll notice a dense cluster of Writing Centers in Northern Virginia. We're proud to be part of such a strong network of  High School Writing Centers!

We've Been Busy!

This month, the HWC has been busy working with Mr. Cupolo's and Mrs. Mentis' ESOL 4 students on their Integrity essays. The English 9HN students have also begun trickling in with their Ishmael essays. We've been delightfully busy!

National Day on Writing Submissions: "Person of the Year", "My Long-Time Imaginary Friend", and "When I was 11"

"Person of the Year" by Katherine K.

Every year, Time magazine names a person of the year. Finally it was my year! Why? Why of course I'm amazing and who wouldn't want me as person of the year? I save people everyday from villains and evil people. One day- February 17th, to be exact- I was walking down Main Street in Downtown Maui, known for their amazing volcanoes, bored out of my mind. Most people wonder how you can get bored in such an amazing place, but, yes, you can. It started to feel outrageously warm throughout the town. Yes, i know its Hawaii, but this was different. I looked up at Ambazingabaus, the biggest volcano on the island. On the top of the volcano there was a young child sitting on it. His name was Tyler and he lived on my street. I ran to the top of the volcano and saved him right before it exploded and ruined our whole town. Soon after, Time magazine approached me asking if I would like to be person of the year. Well of course, because I'm amazing!

________________________________________________________________________

"My Long-Time Imaginary Friend" by Rachel H.

When you think of an imaginary friend, what do you think of? Probably a person, right? Well...my imaginary friend is a little different. My imaginary friend is a cloud. She's pink and blue and kind of looks like cotton candy. I know it sounds weird, but she is literally my best friend. I tell her everything from boys to asking her opinions on what I should wear. I also talk to her when I walk down the street and people think I'm crazy. I'm not though. I promise.

__________________________________________________________________________
 "When I was 11" by Mrs. Carey Williams, Administrative Intern

When I was about 11 years old, my older brother was at practice and my dad needed help carrying something down to the basement from my Pap's truck, which he had borrowed. I said "Sure!" and went out into the driveway to see what it was. The item that needed to be move was a steel bender. It was at least ten feet long and had to weigh over 300 pounds. As soon as I realized how much it weighed, I couldn't believe that he asked me to lift something so heavy! I used every ounce of energy I had, and by the time we got into the basement, I was in tears. When my dad asked what was wrong, I tried to explain that I wasn't my older brother and I couldn't do everything that he could. The reason I would never erase this memory is because in that moment, I learned that if I never did "heavy lifting" in life, that I would forever limit my potential. On that day, my dad looked past all pre-conceived stereotypes and asked me to do something difficult because he didn't for a second think that I would fail. This one memory is a driving force in my personal and professional life today.

The HWC Celebrates the National Day on Writing!

On Monday, 10/21, and Tuesday, 10/22, the Herndon Writing Center celebrated the National Day on Writing. Over the course of two days, we hosted approximately 40 students and teachers in the writing center as they wrote on silly prompts, such as "Re-write a classic fairy tale as though it were set at HHS", or "You are a pirate. Describe the best day of your life." Additionally, Ms. Wright's English classes participated within their English classes. Because we have received so many submissions, we will publish four short pieces in one blog post each week.

Thanks for celebrating writing with us, Herndon!!!

The HWC Attends the Third Annual Secondary Schools Writing Center Conference at GMU!

On Friday, October 11^th, 13 of our 33 Herndon Writing Center tutors attended the Third Annual Secondary Schools Writing Center Conference at George Mason University. This year, the HWC is pleased to announce that eight of our tutors presented sessions on tutoring best practices to over 280 conference participants from 34 area high schools, middle schools, and colleges. Of the 34 schools attending, Herndon is one of five high schools whose tutors were selected to present.

Please congratulate the following students on their outstanding presentations:

Glowing, Growing, and Transforming through Tutoring:  Emily Weeks, Laura Bentley, Sam Chanesman, & Mariam Ansari

Transformations Through Word Choice: T.J. Yang

The Crossroads of Tutoring and Writing: Danny Vedova, Jean Jeon, & Lydia Coyner

The HWC thanks our Hornet family for their continued support. Be sure to stop by and visit us in room 203! Happy writing!