Writing for a Change—NWP in Nashville, 2006
by Karen Rahn, Rutland Public School
A desire for change is what brought me to the Dakota Writing Project in the summer of 2006. I wanted to change how I taught writing, not because I had complaints or because someone in an upper office mandated it, but because I personally felt that I needed a change: an energy boost. I got that boost from DWP, and like a Writing Project junkie, I went to the NWP convention in Nashville looking for more of the same.
Meeting up again with fellow Writing Project participants from the summer was a grand thing. There was a positive energy in the air as I went into the sessions for the day.
The first session that I attended was “Inquiring into Teacher Demonstrations,” which was presented by the Northern California and Hudson Valley Writing Projects. As a Writing Project newbie, I found this session to be interesting because it talked about how other summer sessions are handled. It was evident that the overall model of “teachers teaching teachers” was the cornerstone of all institutes, but the way that the demonstrations are handled vary from site to site. The NCWP group talked about the importance of the coaching, and looking at student work in a global way. They spend quite a bit of time coaching teachers to look at student writing through a framework of “features,” writing down what the student can do. Much like the work we did with protocols this summer, the shared perspective with another colleague offered rich insight into the lessons.
The HVWP group took this idea a bit further by applying it to the demonstrations themselves. They felt that the demonstrations had become a form of “show and tell” of best work and left little room for true growth for the instructor. They changed the name of the demonstrations to “Teacher Inquiry Workshops” and shifted the focus to what could be learned through inquiry about a lesson. This format placed a greater emphasis on the post coaching and reflections with the presenter from the whole group. All participants wrote personal letters to the presenter, evaluating the lesson. The next day, the presenter was given time to come back to the group and share concerns and ideas which were addressed in the letters. This moved the lesson toward more scaffolding and percolating of ideas. This step made the post reflection a bigger part of an inquiry process, and therefore gave the whole lesson more depth.
Both groups spoke of the importance of face-to-face coaching sessions both before and after the lesson. They felt the best coaching sessions would have two teachers and a site director involved and would last approximately an hour. In this coaching session, focus would be placed on reciprocal learning, authentic questions, and looking at student work as part of the inquiry process.
At the end of this three-hour session, I felt reassured, knowing that sites were working to constantly monitor their own effectiveness as writing project institutes. I also felt saturated and ready for a lunch break. It was great to meet with other DWP’ers and debrief over an elegant lunch buffet at the Marriott restaurant. Yum!
After lunch I went to the Willis Center to attend a session on “Using Youth Writing Programs as Professional Development,” which began with a glimmer of promise, but quickly fizzled for me. It was evident that this session was focusing on writing with ELL students, which is a hot topic in much of our country, but as yet does not directly affect me in my small, rural school. The best parts of this session were being introduced to “Wiki Sticks” which we used to make shape poems, and looking at examples of student work coming from youth writing projects.
Someday, I will probably look back at information from this session, stored away in my “I’ve-heard-about-this-somewhere-before” portion of my brain, and realize that The Marshall Plan is a grant that I need to look into as I am working to increase diversity in my classroom while accommodating ELL students. In this case, “Writing for a Change” is a path still waiting to be taken.
Friday morning began with an old-fashioned, revival-style meetin’ feeling as the general session of the NWP Convention convened. At first it felt like a juxtaposition, mixing great writing intellectuals with the Minnie Pearl holler of “Howwwdeee!” but after a bit, I realized that it was no different than the Writing Project’s ideal of teachers teaching teachers: a down -home approach to obtaining lofty goals. Using statistics to buoy up our purpose in the political arena is a necessary thing, and quite impressive on a fraternal level as well. The statistics also showed that “Writing for a Change” is a positive change in the overall education of our students. During this general meeting I felt that I got a good overall view of what the Writing Project is accomplishing nationally. It felt good to see how far-reaching the project is, and how carefully the Project monitors itself to stay on that path.
The Friday afternoon session on Successful Site Networking was one in which I felt like I was in over my head. This site was definitely aimed at those people that are heading programs and keeping the big picture on path. It was at this point that I definitely felt like the lone leaf in the forest. When they talked of lobbying our state legislature for sums of money upward of a million dollars for individual writing projects, I felt like I was in a science fiction movie. I was out of my league. I am not a businessperson; I couldn’t even sell Girl Scout Cookies, so I found myself tuning out. I hope that we have good people with business sense that can go to bat for our program and keep the project afloat, but I doubt it will be me.
Saturday was spent at the NCTE site and then sightseeing, followed by my trip home on Sunday. This, you would think, would be the end of the NWP experience, but no! I had the most enjoyable trip from Nashville to Chicago talking with Cathie English of the Nebraska Writing Project! She really got me thinking about how I teach my research writing and also reaffirmed my decision to change directions in my freshman composition class. It was an unexpected and rich ending to the convention. I would like the opportunity to go again next year!
