News Feature • April Suwalsky
WriterCoach Connection (WCC) is an East Bay-based organization that trains and coordinates volunteers to work one-on-one with middle and high school students as “writing coaches” in their English classes. Coaches help students to hone their writing skills, as well as develop their own writing voices and ideas.
Following a very successful expansion to El Cerrito High School in 2010, WCC last year launched a program at Richmond High School, where coaches worked with roughly 150 students in five, English Language Development (ELD) Level 4 classes, helping them to prepare for the challenging—and often confusing—ELD placement exam.
With the current drive to implement new federal academic guidelines known as Common Core — which among other things emphasize critical thinking, writing, literacy and evaluation of evidence — writer coaches can also provide much-needed support to students while they build skills that will translate across disciplines.
Read more at Richmond Pulse
