Hisar Writing Center is one of the few secondary schools to stand with universities and graduations schools across the region as a member of the European Writing Center Association (the EWCA) and the Middle Eastern/North African Writing Center Association (MENAWCA). We work together with these organizations to improve and develop our program. This year, Yasmin Erkohen, an eleventh grader and second year writing consultant for Hisar Writing Center has won the MENAWCA’s annual award for Outstanding Tutor.
In the words of the MENAWCA Writing Center Awards Committee, the Outstanding Tutor Award recognizes tutors in universities, graduate programs and middle schools who “provide exemplary service to students, writing centers, and institutional communities.” The award recognizes “innovative tutoring techniques, the quality of tutoring work, performance in online tutoring, application of writing center tutoring philosophy, and contributions to the writing center beyond tutoring.”
Yasmin was nominated for her tutor technique, her mastery of the writing center philosophy, her adaption of our philosophy to online work, her self-awareness, and finally her extra efforts as a staff member of the writing center. Yasmin made valuable contributions both this year and last to our marketing and advertising campaigns, and was always ready to lend an extra hand when we needed volunteers to help with unexpected jobs. We are proud of her commitment to the center’s principles of collaboration and positive reinforcement. She approaches each writer as a peer and works with the skills they already have to improve both their writing and their approach to work in general.
Yasmin’s winning application included a reflective essay about her philosophy as a tutor, the transition to an online platform during the pandemic, and how she transfers the principles of writing center work to life outside the center. She won on the strength of this essay and on the letters of recommendation from the center directors.
