Writing Center Hosts February Academy Prep Tutoring

Love (of writing, that is) was in the air this February when Academy Prep students and Writing Center tutors alike flocked to the Jean Ann Cone library to work on a myriad of writing assignments ranging from Shakespearean sonnets to personal narratives. Tutoring events included sophomore Writing Center tutors working with fifth graders on free verse poems, junior Writing Center tutors working with sixth graders on limericks and haikus,  and senior Writing Center tutors advising Academy Prep seventh graders on the art of composing Shakespearean love sonnets. The students channeled their inner brooding poets and wrote profound odes to subjects ranging from the abstract concept of being the final living beings on the planet to the irresistible aroma of McDonald’s fries.

A tutor and an Academy Prep student relax before the tutorial.

However, February tutoring kicked off with a special session made possible through the collaboration of Berkeley alumnus Justin Honaman, a retail sales and marketing executive at the Coca-Cola Company, and the Writing Center. Honaman, in an altruistic move to give back to his community and alma mater, decided that the Writing Center’s dedicated partnership with the students of Academy Prep deemed it a worthy organization to work with. On the first day of February, Honaman and dozens of Coca-Cola representatives arrived at Berkeley to join forces with Writing Center interns and directors and Academy Prep tutees. The momentous nature of the essay prompt given to the Academy Prep eighth graders was indubitable; they were tasked with the assignment of describing one defining moment of their lives through a personal narrative.

Coca-Cola representatives join the tutoring sessions.

The day began with various icebreakers among the Academy Prep students, Coca-Cola representatives, and Writing Center tutors. Animated conversations about baseball teams, favorite foods, and the upcoming Grammys pervaded the library until Mrs. Marcantuono, a Writing Center faculty director, began the session with a few introductory remarks. Marcantuono welcomed the guests to Berkeley and challenged both writers and tutors to employ the cardinal rules they previously learned about quality writing, including “showing, not telling,” integrating rich sensory details into descriptions, and deploying effective dialogue. She also stated that at the end of the hour, groups were welcome to share either excerpts from their narratives or lessons they learned. A mere five minutes into the session, the library was a sea of red Coca-Cola shirts, white Academy Prep polo shirts, and multicolored Berkeley uniforms hunched over rough drafts and pencils.

An Academy Prep student expresses her ideas during a tutorial.

It was difficult to determine which was more impressive: the range and depth of the personal narratives’ subject matters or the literary skills the Academy Prep students already possessed. In my group, one student chose to write about being elected the king of his school’s winter dance and how that achievement provided him with newfound confidence. Another student chose to write about the day his grandmother was diagnosed with diabetes and how that event compelled him to reevaluate and improve his own eating and exercise habits. After brainstorming briefly with our tutee about how to structure and organize his narrative, the Coca-Cola reps at our table and I watched noiselessly, exchanging looks of astonishment and awe, as he put pencil to paper and began to compose an earnest, exquisitely-written introduction about the memory of his grandmother playing classical music at 3 p.m. and baking chocolate chip cookies on Sundays. His writing exuded a maturity and responsibility unusual for his thirteen years as he continued to detail the conversation he had with his grandmother about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and his subsequent urge to research the disease and its possible cures. When the buzz of conversation, interspersed with exclamations of praise and “Oh, I get it now,” ceased at the end of the hour, one truth was evident – despite the grammatical corrections and stylistic suggestions we made, for many tutors and representatives, the lesson was ours.

-          Yunhan