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The Write Place

Our Mission

The Write Place is designed to assist Fenwick High School in fostering a culture of writing. We exist to assist the faculty, administration and students in actualizing one of the primary goals of a college preparatory school: to create better writers. Believing that writing is a process, we work with students at all stages in the writing process, including prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing.

Our Hours

7:30–8:50 a.m.
Lunch A, B, C
2:20–3:10 p.m.
or by appointment
Located next to the Student Cafeteria 
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Write Place moderator, Ms. Visteen

Evaluating Writing

Six-Plus-One Trait Scoring

One of our primary goals at the Write Place is to assist faculty and students in the evaluating writing. As in any field of expertise, evaluation requires a set of criteria for measurement. Given the many layers and nuances of a piece of writing, it is crucial to identify the criteria that must be met in a piece of writing so that we can then evaluate it with the goal of improving it. Since the nature of writing assignments can vary, the standards of measurement may vary as well. It is the role of the teacher to outline these standards for students, and it is the role of students to be aware of these standards and use these standards as a means of guiding the revision process. 
Below is the link to 6+1 Trait®, a project designed to give educators and students a common language for evaluating writing. The six traits identified and discussed are:

  • Ideas
  • Organization
  • Voice
  • Word Choice
  • Sentence Fluency
  • Conventions

Click here for more information on these traits and how they can be applied to rubrics and revision.

Click here for a sample Literary Analysis Research Paper Rubric that implements the language of 6+1 while adhering to the expectations of the specific paper and class.

Plagiarism Resources

Turn it in Resources on Plagiarism

Practices for Avoiding Plagiarism from OWL

Assessing Internet Resources

  • How do we interpret an Internet address?

    http vs. https = the ‘s’ indicates secure, so if you are posting or publishing any information (email, social networking, etc.), you want an https address.
    .edu = a site sponsored or hosted by an educational institution within the United States
    .org = organizations, no longer just non-profits
    .com= general corporations, miscellaneous
    .gov= belongs to a US government group
    .net= available to anybody, miscellaneous
    .uk/.fr/.ir= international websites; the equivalent of “.com”


  • What addresses are acceptable for academic research?

    Generally accepted are .gov and .edu, as they tend to be published by legitimate, recognized organizations. They often publish their own materials as well, so they can provide primary resources. Both of these domains still have to be assessed for authorship, as especially in .edu domains, students can publish personal material within an .edu site. Anybody can make a website ending in other domains, so you have to be extra diligent in assessing the website and any information on it.
    A good rule of thumb: if the website or article does not have a works cited or references section, do NOT use it.


  • How do you determine authorship?

    Look for the author’s credentials or the publishing organization’s credentials: degrees, other publications, if they are cited elsewhere as a known authority on the topic, etc.

  • Which URLs does the Fenwick English Department agree not to allow students to use as resources?

    User generated resources —, Facebook, Wikipedia, any Wiki site, responses- should not be used as a final resource. Such websites may be used as a springboard to find other documents (for example, the Works Cited/References section of a Wikipedia article may point you in the right direction).

  • What is the Fenwick English Department policy about incorporation URLs into our references?

    Check with your teacher. Some require you to use the URL of a website in your citations, though some do not. MLA no longer requires the use of URLs in MLA citations. Because Web addresses are not static (i.e., they change often) and because documents sometimes appear in multiple places on the Web (e.g., on multiple databases), MLA explains that most readers can find electronic sources via title or author searches in Internet Search Engines. For instructors or editors who still wish to require the use of URLs, MLA suggests that the URL appear in angle brackets after the date of access.

  • Where can I find information about MLA rules and style?