Mentoring in the Writing Cafe: Identity, belonging and ownership

The historical legacy of the coffeehouse, the predecessor to the café, is rooted in a culture of community, collaboration and social activity (Ellis, 2004). In January 2014, the Learning Development team at Plymouth University opened the Writing Café; a developmental, creative space that offers the potential to reframe their work outside of the traditional library walls and provides theopportunity to work in partnership with students. Alongside serving great coffee and locally sourced food, the Writing Café is a space for students and staff to meet and discuss writing practices and gain support from the Learning Development team and student Writing Mentors. This paper reports on a small-scale action research project undertaken to investigate to what extent the Writing Mentors benefitted from being partners in this project; as co-designers, advisors, writing mentors, peer supporters and more.