El Camino College Writing Center welcomes all students to review their grammar, essays, and general writing.
Christopher Glover was originally hired as an English professor full-time in 2016. He is now a Writing Center coordinator.
Glover, who has taught English and composition, worked in different learning centers and was an embedded tutor at educational institutions around Southern California.
Glover firmly believes in El Caminos Writing Center’s purpose.
El Caminos Writing Center is a safe space where students can talk about their writing with people who are going to listen and be helpful and give suggestions without judging them,” Glover said.
The Writing Center provides professional feedback to students who attend. The tutors have at minimum a bachelor’s degree in English or another field and are proficient in writing.
The tutors are poets, writers, and former graduate students from local universities. Additionally, some of the tutors are El Camino English department faculty members who volunteer to help at the center.
Glover believes every writer, no matter their perception of their writing abilities, can benefit from receiving feedback on their writing.
The Writing Center is open all disciplines and all levels of writing skills.
“You going to the Writing Center doesn’t mean youre a bad student or a bad writer. All of us as writers lose objectivity at some point, and we need a second pair of eyes to help us push through writers block or give us some perspective on what weve written,” Glover said.
Students often avoid resources like the Writing Center because of their vulnerability and weakness.
Students may see asking for help in a way that suggests they are incapable or intellectually weak. If this happens, they might refuse to seek out assistance, even if it is beneficial.
“Even if you sit with a tutor for 20-30 minutes, that little chunk of time can be a huge eye-opener, Glover said.
Jessie Bullard, a tutor, has just graduated from Long Beach State with a masters degree in Art and English. She had previously attended a community college.
Writing Centers and tutoring services are stigmatized. We feel that tutoring services and writing centers should be avoided if we aren’t learning the material or keeping up with class. I know Ive felt it,” Bullard said.
The Writing Center tutors have removed this stigma and are open to all students.
“Regardless of how you feel about your own skills and strengths with a project, its going to be beneficial no matter what to come to the Writing Center, because with writing, having a conversation is so important,” Bullard said. “Talking about our ideas and verbalizing them is an important part of the writing process.
All El Camino College departments highly endorse the writing centers assistance.
Writing is a lonely act. It happens in isolation. But the writing improves when its collaborative,” Allison Carr, an English professor since 2005, said. “You need those experienced, other set of eyes to look at your writing … I have seen firsthand how the Writing Center has really helped students.”
Cristy di-Gregorio is a human development professor at El Camino who has been teaching for over 20 years. She added that the Writing Center is an excellent tool for self-confidence.
The Writing Center changes our students self-concept because we are very self-conscious about what we perceive to be deficits in ourselves and we ruminate over those,” Di-Gregorio said.
Di-Gregorio said that this fixed mindset that “we will never get better” must be changed in order to keep improving.
“What happens at the Writing Center for my students is that they are able to embrace the growth mindset that Im not a good writer yet, but its just a matter of time,’” Di-Gregorio said. “Afterward, they feel very differently about themselves.
Di-Gregorio said enthusiastically that some of her students would even call the Writing Center “life-changing.
The Writing CenterIt is available in-person in Humanities Room 122, Monday through Thursday, and virtually via Zoom, Tuesday through Friday at varying times.
Yvette Gaxiola is a current El Camino student, a single mother of two, and recently used the Writing Center for her first time.
I feel like writing has always been my biggest insecurity, so now that Im working on it and I have that push of help at the writing center, it has definitely given me a boost to my self-confidence,” Gaxiola said. “I will definitely come back.”
